So I decided to take on my next task of replacing those nearly invisible amber lid interior door handles with some white LEDs.

I decided to do the rear passenger door first. To remove the door panel just take out the two screws in the pictures, then carefully undo the tabs at the bottom and work your way up. You don't have to remove the panel completely to get to the LED, just lift away carefully at the bottom and you can see the LED near the top as shown in the next picture.


There is a little light grey tab that holds in the LED light, use a small flat head screw driver to push it in and pop out the LED light, then unplug the wires.


This is the LED light and housing, remove the cover with a very small flat head screw driver, I didn't care to much about damaging the plastic housing since its inside the door and no one can ever see it.


Here is the amber LED itself once the cover is removed.


The Bottom


Its probably best to unsolder the LED and re solder the new LED, but since I couldn't find my soldering equipment (and didn't want to look for it ) i just twisted the prongs together, make sure you have the right ones connected before you attach the LED by plugging in the wires and testing which way it goes, and seeing if it lights up.


Put it back together, and reconnect everything.


Here's the new LED connected back up, but not put back into place yet, to show you what it looks like.


And the Final result, you can't really see it in the picture but there is some difference. I thought it was going to be a lot brighter then it actually turned out, I think there is a frosted piece plastic in door itself, ill mess with it some more to see if it will come out to get some brightness out of the whole thing. Now to just do the same for the rest of the doors, I came across a link on step by step instruction on how to remove the driver door panel, basically the same way as this one, just one or two more steps

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&p...IxccM&hl=en_US

 

Wow great work. Gonna be even brighter in my car I think cause I am light grey.

 

Tip for testing led polarity. When u buy the new led, it should have slightly flat edge on one side. This is the negative side. Usually also has a shorter leg...

 

does every rx have that feature? i have a 2008 rx350

 

Yea, MY RX400h doesnt seem to have lights on door handle...cant see any glow at all....

 

My 2006 400h has them, but they are stupidly dim, so this is a good mod. I can't recall if they are on all the time, or only when the headlights are on.

 

take it back, finally saw them today, like you said really dim....well time for next mod...

 

where did you get the LED's?

 

You can buy them here, Ebay also has them, they are ordinary 3mm cool white LEDs, or you can go for the 5mm with a little modification to make them fit.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/c...ge,5mm,18,167:

 

thank you, I ordered the 5mm ones....a 100 for less than $5

 

This is a great mod, thanks for sharing. Is there a way to keep the LEDs on all the time?

 

Make sure you get some quality leds cos you don't want to ever go back and re-solder any led back again since this is not a quick plug and play mod.

 

Maybe a stupid question, but by going through those steps and removing the door panel do I gain access to the door speakers to replace them?

 

^ yes, once you remove the screws you're 90% of the way there [in any and all cars], then slowly pry from one corner to remove the clips from the panel itself.

Be carefult around the handle, they need to slide out, or remove the cable from it [behind the handle assy.] then pop it back in when replacing it.

 

yes our RX has them, the brightest we can see the lights is only at night when the car is thrown into Park... when going into Drive, the lights dim out which is gay cuz i like mood lighting haha!

question to you guys is the LED that goes under the steering wheel to light up the footwell. Anyone know how to get to that??