How to: 986 guide for enabling both rear fog light "hack"

[zeeflyboy]

Hi guys,

Well as requested here's a how-to of sorts for those of you that want both your rear fog lights to work (986 '00 Boxster S).... I'm sure there are other ways of doing it, this is just how I did it and I am by no means the first - just haven't seen a how to for it! There is a slightly easier option, but this way was the neatest I could figure out so I went with it.

Normal sort of disclaimers, I am not responsible if your car explodes yada yada yada...

Required:

- Small Length of electrical wire

- Electrical tape

- Sharp craft knife/wire stripper

- Solder and Soldering Iron

- Bulb if your car doesn't already have one (mine did already have it in place, so have a look)

First, open your rear boot... I don't think you really needed me to point that one out. Now, to do this the way I did you are going to have to remove the carpet. You could probably get away with just removing the forward most piece, but I just pulled it all out as I was chasing looms and wanted it all out the way. Up to you.

If you already know how to do this, you can skip on...

Start with the black boot lock cover, remove the two screws and then pull away the cover.

Next you need to pull out the black fir-tree clips holding in the carpet at the rear. There are four of these as shown... they can be a bit of a pain, but the best way to get them out is to work your hand behind the carpet and then with a finger each side of the pin just pull the carpet away from the chassis, the pin should pull out.

Next, look to your left and you will see two black plastic screw heads. These just need to be unscrewed half a turn or so and then should pull free - they will stay attached to the carpet though.

Now you have the fun of wrestling the boot carpet out. This may seem like a bit of a struggle but you'll cope. Mine was double taped down to the foam insulation panels on the boot floor, I found it much easier to remove once I had pried the tape apart and separated carpet from foam. The right hand corner is designed to fold a bit, so start by removing that corner then work the rest out as you go.

So, now just the last forward piece of carpet - three fir tree clips and don't forget to undo the light fitting and disconnect the plug. Take a bit of care when pulling it out around the coolant reservoir bottle.

right, nice empty boot. Now look in the far left corner and locate this bit of wiring loom... pull up the larger loom in front of it and move it out of the way to give you more room to work.

Now, the wire that connects to the foglight in the rear light cluster is the one illustrated below, light grey with a white stripe. This means we are looking for two of these wires in the loom, one going off towards the rear left light and one going off seemingly towards the coolant bottle (but then takes a turn and heads down to the rear right light of course).

Wires located, give them a bit of a gentle tug to try and get some slack and separate them from the main looms... you should end up with something like this:

Now, take your sharp craft knife (or proper wire strippers if you have some, posh git) and expose a short strip on each wire. Be careful not to cut through the wire as this will just be annoying.... My preferred method is to slice a length of insulation off, then work the blade around the back of wire at each end, thus creating a "jacket" you can pull off. Your mileage may vary - do it how you want.

Now take your small bit of electrical wire and expose both ends about 1-1.5cm. Securely wrap one end onto each exposed wire to create a bridge... now carefully add a bit of solder to make sure the connection is good and that it stays put!

Finally, wrap in electrical tape making sure it's all well insulated and then put the looms back to the way you found them.

Turn on your ignition, turn on the headlights and pull out the fogs switch both clicks to check all is working as it should and then re-install the carpets which is just the reverse of taking it all out.

Enjoy!

Nb, for those who don't want to take out the carpet, you could use a long piece of wire, and just cut into the illustrated grey/white wire by the plug... splice your long piece of wire onto the right one, then run the wire down the back of the carpet, past the boot lock mechanism, and then splice into the same wire on the left hand plug. This is effectively exactly the same but I prefer the neater method above which leaves less wire hanging around.

Thanks to you guys for your help!

[sniktaw]

Done! Much appreciated ;o)

[Croker]

Yep did the later method you mentioned. Great help.

[el 3.2S]

This was the first mod I did to my Boxster. I used the short bit of wire approach and it worked a treat. Important around these parts as if only one foglight is operative, it has to be on the correct side which mine wasn't. Having two working solves the problem and must have benefits in the fog or when you get full beam from behind.

Thanks for the how2.

[Mike G]

Good How To  !! you could just crimp a scothblock over the two wires if you don't have or are'nt soldering skilled I guess ??