As we all know, there is a definite lack of lighting on the H3's. I recently added some under hood lights, forward dome/map light, console storage light, and glove box light. The Hummer engineers must think we're nocturnal!

 

Rest of the pic's.

 

That is sick! Really good job, thats the one thing I hate about the H3, not much interior lighting at all. Must have taken you a while to do that.

 

Awesome job man! I'm gonna look into this! Any difficulties or advice you want to share?

 

Under hood lights:
I had a couple of the old 'bio hazard' type mercury tilt switch lights from years ago that were used in vehicle trunks and under hood. No holes were drilled. I used 2 small existing holes and installed rivet nuts (these were for the mounting screws, which also acted as a ground for the lights). The 2 larger holes right behind them, is where I ran the wires through some rubber grommet I got at Lowes. I used weed wacker line to fish the wires through the hood inner panel, down to the hood hinge, then ran the wire to a fuse connected directly to the positive battery post. The under hood photo I took, is in a totally dark garage. The light for the picture came completely from the under hood lights....no flash. This is what you'll see on a dark night when you pop the hood.

Dome/Map light:
This is a Hummer dome light available at the dealer. It only cost $28, but make sure you order with the correct interior color. They started putting a light in this location in '09 or '10. My '08 didn't have one, but since the headliner is the same, there's plenty of clearance for it. I removed the existing light behind the sunroof, slid a piece of cardboard under the headliner, and traced the hole to make a template. I then cutout the template, used pushpins to hold it in the right position, and traced around it with a marker. I then used an x-acto, and cut through the headliner . Be careful, as there are other wires up there. I tapped a 3 conductor wire into the original dome light harness, and ran them under the headliner, around the sunroof, to the new light position. Unfortunately the new dome light doesn't come with a harness plug to feed the juice. The dealer said you had to buy an entire headliner just to get this plug. I had some Molex connectors that I was able to crimp onto the wires to make it work, but with a solder iron, you can connect some jumper wires to the terminals.

Glove box light:
I picked up a 10" LED light bar from Advance Auto Parts for $14. It mounted with double back adhesive tape inside, top of glove box. I then used an alarm system type pin switch, drilled a hole through the plastic trim and into a metal support bracket, which provided the ground for the pin switch which fed the LED light when the door is opened (see previous pic). Then ran the light positive wire to any under dash wire that's always hot.

Center console light:
Mounted a small 12v light on the front of the storage area (the one underneath the removable storage tray), and ran the negative wire to a momentary switch from Radio Shack, which I mounted on the top surface where the arm rest door closes (see attached pic). The positive wire through the center console, and tapped into the same connection as glove box wire.

 

Great job, this will be helpful!

 

Great write up

 

Wow, that turned out awesome! Great job on the lighting!

 

Very nice!

Looks like I have a weekend project coming up. (although my '09 has the dual dome lights so I can skip the toughest part of this)

 

Awesome, thanks for sharing. I've wanted to do this for some time now but haven't got around to it. Your post is inspiring and helpful. Now I'm thinking about upgrading the domes with some high quality LEDs while I'm at it.