Lex Talionis

no part numbers to give, they do not work that way. I gave photos, specifications, and exact product names above from the ebay dealer - not sure what more I could possibly add or do to make it any easier than I did. and as for the puddle lamps.. no, they are sealed units and cannot have their bulbs changed.... BUT I am about to blow your minds with what I DID do.... which I am willing to bet, for a fact, is a 1 of a kind mod never done on an Edge and I bet no one else has it and you will be the first to see it here

(add disclaimers, risks and caveats here about what damage you could do or warranties you could void by modifying your puddle lamps) What you are about to see, I am willing to bet has NEVER been done before on an Edge. Some of you may think it a total hack job, and well, it kind of is. But it works, is simple, and I did it all with household items I had in my garage (except for the LED bulbs of course) and it 100% worked and kicks ass. Yep, I made my very own, 100% from scratch, puddle lamps WITH LED bulbs. I made them on the fly - literally - as the ideas came to me on how to pull it off.. and this is what I ended up with. I did this because (1) I could not stand the fact every other bulb I did was a nice clean super white LED (see other LED thread), except for the dingy yellow puddle lamps and those could not have their bulbs changed as they are a sealed unit and (2) I was not willing to pay $50-60 for just 1 Ford sealed puddle lamp to try to rip it apart and test my theory and (3) I wanted to see if I could do it. So, I did it. The pictures tell the story.. The pseudo reflectors are pieces of clear heavy plastic cut from a clear 30 gallon storage bin (yep, right from Target). I then sanded it down so you could not see thru it anymore and not see into the bulb/mirror. You will see in the photos the cutting of the clear reflectors and then them sanded over and no longer see thru. The springs that hold the bulbs are from the quick release skewers off a bike wheel. Yep, PERFECT idea as they expand and contract and hold the bulb snug, can be easily opened and the bulb changed, and as critical as anything they conduct electricity. The male ends that plug into the existing electrical female plugs I had in my electrical kit from working on my other truck. I just modified them (cut and grind down) to fit the exact size on the female Ford harness plugs that hang free when the factory bulb is removed. I made sure to use red and blue so I could distinguish power and ground once I determined that from the Ford harness as LED bulbs have + and - poles and so that matters. I even marked the Ford harness - you will see a photo - with red shrink wrap to forever note the power wire of the 2 hanging harness wires. And, the little bracket/stand that attaches to the bulb to keep the bulb from moving around in the mirror and kept in 1 place is made of the same left over plastic as I made the reflectors from, then simply super glued to the home made reflector. Finally, it all simply press fits into place (as I left the reflectors a little to big) and is held by pressure BUT I ended up putting black RTV silicon seal all around the lip of the reflector to better hold them in for sure, it blends in with the black plastic, and keep the elements out - like water. Viola!!! enjoy!! they look so aweome with all the other complimentary internal LED lights, license plate LEDs and the HID lights I did. :hyper: creating the reflector reflector done quick mock-up of idea to hold the bulb and tie into the factory harness quick test fit of the mock-up to see if it would fit/work/establish which was power (red) and ground (blue) wires start of making the holding bracket to keep bulb placed correctly over reflector and in the mirror over view of all the pieces and the actual Ford closed unit the final installed working product - Proof of concept!

as for my post above #27, I followed through on that exact order and they turned out AWESOME I now have clean LED lights in all internal spots in my car: 2 front maps, 3 rear dome/map, 1 rear cargo.. when they light up at night it is killer looking. nice clean bright white bulbs make the car feel 100% different and so much more classy feeling. no joke. it is dramatic, to me, to go from dingy yellow to super bright white. wow... looks fantastic. and even looks cool from the outside as you walk up. here are some tips. As I said above, getting the exact correct bulbs was a no go, so it was a matter of measuring and getting closest you could. I had to do some minor tweaks and improvise here and there, but nothing major. In the end, I had all the bulbs in in about 15 minutes.. it is during install that I determined these tips. TIP 1: removing the front 2 map bulbs in a really. cant pry down the white plastic trim piece fare enough to comfortably get your fingers in there to even get a grab on those slippery bulbs. that took me the most time and in the end I used a pair of forceps to get up into there and grab those bulbs. the whole time there seems a risk to breaking that piece, but I got lucky. go slow. TIP 2: as I said above, LED bulbs seems to have a + and - pole, so if you put them in and they do not come on, turn them around. TIP 3: on the rear cargo bulb and map/dome...from the place I ordered all my bulbs, I had to pick and choose the correct length of bulb as seen above. 1 thing I failed to take into account is that the festoon bulbs they sell taper to a point on each end, versus our festoon bulbs that are flat on each end. so, when I measured, I measured correct and all is well, until I got the bulbs and realized that because of the taper, they do not totally 100% fit perfect because the surface area lost by the taper would actually touch and have more contact if they were not tapered ends. in the end, you just have to center them such that 1 side of the internal bulb clamp makes a solid grip on the bulb end while the other side will just barely come into contact with the clamp completing the circuit and viola.. point is, a 39mm would have fit better, but in super white 6-led they had no 39mm, just 36. TIP 4: on the rear cargo bulb and map/dome...you will need to use your fingers to squeeze the bulb holding clamps a bit tighter to hold firm. I believe stock are 11mm in diameter and what I got was 10mm, so just squeeze the clamps to hold them firm.

there are a couple of guys here with companies selling awesome digital HID kits that are 100% DIY. real easy to install, and very affordable. search the forums, you will see a LOT of chatter about who, what, where, how much, how to, photos, etc.

5000 or 6000k - either way, as both are good choices - I did 5000k personally, HIDs rock!

replacing the rear bumper and sensors is the easy part - plug and ply - painting it to match... THAT is the tough part. (don't ask me how I know )

well... if your serious.. sure, you 'could' have theme bead/sand/or media blasted and then brought to a high polish. no reason why not. might be costly and time consuming, but very doable. and yeah, aluminums rock over the chrome clads

then simply do this - all the difference in the world, and a heck of a lot cheaper and less hassel

I thought the exact same thing. It 'looks' like there are little festoon bulbs sealed into that unit. all you would have to do is use like a dremmel tool and cut all the way around the unit down near the refractor away from bulb, peel open, replace the bulb (whatever it is), and then reseal with a glue, epoxy or just simple electric tape incase future replacements are desired. The unit sits up in the mirror pretty safe and secure. I believe this is 100% doable, no doubt. the real possible issue is what kind/size bulb is in that sealed unit and finding it? It is irritating to have all of these nice super white LED bulbs and the dingy yellow on the puddles. UPDATE: dealer says retail on just 1 of the puddle lamp units is $63.00.. d-ohhhh

It is on the list at Syncmyride.com as compatible... so that is good. no, this should not happen. you can always contact tech support through that website. they are good about follow-up and are better at diagnosis and phone pairing.

Okay.. after much research and what not, here is my plan of action to do ALL the bulbs inside the car having already done the license plate bulbs. I believe I have measured this all out correct and have the items sourced all from 1 place. he is getting back to me, but here is the goal. In measuring, I see that in the case of the festoon bulbs, the lengths do not need to be right on exact... for example, in a 38mm, a 36mm or 39mm should be just fine. they are on order and I will report back. 1 rear trunk cargo area: Super white 9-LED 39mm festoon bulb 2 front map lights: Super White T10 6-Led 194-168 wedge bulbs (exact ones I did for license plate) 3 rear dome/map lights: Super White 6-LED 36mm festoon bulb

on page 136 of my manual/owners guide are pretty much these exact directions - so mine seem to be correct

it you are talking about the front drivers/passengers map light when you say "Windshield Dome" - well, on my 2008 those are NOT festoon bulbs. they are wedge bulbs like the lecense plate bulbs. so, not sure what you plan to put 42x11mm festoons into? as for opening that front drivers/passengers map lights.. I am curious about opening that as well. you can easily pry down the white trim around the 2 bulbs clear pressable covers, but to get actual full finger access you need to pull down the whole trim piece and as much as I have tried, it seems it will break.

that is pretty interesting idea actually. not sure how they would fit though. Would have to do the flexible one, but even then, just not sure if enough room in the rear dome/map. I think it might work in the rear cargo area light. but, one guy reviewed and was concerned by the heat generation. since you would put in the festoon, then push up the wires and try to fit this +- 4/5cmx.29" thick square full of lights into the available opening.. just not sure how feasible it is without those LEDs making contact with the surface they push against. I would rather stick with a cleaner straight festoon. since a lot of my research is pointing to the fact that there are not exact festoon LED bulbs that match length of ours (as I see the same LED sizs listed over and over and over and ours is not among them) another idea was to try to use all of the same size festoon for both the map/dome and rear cargo despite them being 2 sizes. you see, since you need 3 smaller for the map/dome and 1 bigger for the cargo (as my diagram shows) - maybe get 4 of the smallest size that fits the dome/map perfect and then use one of those in the cargo area as well. it should/might just fit and span the clamp gap it needs to, and if so, 1 size bulb would fit. some of those larger 38,39,40 festoon bulbs are not cheap and are often sold in pairs. and, since either way we would be getting more and better light, even if you took a smaller map/dome bulb and put it into the rear cargo that should have a larger festoon, it should still mean more light and you could buy 2 sets of 2 pieces rather than trying to buy 3 and 1. make sense? my goal is to do the cargo area first as I think that has the most immediate utility to me to have brighter, cleaner white light back there to fill the all black cargo area at night. then, move onto the front map lights and rear map/dome lights. I admit I am a little bit apprehensive about the front map and rear dome/map as I do not want like POW hella bright light when I open the door or need the map light or the passenger flips on the dome light... so still need to consider maybe a lower number LED for those than 6. like a 2 or 4 as either way it would be clean white and still brighter but not like a death ray from the sky - like in the movie Fire In The Sky

Sorry.. but I am going to hold onto it.. BTW, the same company I got my stubby antenna from also has regular full size ones as I am sure the dealer charges and arm and a leg, but I would hold the dealer to giving me an antenna for Gods sake, I mean come on.. no antenna no radio.

It was cheap.. about $14 shipped or so... something like that. there is a link in my post that will take you right to their site. many to select from, but we now know that model I listed in quotes works great. (and looks great). as Creamy said.. I would NOT cut an antenna down. no way. for that cheap of price, just buy it and try it. you'll like it and creamy.. I like the shark fins also, but I have seen no mention of one that will fit/retro, plus you would have to remove that blocky antenna base some way and who knows what that entails.

(add disclaimers, risks and caveats here about what damage you could do or warranties you could void by changing your antenna) I have not seen this done on any Edge yet, but another thread got me thinking about something I had subconsciously never really liked about my Edge.. the antenna. I love the placement of the antenna, but NOT the look of it nor the fact it was 11.5". Just seemed out of place. PLUS, I never listen to AM/FM (I have Satellite and an iPod so no need), so was cool with bobbing it even if it lost some signal strength as what did I care. It was a huge focal point for something I do not really need, but need to have something there. I was going for look more than performance. So, after surfing the internets, I came across a nice aluminum, stubby, all black antenna I wanted to try. I wanted to go about as short as possible, and I found the shortest I saw was about 2", and ended up going 2.5". I saw many styles, colors and sizes on many sites, but opted for the "Mangowalk 2.4" Black Short & Stubby Antenna Mast in black aluminum". They were super cool with answering emails and fit questions, and the price was very good. It comes with 4 different sized threaded mounting studs to mount to any real possible size antenna base, and so I was covered. Install was cake.. hand turn out old, put in the right size threaded stud into the new antenna mast, hand tighten down new antenna. Cake. Now, of course I wanted to see just how/if it did affect signal strength so before I did this I scanned and programmed all AM/FM1/FM1 presets while in my driveway. Filled all the channels. After the install, I quickly went back through each and every preset and I could not tell a bit of difference. Of course, not moving car, in an area that seems to get good reception, and blah blah blah, but I expected something to change. Nothing. Now, of course your mileage may vary, duh. But for me, I was pretty impressed. Don't plan to listen to terrestrial radio.. but it seems I still can. More importantly, I achieved my goal as I think it looks 100 times better, a bit more stealth and modern, a bit cleaner look.

Just ordered some "super bright white" 6-LED bulbs for the license plate (194/168 T10 size). Should give that nice bright clean white with a slight tint of blue over the plate versus that dingy yellow - will kind of match the nice HID kit up front. I opted to get mine off of eBay for 9$ delivered for a pair (2) of bulbs. Same specs as the others, but a bit mo cheaper as they do huge volume. I tried to find the right "festoon" bulbs from them as per post #20 - but no dice in those sizes. many are very close, but not exact. UPDATE: they look awesome. worth while 9$ upgrade. and a little tip, it matters how they go into the socket. if you put them in and they do not turn on, pull it and turn around and reinsert. it seems the LED adhere to a +/- post

I need to add, contrary to what I said above about the Sirius and XM channels combining.. I was partially correct, but over simplified it. As the details about what will happen with the merger come out more and more daily, it seems that to get both combined channels, one will need a newer - as yet to be even built and released - receiver to get both satellite feeds as they appear to be 'interoperable' signals/radios so cannot pick each others up and will not be made to do so as they will not change the signal type, just update the receivers (car, home, portables, etc) to receive both signals in one unit. That being said, they may combine them in that they might add 'select' channels from one to the other and send it in that signal type. So, they will combine programming it seems, but to get the full XM and full Sirius programming you would need a new receiver to get said full combined programming, except for those 'select' channels they make cross over channels and stream in both formats. Make sense? Now, for me, that is not so bad as by all accounts, there is nothing on XM I seek or care to listen to. but, nevertheless it seems those that wish to get both signals will need to buy new units. And, as the reports are speculating and saying, this could be 2-3 years down the road from when the merger is even FCC finalized for them to be seen in actual cars as lead times for car makers to spec them and fit them into cars/dashes is a lot longer than the portable or home kind they can crank out and you can just plug and play and buy from Radio Shack or the internets. Then, on top of all of this, there is a push for 'a la carte' programming. Paying a base fee for services with select channels... then 25 cents up to a few dollars per channel for other channels - as of yet unknown what the division will be. So, it is about to get a whole lot more interesting as this develops and unfolds as a lot of pundit speculation abounds, but neither company is commenting much. But, in the meantime, for those of us that use Sirius, have it in the car, like it, we have nothing to worry about as "both companies said 'no existing radio will be made obsolete by the merger.'"

as it seems festoon bulbs are based on actual size, rather than cross reference of of numbers (i.e., Ford versus Sylvania versus what is stamped on them) here is a diagram I made in an effort for me/us track down the exact correct size LED bulb for the 3 rear dome/map ceiling light and the 1 rear cargo area. These are based on exactly what is in my 2008, measured with calipers. (it seems the front map lights and license plates are easier to find and are not festoon anyway). I see some measurements on the superbrightleds.com website, but not exact matches to these sizes. and a call to them was a bit fruitless. maybe these are just oddball sizes and hard to find...

sure enough.. I find some discrepancies here also with the Ford manual/Sylvania site versus going and looking for myself: It claims the License plate is 6418.. which is a festoon style bulb (100% round and long ovalized) which is NOT what is back there. what IS back there is more similar to a 168/194 bulb style (round front bulb end with flat tail) it claims that the Rear Courtesy Lamp in the cargo area is a 2825 bulb (round front bulb end with flat tail) which is NOT what is back there. what IS back there is a festoon style bulb (100% round and long ovalized) that being said... 578 for 3 rear dome lamp seems correct as it is a festoon style bulb (100% round and long ovalized), but shorter than the Rear Courtesy Lamp in cargo so not technically the same bulb model. 2825 front map lamps seem to be correct also as that is a round front bulb end with flat tail style, which is what is there, but not same dimensions as license plate style technically though it seems. BTW - how the hell did you get to the 2 front map lights? when trying to pry down the clear plastic trim around that section you can get it 80% reveled to see the bulb, but the section facing the windshield is tough and I am afraid to man handle it in fear of breaking it to actually get access enough for my fingers. Something else to consider here on the LED 'festoon' bulb placements - those on the ceiling rear dome lamp and the rear Courtesy cargo bulb - is the angle they disperse light. For example, a regular bulb emits light 360 degrees and light shining back reflects off the reflector to bounce forward and fill an area with more light. Well, the festoon style LED bulbs have bulbs mounted on 1 side and are placed facing out. so, there is no light facing back (or up or down) to bounce off a reflector and fill the space. Now.. why this might matter is that if you put these above you... will they shine straight down in a beam like a flashlight rather than fill the general area? and in the cargo area, will they send a beam across to the other side of the trunk rather than generally fill the cargo area?

so what all did you replace? where did you get? to confirm, did you use size 194/168 bulb for the license plate light as others mention, or an actual 6418 led bulb? to confirm, what size did you use for the front dome/map lights - 2825? actually, Ford lists the rear second row dome as 578 - which is also on the Sylvania a website. And the rear courtesy lamp in the back is listed by Ford as W5W, the same as the Map light which we know Sylvania claims said front 'Map Light" is a 2825, this should mean the rear courtesy lamp would then also be 2825 as they share W5W as their Ford part which Sylvania translates to 2825. point is, it looks like both these are in fact listed. So.. as kind of a brake down of some of the key bulbs one might change for LED, I see it as: License Plate: 6418 (C5W ford) [maybe 194/168 according to some] x2 Front Map Lamps: 2825 (W5W ford) x2 Second Row Map/Dome Lamp: 578 (578 ford) x3 Rear Courtesy Lamp Cargo Area: 2825 (W5W ford) x1