Rear hatch interior trim removal

I think @jerrymildred has disassembled his Prime in this area.

 

Not yet. I let the Toyota body shop deal with it. I haven't mustered the courage yet.

I have tried and tried to find a video about it and all searches lead to everything EXCEPT what I put in the search bar.

 

See the Repair Manual (more info), under Vehicle Exterior: Back Door: Disassembly.

 

If I recall correctly, there are only three big pieces to remove. I'm pretty sure they are only held on with the plastic fasteners. So the trim removal tools are all you need.

The piece at the top of the hatch comes off away from the glass, not along the glass. Hope that makes sense. The attached picture might help. You can see the holes that the trim fasteners plug in to.

The other two pieces at the bottom of the hatch seemed stubborn, but came off fine.

From the pics, you can see that I ran the camera wire down the carbon fibre trim (it just tucks between the glass and the carbon trim or is easily pulled behind the trim -- no need to try and remove the carbon fibre trim) and coiled the excess wire with red zip ties. I used silver duct tape to hold the wire for it's run toward the camera position. In another picture, you can see the rear camera location on the lower glass. I'm also holding the trim piece in its orientation to snap into place (you can see the blue plastic clips pointing in the direction they have to snap in.

For the big trim piece, I remember the plastic handles being really annoying. I don't remember what I did about them.

I fed the rear dash cam wire through the flexible rubber accordian-like hose that is between the car body and the lift gate. This was the hardest and most time-consuming part of the whole process. I had to remove both ends of the hose from where it attaches to the car, feed the wire through (using a stiff wire as a pull and spraying with silicone lubricant helped), and then patiently stretching/pulling/pushing to reattach each end of the flexible hose to its anchor point on the car or gate.

While you've got all this apart, you could add more lighting to the back hatch. See the pics with before and after shots. Tap power off the existing trunk light. I installed two switches (one controls lights on either side of the back area; one controls the 4 lights on the back gate and the wire for power threads through that accordion hose).

Hope this helps. Ask me if things are unclear.

Rob

[editted to clarify a few comments about how to run wires]

 

Outstanding!!!

 

Rob, you passed your cable between the glass and the carbon fiber trim. I was hoping to pass my cable behind the carbon fiber trim because it didn’t look like I could make it stay put next to the glass. Yet when I tried to put a test wire behind the trim, I could not fish it all the way down to the grommet opening - some obstruction is stopping me. Is the carbon fiber trim easily removable?

Also was intrigued with the lights mounted in the trim. Do you happen to remember which lights these were and where you obtained them? Did you find an easy ground near the lights, or did you have to pass a ground wire through the grommet back to the switch’s ground?