Headliner removal / 3rd brake light replacement

Greetings all. I know that there have been some previous posts which touch on this topic, but I can’t quite find any that address my specific goals here.

My 2010 DC has developed a leak around the 3rd brake light, which I know is not uncommon. Based on my personal credo of “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing,” I ordered the Evil Manufacturing 3rd brake light with Baja Designs S2s as a replacement. It finally arrived, and I’m trying to get everything in a row to do the install. I know that the headliner blocks access to the nuts holding the OEM brake light assembly in place, and have some questions for anyone who’s done this project before.

First off, most posts I can find dealing with this are based off of models with the roll-down rear window. Mine has the fixed rear window with center slider, which I know will make things more difficult. Anyone know my chances of being successful with just dropping the rear of the headliner to gain limited Barbie-hand access to the rear of the OEM assembly?

Second, if I do, in fact, need to remove the whole thing, any tips on getting it out of the passenger compartment intact and undamaged? I feel like I’ll have to remove just about everything, seats included, since I can’t pull it out the rear window, but I would love to be wrong about this.

Lastly, anyone have any direct experience with installing the Evil Manufacturing assembly? Due to the added S2 lights, it has a relay harness with a LOT of heavy-gauge wiring. I’m comfortable with the actual wiring hookup, but it seems like a lot of cable to have to route above the headliner and behind pillar trim, especially in light of the side airbags. Any and all advice is welcome and appreciated.

I just have to find a day off without rain, and I’m sure I’ll figure it out one way or another. I’d just rather learn from the collective wisdom here ahead of time, rather than the hard way when I break stuff out of ignorance. I promise to post pics, even if they are of me committing vehicle arson in my driveway as the last act of a desperate man…

 

I pulled my 3rd to replace my Sirius antenna last weekend. Unbolt one side of the c-pillar trim and just pop the headliner down enough to get your hand in there. I've got big hands and it's tight, but totally doable.

 

Thanks- just what I’m looking for. Did you have to remove the rear seat(s) to access the C pillar bolts?

 

Always wondered how one would remove the headliner in a DC. More and more, I'm seeing windshield removal as the option.

Be sure to post up some pics for us, and best of luck on the reseal/upgrade!

 

Nope, there is one bolt by the seatbelt and the rest are push lock pins. Pull the bolt and pull the trim back enough to pop loose and leave it there.


Also, if fully removing the headliner, you just have to remove all the trim pieces and start working around, no need to pull the windshield. I removed mine in like 2010 to sound deaden the roof panels.

 

Alright... which door does the headliner fit out of?

 

Well, I got after it today. It was a lot of work, but in general I was successful. Got the new light installed and everything buttoned back up. Only thing left to do is run the switch wiring for the S2s, but that’s pretty straightforward and I was just too worn out to mess with it.

Consider the following the Omnibus Third Brake write-up. I’m doing this from my phone and I’m not sure how many pictures I can add to a post, so this will be broken up into a few parts.

So, bottom line up front- this is a TON of work. A couple things would have gone more smoothly if I’d done a little more research ahead of time and read the instructions fully (more on that later) but no matter what it’s a lot of tedious work. Parts trips included, this took me every bit of a 9-5 day. Plan accordingly.

Things you’ll need/want to drop the headliner and do any type of brake light swap:

Magnetic deep well 10mm socket (trust me)

Some type of ratchet U-joint or other flexible extension

Plastic trim tools

Extended grabber gizmo (you will drop things into pits of despair)

Specific to the Evil Mfg. setup, you’ll need a nutsert/rivnut tool. (This is buried deep in their instructions, and not on their required tool list atop the page. My fault for not reading fully, but hopefully the reminder will save someone else some frustration.)

Here’s what I started with: Evil Mfg. brake light assembly, some switches (which I didn’t get around to) and a whole lotta wire I need to hide somewhere. Let the violence begin!



As others have said, first you’ll want to pull the C-pillar trim to free up the headliner corner. I ended up dropping both driver and passenger sides to gain the most amount of work room possible. (I had previously done the seat back mod, so I was able to fold the seat backs down while working on this.)

Top bolt is hidden behind the airbag emblem:


Pops right out with the trim tool:





The bolt comes out easy enough, but you’re gonna want a magnetic socket for sure:



You’re then gonna want to gently pry on the lower trim piece. There are several trim clips as well as some integrated parts that hold the lower piece in place. You’ll need to free these up in order to get the upper piece out:





You don’t have to fully remove the bottom piece, just free it up enough that you can access the remaining 10mm bolt holding in the upper trim piece:





Once that’s out, you can left the upper trim piece fall free (it will still be threaded onto the seat belt) and you’ve now got free access to the headliner corners and C-pillar space:




MORE TO FOLLOW

 

Now that you’ve got the corners free, you only have four clips to contend with. These are really more like push retainers than clips; you’ll be freeing them up by pulling straight down. You will not be able (at least I wasn’t) to lever them free by pulling on the rear edge of the headliner as they’re placed too far forward. You’re gonna have to squeeze your hand and arm up in there like you’re noodling for a big ol’ catfish.

Yeah, that’s my arm going fishin’:



First retainer is located roughly here:



Keep reaching:



Second retainer is about here:



Third one’s not much further:



By this point, you should easily be able to find the last one, directly in line with the others. The view you’ll get once things are free:





MORE TO FOLLOW. YOU ARE GETTING CLOSE TO THE FUN PART.

 

Probably unnecessary, but I wanted to have as much working room as possible, so I went ahead and removed the coat hanger clips. Easiest part of the day. Just use a trim tool to pop off the cap:



And squeeze the spring clip to free the base:



Easy money:



The headliner is now disconnected from the rear window up to the dome lights. As far as I can see, this is the max amount of separation you can get without getting deep into the headliner removal. You’ve got a good bit of flexibility. If you pull down hard, the headliner will want to crease, but it’ll smooth itself back out as long as you’re careful.

MORE TO FOLLOW. YOU ARE NOW ABOUT TO ENTER A WORLD OF PAIN.

 

Everything thus far has been leading up to this part. The factory third brake assembly is held in place by two 10mm nuts set on partially threaded spindles. A post-removal photo for illustration:



This setup is why you need the magnetic deep well socket. These spindles are located in the sheet metal hollow at the roof line. Even with all the freeing of the headliner, you’re going to have virtually no visibility while you’re working, and if you drop one of those nuts, prepare yourself to listen to it rattle around for eternity.

There’s not a lot of room, which is where the U-joint attachment comes in handy:



I ended up laying on my back across the down-folded seat backs while using my leg to hold the headliner out of the way. This is even less comfortable than it sounds:




So remember that magnetic deep well you’re gonna want? Well surprise, the one I ordered didn’t show up. Fun times. So I used a pain-in-the-butt workaround. Once I got the nut loosened with the socket, (doesn’t take much torque) I placed a stick magnet against the end of the spindle while gently unthreading the nut with my fingers. As long as I kept the magnet pressed against the end of the spindle, there was no way the nut could fall free - it was just a matter of easing the nut into contact with the magnet face.

Post-removal photo of the general idea:



You’re probably thinking that it sounds nigh impossible to get your hands positioned for that, and you’d be right. But when you don’t have the right tools, you pay the price.

How I had to hold the magnet:



Success!



Do the same with the second one, and you’re ready to move outside.

MORE TO FOLLOW

 

Let’s take a look at what led us to this point in the first place:




You can see that I’m missing the two outermost screws. That’s because the plastic bosses they thread into disintegrated long ago:





Now that you’ve removed the nuts on the inside, the only thing holding the factory assembly in is a small clip at the bottom of the reflector:



Pry that up:



A little pressure behind the assembly:



And BAM! Freedom!



Release the wiring disconnect, and the removal process is complete:




YOU ARE PROBABLY READY TO START DRINKING HEAVILY AT THIS POINT, BUT THERE’S MORE TO FOLLOW

 

This next section is specific to the installation of the Evil Mfg. assembly. If you’re using something different, do your thing and then just move on to putting all the trim back together. If you’re interested in the specifics of the Evil Mfg. install, read on.

You’ll need to mock up the assembly and mark the holes where the four nutserts will go. Then grab a 19/64 drill bit (don’t ask me to convert that fraction) and fly past the point of no return:



Boogered this one up a little. In the end, it didn’t matter.



This is where things went a little off the rails for me and I lost some time. Next step is to set the nutserts in place, and I realized I didn’t have a nutsert tool. Spent a lot of time trying to cobble together a fix which ultimately didn’t work before breaking down and heading out to get the tool I should have had in the first place. Finally got the nutserts set in place and well-sealed with silicon to avoid any further issues. Subtract at least an hour and a half of my day for that detour. Was so aggravated that I forgot to take pictures of this step.

Once that was done, the rest was smooth sailing. I scavenged the wiring disconnect from the OEM assembly, which made it easy to identify the individual ground, brake light, and cargo light wires:





A few crimps later, ready for install:



BEHOLD:








MORE TO FOLLOW

 

As satisfying as it was to see the assembly installed, I still had all this to deal with before I could button things back up:



During the reinstall, I had threaded the deutch connectors for the S2s into the cab. Now I just needed to plug in the wiring and get it situated under the headliner.

Connected wires:





I didn’t photograph this last part as much as I would have liked. I still had a mess going on:



…but in general it was simply a matter of routing the wires through the small cavity between the roof and headliner, and down behind the C-pillar trim. Once in place, I just buttoned everything back up. (I will admit, this was tricky, and took some finagling. I was tired, and I cussed a lot.). But in the end, you’d never know anything had been worked on:






This is where the S2 wiring ended up. I’m obviously going to have to splice in some additional length to get everything where it needs to be. Other than that, the hookup should be straightforward. I just wasn’t in the mood to start tearing out dash trim to do a switch mount at that point.



With any luck I can get back on it this weekend and get everything finished.

DON’T YOU WONDER HOW THE BRAKE LIGHTING TURNED OUT? MORE TO FOLLOW

 

Good write up! I am getting ready to pull the headliner on my CM to install my rack. Looks like fun...

 

While the S2s still need to get connected, the cargo lights and brake lights are fully functional:











In all I’m happy so far. I’m impressed with how bright the cargo and brake lights are, given their small size. The S2s should be a bonus. There’s no doubt, though, that this mod is a huge pain in the ass. I don’t know if I’d willingly do this again unless I had a leak that needed solving (I did) or was going to be pulling the headliner for some other reason. That’s not a knock on the Evil Mfg. product, as it’s well made. Just an observation after a full day of cussing. If anyone has questions I can answer, let me know.

 

This writeup and pictures were excellent. My third brake light still functions fine and isn't too chromey for me to try to delete it. But if either of those changes, I'm definitely coming back here. Thanks!

 

Thanks for the detailed instructions!

 

Wooh!

I have to say, the installed product looks MUCH better than I was expecting it to! And I don't mean to come off like an asshole. I actually really like it!

I was already planning to leave the factory unit alone until it becomes completely necessary, and you have reinforced that plan

Any idea what LEDs they use for the cargo/reverse lamps? I purchased some "Quadratec" rebranded LED bolt lights for a project on my wife's jeep a while back, and they were total shit. Filled with water within a few weeks, and one of the lenses has completely fallen off since. I would love a decent quality replacement for version 2.0.

Also, I'm curious as to the sealing of your "Evil" TRD brakelight. Is there a gasket which they send with the kit? Kinda looks like you used your own sealant, which I would plan for as well. Just thinking about serviceability which is hopefully just a non-issue.

Looks awesome thus far and I await your updates with great anticipation

 

I have a DC and installed my "Evil 3rd" a while back. Needless to say you didn't have to pull the headliner so I'm glad you didn't do that but yeah it's a little labor intensive. The only part that wasn't bad was the actual part of installing the nut serts (I already had the tool). To answer @COTundie, there is a nice piece of weatherstripping that Evil glues to the backside of the unit. I used permatex around the nutserts anyway.

Side note: I see they updated the unit with 3 red LEDs for the brake light. Mine has 2.

Side note x2: OP, instead of cutting up your dash for a switch have you contemplated activating by remote? I have my S2s wired to work by a little fob I keep in my door grab handle. Works flawlessly.

 

I wonder of they shortened the harness with these newer kits? Mine had enough to get to the battery and then some. In fact I had enough to fold extra into a little bundle and stash next to the battery.

 

Unsure what they are using for the brake/cargo lights. Their website only describes them as “super bright LEDs” which while true, doesn’t help you much in sourcing them, I know.

Like texasrho83 said, there’s a heavy gasket on the back of these that seems to seal pretty well. You cane best see it in this picture:



I sealed the nutserts with silicon before attaching the assembly, but I just didn’t get any photos.

As far as the switch mount goes, I’ve still got a blank in the dash I can use, which will put it right in line with my other lighting switches. Have to pull some pieces off to get things wired and installed, but no cutting required.

 

Yeah, definitely shorter then. Mine’s not even close. Not a huge deal, just a few added splices. Yours must have had a ton.

 

Gasket was staring at me the whole time.

Thanks guys

 

THE BIG UPDATE:

Well, got everything finished today. All in all, wasn’t too bad.

I had left off with the wiring harness run just forward of the C-Pillar. I was able to tuck the relay up under the B-Pillar trim, and ran power and ground wires up to my Blue Sea box at the battery. This allowed me to fuse it there, as opposed at the in-line location, which I cut off. This way, I won’t ever be tracking down a problem related to a blown fuse that’s buried under interior trim.



Like it never happened ©️:


Moving on to the switch, I had already used up my two spare switch blanks with switches for my front and rear bumper lights, so the Tow/Haul switch needed to get relocated. (I had been wanting to do this for a while anyway).



This necessitated pulling down the kick panel below the steering wheel, as well as getting the lower part of the dash panel out:







MORE TO FOLLOW

 

Once everything was pulled apart, I found that Toyota had put switch-specific jigsaw cuts on their switches and blanks. Seems like they wanted to be sure that certain switches could only be mounted in certain locations. Of course, they didn’t line up for me.







Fortunately, these aren’t necessary to hold the switch in place, so a little Dremel therapy was all that was needed to forge ahead:





MORE TO FOLLOW

 

While everything was apart, I took the opportunity to replace the bulb that illuminates the console shifter. This had only been working on an intermittent basis, either due to a bad filament or loose connection at the base. I had a spare T74 bulb which fit perfectly.







After that it was just a matter of plugging things in and reassembling everything. I ordered new switches in an attempt to them all looking similar (my OCD tendencies). Now all three switches in the panel are from the same aftermarket manufacturer and have the same illumination. Meanwhile, the factory Tow/Haul and Traction Control switches are paired up on the other panel, which makes more sense in my mind anyway.







MORE TO FOLLOW

 

You have a rear power slider window?

 

All of the above notwithstanding, you’re all probably waiting on the money shot. Well, wait no more. Drove down to a abandoned shopping center for appropriate darkness and Scooby-Doo mystery. This is the unfiltered scene photo (although you could see slightly more with the naked eye):



Then I kicked on the Evil Eye:



That hard line is a result of shadowing caused by the light being cast downward over the tailgate. If you drop the tailgate, you improve to this:



For reference, these are the wide cornering lights. Evil/Baja Designs also offers the option of a 9-degree spot. For my purposes, the wide is awesome.

So there you go. Overall, I’m very pleased with the results. Any questions, feel free to ask.

 

Yeah, I’m a super-huge baller like that, LOL. Don’t think I’ve ever used it.

 

I'd kill to have it in mine. Been pondering the idea of piece-ing one together.