How To Replace Taillights 2003-09 Toyota 4Runner

Hey, friends. It's Lynn here from 1A Auto. Today we're going to be working on our 2006 Toyota 4Runner, and I want to show you how to remove and replace your rear tail lamps. If you need these or any other part, check us out, 1aauto.com. Thanks.

All right, so one of the first things we're going to do is use a small pocket screwdriver. Just come right in here. Pop this up. We'll set this aside. If you look in here, you're going to notice you have a 10 millimeter nut right here, and then if you could see, you would see another one all the way, way, way, way up in there. To remove those it might be fairly difficult, but you can do it with some very basic tools. Okay, so here's a couple of basic tools we're going to use. We've got our short ratchet, a nice short extension, and a 10 millimeter socket.

Also, I have a 10 millimeter ratchet wrench. I'm going to start with the ratchet wrench. I'm going to go all the way up for the top one first because that one's the harder one to get to. Before we do that, we're going to take out the directional bulb. To do that, we just grab this, give it a little twist to the left, and it comes right out. We'll set that aside because obviously we're going to reuse it, but now it gives us a nice clear access point to get to that nut up there. See if I can find it by hand. Get my ratchet wrench on there. You could try to use a socket on this. It might be kind of difficult because the stud is very long.

But once you get it loose enough, you should be able to just get it by hand. There's our nut. Let's move along. Let's grab this one. Okay, that one's loosening up as well. Next what we're going to do is we're going to disconnect the electrical connector. So I'm going to use my pocket screwdriver. I'm going to try to press on this tab right here, and then I'm going to try to pull the wiring harness out of the socket. Just like that. Take a look at the wiring harness. Make sure you don't see any funny colors. Blues, greens, reds, pretty much anything but metal is not good inside of electrical connectors. This looks great. Let's set it aside.

Nut number two, same as the first. Awesome. You don't have to worry about mixing them up. Now we're going to step out of the vehicle and we'll be able to remove this tail lamp. So now we're going to use our trim tool. This is just plastic, so you don't have to worry about marring up any paint. If you were to use metal, there's a good chance you might mar the paint. Once you get the paint off of there, water gets on it, it turns to rust. Plastic is the way to go in this instance. Just come right down here. Give it a nice tug right along the side. I'm just going to grab our unit, pull it straight out. There it is.

Okay, so on the backside of the lens, we're going to remove this right here. Give it a twist to the left, pull it straight out. There's going to be wiring attached, so we'll just take a look at it. Give a nice little pull, the socket comes right out. We'll set this aside. Now this one right here, same thing. Grab it, twist to the left, pull it straight out. You've got your 921 bulb there. It would be a great time to replace it if you found that this one was bad. If not, set it aside.

Okay, friends, so let's get the back of this set up. We have our reverse lamp bulb here. You'll notice that you have a big prong and two smalls. The big prong faces straight down when you go to install. In line right up here, push this in, give it a nice twist to the right, latches right in. I heard that lock in. It's definitely not coming out. I'd say that one's good to go. We're going to take this, connect it right in. Let's take a look. Right like this. This direction, clips right in. Okay? Awesome. we're going to tuck these wires right in here, and bring this, get this lined up to where it needs to go. You got your big hole right there and your big prong right here. Give a twist to the right. That feels pretty great. Awesome. We're going to leave this one out for now because when we tighten up this, we need the bulb socket to be out of the way.

So it's time to install. You got your stud-stud, hole-hole. Watch your paint. Line up your studs. Slides right in. That feels great. Now we're going to go from the inside and we're going to put on our mounting nuts, so now it's time to put on these mounting nuts. I'm going to take one at a time. I'm going to go for the hardest one first. That's how I roll. Find my stud so it's bottomed out. Nut number two. Put that on its stud, bottom that one out as well. Now we're going to use our tools. Make sure that your gear wrench is on forward or tighten.

You want to make sure you have these snug. Last thing you want is for them to loosen up and your tail lens goes bouncing down the road because you left it loose. Just make sure that I get it tight here. It feels like a little bit more, then I should be almost there. If I had more swing room this would be much quicker, but you'll have to bear with me. Here we go. That's perfect. Get that out of here. Switch over to our ratchet now. If we had more room it would be nice. It's plenty of room to get the job done, it just takes a little while.

Okay. Sounds like we're pretty much bottomed out here. That feels great. I'm just going to take a look. You've got a small nub and two bigs. All right, so that's just something to pay attention to. I don't know if you can see it or not. I can barely see it, but once we put it into the hole, you can just keep spinning it until it feels like it wants to latch in. That's what I would do, so that's what I am going to do. I heard a click, I gave it a tug. It feels great. Put this right here, we're going to take the lock part, which is this little button. That's going to face out towards us. Slide it right in. Take our cover.

Let's test it out. All right, so here we go. Let's try some lights. We're going to go with running lights, brake lights, reverse. Now let's go directional. I'm sure that that looks awesome. Turn it all off.

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