March 2018: A few months ago I managed to smash my rear garnish. I was reversing and just tapped a ute tray that was in the perfect window between my rear view and backup camera. It was the slightest touch with no damage to his tray but it managed to completely shatter my garnish.
So that meant I know needed to look for a new one, I waited and waited for one in the same colour and finally found one with a wreckers in Brisbane called Subie World, I called the day the car was listed, ordered and payed for the garnish to hope it would get here as soon as possible. After a wait of almost three weeks it finally arrived in Sydney and thanks to Hunter Express, it came in complete pieces.
Yeah not great.
Long story short I'm still fighting to get the money back from the wreckers and the shipping company, both have been completely useless and I wouldn't recommended them. Who I can extremely recommend is Jesse Streeter. Wow what a pleasant experience, I found a garnish on Yahoo Auctions complete with LED light and optional half-bar. I managed to get here all the way from Japan in 7 days.
Now this is how you pack something.
Even the plastic was perfect.
It's a pity its white but oh well that just means I can start with fresh paint.
The JDM reverse lights are a nice little touch.
This was certainly the best one at the time on Yahoo Auctions, mainly because non of the mounting screws were snapped.
The next thing was to seperate everything so there would be less work for the painter. Firstly I popped of to burnings for some fishing line and a caramel wheel.
After ages with some heat it started to come loose. I'm being as careful as possible cause the last thing I want is to have another broken one on my hands.
Eventually it came off though.
After it got a quick wipe-down I grabbed the caramel wheel and got started.
Nice and clean. Little bit of paint came off but that's no problem.
It was then time to attack the half-bar, this had way more of the double-sided tape left on it.
I had a small go with the caramel wheel but began to cut through the plastic so I didn't want to risk it.
Badge could then come off, still debating wether or not to replace with a brand new one but that can be done when ever,
The lights then needed to come out.
Out.
Numberplate lights needed to come out.
Lastly the chrome strip could come off. This also took longer then expected.
Ready for paint.
But before then. Its time to remove the old garnish from the car. The reverse camera has been broken for a couple weeks now so its another good reason to get under there.
Rubber grommet was first to come off.
Unsurprisingly there was a bunch of the plastic push pins missing. Another thing to add to the later list.
Then these sneaky screws.
The rest of the surrounding panels then popped off.
Once that was done the back panel was finally able to come free.
I popped the reverse lights out and as I thought this is where the reverse taps into for power.
The last mounting bolts were then removed.
Off it came and into the bin.
Then lights out.
There was so much filth under everything.
Ah, much better.
Now that everything is out of the way I wanted to see if I could fix the reverse camera. About 2 weeks ago I went over a large bump that I didn't see and suddenly it half stopped working. Basically looked like it was having a signal issue, it kinda still worked, sometimes all the colours would be strange and other times it would just flash black and white. I thought I would check the back of the headunit first just incase.
That didn't do the trick which I thought would be the case anyway. After pulling some of the pervious owners electrical tape back I found one of the culprits.
After fixing that I still had the same issues so the camera had to go. I had a spare camera that is meant to go into the Cuore.
In it went and all working!
I need to extend the power and video cable as I want to run the camera in the correct sport on the left of the tailgate and would also like to avoid the horrible whole cut into the tailgate.
I also gave the LED tail / foglight a test to see if anything will need to be modified. Its plug and play except that the fog comes on for reverse, honestly, it'll do for now.
The painter did a great job and even got some shots for me while he was painting.
Colour.
Clear.
After getting it back from the painters first thing was to get the chrome strip back on.
3M tape went on as there was some there before.
An on.
Next up was to throw the numberplate light bracket back on, but first a small cleanup.
An on.
All the mounting hardware could go back on. I left all of these at the painters but had two broken garnishes to rob from.
The reverse lights use velcro type stuff to secure the lights to the garnish. The originals are well used and have expired.
The old stuff was used as a template for some new 3M goodness.
With that done both lights could then go in.
Looking good.
The garnish could then actually go on, everything got plugged in before final assembly.
Numberplate light covers then went on.
Starting to look like a car again.
The camera could then me mounted, this time with some 3M tape rather then screwing in.
That meant to wiring could then be cleaned up and tied back.
Plastics could then go back on.
Followed by the inside.
Rubber grommet could then go back on.
Now that everything is ready its time to prep the half-bar. I popped past Bunnings to get some double sided tape.
On it all went.
Half-bar could then go onto the garnish.
Finally the badge could then go on.
It was then time to get some pics after a long overdue wash.
So happy with how everything came out.