I didn't take photos of what I did, sorry. but I can descibe it simply enough.

1 - Remove the inside panel from the rear door by carefully prying the pop-fasteners off.
2 - Remove the two harnesses for the license plaste lights at the connectors.
3 - Remove the two 10mm nuts from the studs that hold the lift gate handle.
4 - Block the door so it doesn't close with a rag over the door sill catch and lower the door.
5 - The handle should slide up and off the rear door, not out and away.

You will now see the two studs that the 10mm nuts thrreaded onto. They are pressed into two plastic stand-offs that is a part of the handle. These stand-offs have very small and inadequate gussets.

6 - What you do now is take two plastic caps from soda bottles adn remove the inner seal.
7 - I used a 7/16" drill bit and made a hole in the cap mostly on the side and a little on the top.
8 - Test fit over one of the stand-offs and trim to fit. The open side of the cap will rest flush on the backside of the handle.
9. Complete both caps before proceeding.
10 - With a strong, reliable 2-part epoxy, fill each cap and set them in place. Add more epoxy to form a fillet around the outside of the cap. You do not need a lot of epoxy as epoxy in itself is not a structural material necessarily, depending on the kind you use.
11 - Allow the handle to cure and dry for 24 hours! This is essential. There is no shortcut here, no way to speed it up - not even oven-curing.

To reinstall, the handle slides back on to catch the two clips. Put the two nuts back on but do not over-torque. My rule-of-thumb is snug plus 1/8th to 1/4 turn for plastic parts. Reattach the harness (you can't get them wrong), put the rear panel back on and you are finished.

 

From this thread: https://www.scionlife.com/forums/vie...159238#2159238

The stand-off comes off the inside pf the handle at an angle so you can't make a hole straight down through the bottle cap. It must be an eliptical hole penetrating the corner of the cap where the top and the ribbed side of the bottle cap meet. When you take the handle off it will make sense to you. Perhaps tomorrow I will find a way to take a couple photos and bury them in someone's website.

HTH

 

Pictures would help tremendously.

 

damn this article is useless without PIX!!!

 

^^^ X2...

 

Hey, I've been busy, gimme a break! When I get a couple of hours, I will disassemble my rear door and take pix. Okay? Maybe in a week or two, now that the weather is getting better.

 

watching......want to do this...my whole piece back there is loose and rattles with the bass kickin'

 

anyone able to do this and take pics? it would be nice..

my new '06 is starting to show signs on the left side of the handle that it is starting to get loose. I plan on trying this possibly in a couple days, if no pics get posted, i'll try my best to take some and add to this article.

 

any updates on this?

 

bump for pix!

 

for keeping this thread alive. hatch broke again. pursuing bottle cap solution.

 

bump

 

i got the chrome one. installed it in what seemed like 10 minutes.

 

Are you all talking about the rear hatch? Or the back door on the side of the box?

 

the liftgate handle thing .. the thing that is chrome. i replaced my broken one with a chrome one from scionpro.com

 

Is the bottle cap thing needed if you are installing the ScionPro chrome rear handle?

 

I installed my scionpro chrome rear handle today. I did not do that bottlecap thing and really don't think it is needed. I am not sure I really understand it anyway. The install took me about 90 minutes going really slow.

Also, I now have my flawless old hatch handle, which is camo, so if anyone needs a new one. Let me know and shoot me an offer. It is clean and scratch free. Really nice shape. Like new.

 

There have been many people who have done the fix as I did on mine 3 1/5 years ago. It has worked "okay". I have decided in the next few months I want to removed the hatch handle and license plate altogether, fill the hatch completely and cut out a new license plate hole into the bottom left. Then insert a flush-mount glass cover over the license plate that will be illuminated all around from inside.

 

There is an online petition and a Facebook page to get Scion to fix these.

http://www.change.org/petitions/scio...sumers-at-risk

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Sci...95767133769843

 

Scion will replacing handles on all XB1s regardless of warranty status until 13 March 2014:

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/sho...=1#post4110976