Rear Tail Light Assembly Removal and Leak

Hi All,

There are already several good guides for removing your rear tail light assemblies. When replacing the battery on my 2004 Prius, I noticed that there were a couple of inches of water in the bottom of the spare tire area and both side compartments (the battery and below the driver's side rear storage cubby). After draining, replacing the battery and research here, I decided the most likely culprit to be the light assemblies (or at least the easiest for me to patch).

I am a complete noob for car repair. I am very, very thankful to Priuschat members for providing info to help me fix many issues. So I wanted to post these as a thank you and help other noobs out there.

I read multiple heated debates on using silicon sealant and decided to go with the Dum Dum putty rope recommended by my local autoparts store. This came in a rectangular box with thin ropes (about 1/8th inch across) that had the consistency of thickened play doh.

Using other guides here (search for rear light assembly) I was able to remove the entire assemblies, seal them with the putty and replace them. It "seems" to have done the job so far. It has been about a month and I haven't seen any obvious water in the rear areas.

Since I didn't have a clue of what I was doing, I wanted more pictures. Most specifically, I didn't want to destroy the rear light assemblies when I removed them after taking out the two internal screws. All the instructions said that there were just pins to release after I removed those screws. But it took so much effort, I was concerned I need to unclip/unscrew something. After more searching here, I didn't see any more info on the pins and just pulled harder. The assemblies came out.

Here is a picture of that rear assembly pin that required so much force to take out (and had me paranoid I was going to destroy something).



I've included more photos and detailed descriptions of steps I didn't necessarily see already covered in Priuschat. They can be found here:

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/8981149@N02/sets/72157626034643579/"]Pruis Chat - Rear Light Assembly - a set on Flickr[/ame]

Thanks again Priuschat and good luck to all.