Quote:
Originally Posted by Mushroom_Cap
Had the saem problem with our 07 4Runner about a year ago. Rubber turned all gummy, eventually peeled off!
I separated the button assembly from the hatch. Two Phillips screws if I remember correctly. Now it is just hanging out still connected by the wire. Can't disconnect it if I remember correctly as it disappears into the hatch.
I scraped all the gummy rubber off. Cleaned it up with a bit of acetone. Gave it a light sand and cleaned again.
The I got a bicycle inner tube. Measured and cut a perfect sized piece to cover where the old rubber was. I glued it in place with super glue. It was a bit of pain, I had some scraps of wood and some clamps holding the whole mess together. After the glue set I removed the wood and clamps. Checked it over. Seemed fine but just to be sure I wiped a light bead of marine silicon around the edges.
Installed back in you'd never know it was "mickey mouse" fixed. The inner tube looks just like the OEM rubber that was there. It's been there for over a year and shows no signs of breaking down.
I originally was going to buy the part at the dealer but the price was insane. Like $400 seems to ring a bell.
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Sorry for bumping an old post, but wanted to add that as an alternative to the bicycle inner tube 'fix', I just followed the same steps posted above, but used a new rubber cover that I
bought on eBay for $19. It fit perfect and total DIY time was about 30 minutes, with most of that being clean-up of the old rubber cover remnants from around the switch mechanism (nearly liquified in my case). I used 3M Adhesive Remover instead of acetone, but it's probably the same thing. A few pictures I took during the process are below. I recommend putting some blue painters tape around the "button" area, and using latex gloves if your switch cover is really melted...mine went from being just slightly tacky to full-on melt-on-your-hand in just a few weeks, so catching this early definitely makes for a less messy procedure. A small "s" shaped philips head screwdriver and a bungee cord to hold the rear hatch down at a good working angle helped a lot as well.
-Graham