I know it's an old thread, but I was able to do this mod today thanks to your excellent writeup. And I only locked myself in the back once!

Going to attempt today. Were you able to do it just following the steps without pics?

Yep. Super easy to do. It's simply a matter of a momentary push button with pigtails coming off of it, then a splice into the two wires in the harness of the EVU connected to the pigtails.

I put my button in the top of the rear hatch panel on the driver's side. Easiest there because the wiring is shorter.

PM if you have any questions as you go.

NM... I was testing it with the door open, seems to work if I am inside the vehicle. That or I got the wires correct this time.

I am trying to do this and when I do a little testing, all it does is lock the doors, what am I doing wrong? There seems to be two Purple/White wires, could I be confusing the two?

Rather than spending the time, effort and even the few $ to possibly mess up something electrical, I simply made about a 6" loop of mechanic's wire attached to the two latch arms.

Whenever I want to open the door from the inside, I just pop off the square access panel in the center of the tailgate and yank on the wire.

To install the wire 'handle'
1. Pop off the door panel (as described earlier in the thread)
2. Remove the semi-clear plastic cover from the door
3. Install your mechanic's wire loop (one end attached to one of the latch arms and one to the other)
4. Re-install the plastic liner
5. Cut a small hole in the liner in the appropriate spot so the wire handle is accessible when everything is reassembled
6. Re-install the door panel
7. Get in & close the tailgate
8. Pop off the square access panel and yank on the wire to open the door.

I was able to do this using a nickel's worth of mechanic's wire and 15 minutes of time.

Yup... NO messing with all the switches/wiring, disconnect the battery and having to 'normalize' the driver's window switch, the sunroof switch and any other affected (stupid) electronics.

How about just using your key FOB when you are inside the trunk?


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The key fob will not open the hatch, it will open the rear window and unlock the hatch but that's all it can do.

Is this applicable to a 4th gen 4Runner? Where are these latch arms exactly? I've got my liftgate panel off and I'm trying to figure out whether I want to wire in the switch or do the wire mod... but I'm not seeing where the wire would go.

Sorry for raising the dead again, but I've been struggling to find the right wires to splice on a 2018 4R and hoping someone can help.

I presume they've changed the wire colors in a recent model year as there is no purple with white stripe or light geen with red stripe. Tracing the wires back from the switch they seem to start as green/yellow stripe and green, then turn into grey and green wires. With the switch depressed I've tried testing continuity on every grey/green pair I can find with no luck.

Has anyone tried this on a recent 4R or have a liftgate wiring diagram I can reference?

Cheers,
Sean

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I worked it out and wrote up a guide here if anyone else is looking for info for 5th gen:

How To: Interior Tailgate Switch


How To: Interior Tailgate Switch

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No reason why running wires to the dash won’t work. You will need to get the wire out of the door and into the vehicle body but I believe you can follow the boot at the top of the door.

I also have a 07 and will be doing this modification for a switch on the lift gate as well (just ordered a momentary switch). Wire colors should be consistent with the other 4th gens.

Not sure about your second question regarding the gate close cycle. My guess is there is another load wire that activates when it gets grounded.

Thank you for the write-up and for all of the comments. It made this mod a breeze.

I noticed that most of the photos' hosting has expired, so I took a few photos during the process. I uploaded them to an Imgur album so hopefully they'll be around for a while. Cheers!

4Runner Interior Lift Gate Release

It should be noted that on the 4th gen there is a light green and red wire AND a green and red wire. The GREEN AND RED worked for me and what is shown being spliced into in one of the pictures.
I was getting so frustrated trying to get light green to work!