How-To: Add Rear Exit Handles to Your Truck
By Chuck CageOnce the brackets were mounted, we needed to create some “relief” in the foam lining of the truck’s headliner. We used a utility knife to first cut away the large fitted styrofoam material. Then we cut through the first layer of “fibrous” lining to expose the inner foam, which we removed as well in a stair-stepped pattern to allow the headliner to lay flat when we pushed in the new handles. Lastly, we cut a small “plus” shape through the inner headliner to allow the handle to pass through.
Finally, after numerous test fits — during which we removed a bit more foam to relieve stress-induced creases in the headliner — we were ready to install the handles. We pushed the headliner back up to near its normal position and inserted the handle.
The handles required quite a bit of pressure to click into place. On more than one occasion it required two of us pushing in tandem to correctly position the handle and install the plugs. However, once we heard them “click,” they were on for good. Even when we almost hung our body weight from them, they stayed on firm.
All we had to do then was button up the interior parts in reverse order.
Summary
While we wouldn’t recommend this for the faint-hearted — especially on a brand new truck like this one — it wasn’t incredibly complex. Hard? Yes. Complex? No. We suffered through quite a bit of frustration in terms of getting the handles to fit right and getting the headliner to lay correctly and look good, but in the end they came out looking pretty much factory. Most of our time was spent test fitting and struggling to both push the handles in and insert their pins at the same time.
It took us a good 10-12 hours of work to complete the project, but that’s nothing compared to a couple of years of handles right where we want them in the truck.
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November 30th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
[...] We made square holes as part of our How-To: Add Rear Exit Handles to Your Truck post a while back. [...]
September 19th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
[...] We showed you how to install standard-style rear-exit handles in your GM truck. They’re way better than the near-the-corner factory models, and it’s not that difficult an install. [...]