Thought I would drop a little info into this thread that might help. Frankly, I suspect the video above will be more help than anything I could write, but perhaps this will help resolve a few things. I went back and I'm a little disappointed with the photos that I took
The system in a nutshell- the autoease system replaces the factory latch altogether. It communicates the open/closed status the same as the factory latch, but other that that it's an independent system.
The ECU is below where I mounted it in the lift gate. The speaker on the left side of the image is the passenger side rear speaker.
So- a quick tour of the system- Bottom Left and Bottom right- wires that go to the lift structs. These were direct drop in to the factory lift struts. You have to remove (my choice) or at modify a factory trim piece.
@Eric Sarjeant set me up with the rubber grommet he uses to get the wire inside the gate. I don't have a photo right now- I'll have to take one and post it separately. I don't have the part number, but it was a ford product.
Top Right- power A/C- this wire runs to the front of the truck and uses a piggy back factory compatible fuse holder, and it runs the wire up to the dash mounted button. Running this wire from the body of the truck through the rubber boot into the lift gate was a challenge. I found some info here on mud about running wires through the boot and it was helpful- I disconnected the boot, ran the wire, then reconnected it. Sorry I don't have the link, but the info is here somewhere. Note that little yellow wire- we'll talk about that again shortly.
Top Left is the lock- the connectors all work with the factory wiring harness. The autoease unit will plug into the factory latch button and it works / feels OEM. The system comes with button to be drilled into the lift gate, but I used a toyota lift gate switch and wired it into the same two connectors (and the main power for the switch LED).
Bottom center is the latch motor. The factory electric latch is removed and replaced with the autoease unit. I was certainly concerned about swapping out toyota engineering, but the latch has worked well.
Overall the install was fairly straight forward, but definitely a stretch for me. The most nerve racking part was drilling a hole for the lift gate button, but I had the wiring working before I did anything that wasn't reversible.
A few more details:
The Yellow Wire:
This was probably the most concerning part of the project for me. The power wire is fished front to back. It's fairly straight forward, particularly with info on MUD on how to run the wire. That part is really easy if a little frustrating with the plastic clips. However, the autoease system requires a signal from the lock wire on the truck. Enter the yellow wire. The yellow wire has to be routed to the B pillar of the truck. Accessing the wire wasn't easy; had to pull off trim pieces and pull back a wiring loom, but that eventually exposed the connector below. Looking at the wiring diagram of the truck, the connector matched and the location of the wire matched, but the color of the wire was different on my 2014. See a snip from the wiring diagram. The JK1 connector pin out (not attached unfortunately) matched the connector in the truck. Using a wire tap (not included with the kit), I decided to give it a go- and it worked perfectly. I was definitely nervous here, but thought I would give it a try. I'm not an expert; YMMV. I then tidied up the wiring and was good to go.
As noted in a prior post, there was a wiring issue. Initially, the exterior gate button did not work. It turned out to be a minor wiring harness change. Attached is the image AutoEase sent me. the top right is part of the auto ease harness. Their instruction was to disconnect the connect the blue wire (the lock control wire in the image below) and connect it to the middle wire on the connector. A quick crimp with a butt connector and I was in tall cotton. This certainly wasn't confidence inspiring, but it was a pretty simple change and the change worked immediately.
Link to the product:
Power operated tailgate lift assisting system TL105 – Autoease - http://www.che1.com/product/tl105-electric-tailgate-lift-assist-system/
Yes- the company does use affiliate pricing/referrals to help market their products. No, that's not an affiliate link.
