NEED HELP replacing rear door upper brake light fairing on 2003 trailblazer

Mektek

Member
May 2, 2017
656
FL
What problems do you have? I had to remove it, repair broken threaded inserts and generally reinforce it as it was cracking. Poorly made part IMHO......
 

unclebobbin

Original poster
Member
Have to remove it and either replace it or install a another one. Looks like a support on the drivers side has broken off. Fairing cracked horizontally at top where it pinched against roof. I was hoping to just fix or replace the bracket as the damage is minor and not visible. Looks like there is 4 torx screws holding it. Any advice is appreciated I am not a mechanic but no one can send me for a left handed crescent wrench either.
 

Reprise

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Jul 22, 2015
2,724
(FYI - OP's profile indicates he has the LWB, so he's most likely referring to the liftgate spoiler)


When I got mine, someone had used wire to reattach the plastic to the bracket on the one side (which, of course, I didn't notice until the wind nearly blew off the panel, at speed).

A plastic weld might (?) help; as I recall, you don't have a lot of 'meat' to work with (either in height of the post, or in diameter). I wound up replacing mine with an entire rear window assembly that I got used, with the spoiler intact -- it was actually cheaper, and my '03 had a black-colored spoiler to start with, so I didn't have to worry about color matching the replacement (IOW, I think they were all black, at least for the 1st year or two).

One word of advice, since the OP does get some snow on occasion...
Never, EVER use the liftgate with any snow / ice on the roof around the spoiler area. Or you'll be repairing / replacing it again. The larger space underneath the spoiler allows snow / ice to accumulate there (or melt into there), and when you use the liftgate / open the hatch window... CRRRAAAKKK :Banghead:

The SWB trucks have a different spoiler, which fastens differently / is more stable than the LWB version. So the problem tends to manifest itself almost universally in the EXT / XLs. And, no, the SWB spoiler assembly does not retrofit to the LWB. So parts scarcity can be an issue, since they were only sold between '03-'06 MY.

When the LWB were more common, I used to see people running them around here with no spoiler, and exposed bracket. One enterprising soul had rigged up a replacement stop lamp (CHMSL) without the spoiler enclosure, and had actually done a decent job integrating it. But I couldn't get an extended close-up look at it to see how he did it.
 
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Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,262
Ottawa, ON
When I removed mine to replace the third brake light on my old EXT, most of the standoffs for the threaded inserts broke as the bolts were seized in them. After removing them from the bolts, I JB Welded them back on and they held.
Never, EVER use the liftgate with any snow / ice on the roof around the spoiler area.
:iagree: And that's not just for the EXT. I've seen SWB also suffer from this and didn't even bother putting any third brake light back.
 

unclebobbin

Original poster
Member
Got the fairing off, one of the pastic standoffs had separated from the fairing torx bolt spins inside plastic housing so will slice the head off and jb weld the fragment back on fairing then try and line things up . Will source a new torx bolt once I get apart number. Alignment will be interesting. Will also have to replace double sided tape once I source that.
Thanks for the comments and the heads up on the ice build up...I think that was the cause of the failure in the first place.
 
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Jkb242

Member
May 19, 2019
239
CLT
Reading through some of the experiences of others regarding this assembly. My 06 Denali rear glass cracked for another reason but the replacement of the glass and the rear brake light assembly tutned out to be a nightmare. It was done through my insurance who uses SafeLight, these guys are a joke. Both the rear glass and light assembly had to be replaced twice then the spoiler/light assembly began to come unglued. That part was was also replaced twice and then a third attempt was required to replace the double-sided tape. Both the glass and light assemblies are no longer available from GM but the supplier has fairly wide manufacturing tolerances that makes an original fit a night and at best a less than acceptable repair. Glad mine was covered by Comprehensive coverage, $50 deductible making it the insurance company’s responsibility to deal with the numerous difficulties. If it were me alone having to deal with Safelight and the bodyshol, they would have told me long ago to FO! Comprehensive coverage is cheap and worth gold when it comes to these sort of nightmares.
 

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