How to Remove Lower Metal Cowl Cover 2010-15 Toyota Prius

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To remove the driver's side wiper arm, you leave the hood down, use a small flat blade screwdriver, and gently pry up in this plastic cap. Find the edge and pull it off. There’s a 14mm nut under here. Use a 14mm socket extension and ratchet. Loosen this up. Pull that off. We're going to lift up on the arm and now I'll wiggle it back and forth and it should come right off the wiper arm shaft.

Open the hood. We'll go inside. Pull the release. Find the safety latch. Release that. The prop rod is under the hood. It's got two positions: one position here and then a service position here. It opens further. Passenger side wiper arm has two mounting nuts. They're 14mm. I'm going to use a 14mm socket ratchet again. Loosen that one up and loosen this one up. You might need to hold the wiper arm. Thread it off. It popped right off with just the spring action of the wiper arm. Lift it off the windshield and put it aside.

To remove the side corner trim, this'll be the same on both sides, pry it up with a plastic prying tool. You can buy this at 1AAuto.com. Once it's up, you can slide it out. Put it aside.

There's two push clips on both sides that need to be removed. Use a small flat bladed screw driver. Pry it up. Pull the clip out. If the center part comes out, that's okay. Just push it back in to reuse it.

The center cowl piece is clipped along the edges, and then it slides up under the window glass. We're going to unclip it and slide it out this way. Go underneath and push the clips in. That one's loose. Go ahead and find all the clips. It might be easier to use the plastic trim tool to push the clip in. Push it up. Slide it from underneath the windshield. I think this one clipped back in. Yep. It did. Make sure these stay clipped out. Put that aside.

Unplug the wiper motor. The lock, the clip, is underneath the bottom. Squeeze it up. Pull the connector off. Wiring harness should be clipped into here. Somebody's had it apart before, so the clips are a little bit broken, but you'll have to pry this clip out of here. You'll have to either slide this off, or cut the electrical tape. Be careful not to cut the wires. Somebody's already had this apart. It'll come off here. There should be a clip here. It's missing, and then there's this clip here. And we just get the wiring harness out of the way.

There's a ten millimeter bolt here, one here, and then one here and here. That's holding the wiper transmission to the car. We'll use a ten millimeter socket, extension and ratchet. Remove these bolts. We'll lift the wiper transmission out of the car. It's sitting on a stud, just under here. So, we'll pull that off.

We need to remove the lower cowl panel. There's nine 10 millimeter bolts holding it in place. We need to remove all of these bolts and then slide it out of the engine compartment. Use a 10 millimeter socket extension and ratchet. We need clearance. We're going to remove this bracket. That's two 10 millimeter bolts. Lift it out of the engine compartment. Flop these down and over to give myself clearance.

We have the wiper transmission removed, the upper cowl plastic, the lower cover, the lower cowl middle piece. You can access your coil packs, the front O2 censor that's in front of the CAT. You can get to your water temperature sensor, ABS module brake cylinder, and the tops of your struts on both sides, among other things. It will give you extra clearance to work in your engine bay.

We've got our lower part of our cowl panel, the steel piece. These little air guides are folded over, so they'll fit under the windshield. Slide it into place.

Start reinstalling the bolts. I'll go along and start them all by hand, and then I can come back with a socket and ratchet and tighten them off. Push at that door, snap it in place. Feel it get tight, I'll stop. Clip this little door back. Tighten this one up. Install the support bracket. You got a little tab that fits in there. This bolt caught here first.

Reinstall the wiper transmission. So, this little pin here, is going to go into this rubber grommet up here. Push it up into place, push it into that rubber grommet. Oops. That wants to pop out, so, let's see. Take it off and then push it on to here. Then, we can hook it in this way, just like that. Line it up with the mounting holes. Get our bolts. Get this one started. Start the other ones. Tighten these all up. Feel them get tight and then I'll stop.

Reinstall the harness for the wiper motor. So, this clip was kind of broken, but it does go in here. There's a missing clip here. You'd clip it back into place. This goes through this opening here. This is normally clipped into here. Then, there's a final clip here. And then, of course, you plug it in. It's keyed, will only go in one way. It'll click when it locks in place.

The plastic upper cowl cover, it's got some little tabs here. They're going to slide underneath of the windshield, the edge of it. Then, clips in the front that will clip down in the middle. Get it in position. Put it over the wiper arms. You want to slide it up. Push it along the edge and slide it over the glass like that. Then, it will clip down into place. Place the push clips. Do that for both sides.

Clip these little corner pieces back in place. So that part will go underneath the windshield, and these will clip into the plastic here. Slide underneath, clip them in place. Do the same for both sides.

Put the passenger side wiper arm in place. There was a little dust line here where the wiper blade was, so I'll use that as a reference point. Right about there. There's some spring tension to this that's pushing it back up. I'll install the nuts. I'll just tighten these down until they get tight. I don't want to break off the studs off the wiper transmission.

I'll reinstall the driver's side wiper arm and blade. You could do this with the hood down or the hood up. It's all right. Just get it in place. Reinstall the nut. Tighten it up. If I feel it get tight, I'll stop. I don't want to break the stud off. Reinstall the cap. It just pushes into place.

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How to Remove Lower Metal Cowl Cover 2010-15 Toyota Prius

step 1 :Removing the Wiper Arms

step 2 :Removing the Cowl Cover

step 3 :Removing the Wiper Transmission

step 4 :Removing the Lower Cowl

step 5 :Installing the Lower Cowl

step 6 :Installing the Wiper Transmission

step 7 :Installing the Cowl Cover

step 8 :Installing the Wiper Arms

Tools needed

Wheel Bearings on Cars and Trucks Sealed Bearing vs Adjustable Bearing

How to Remove Lower Metal Cowl Cover 2010-15 Toyota Prius

step 1 :Removing the Wiper Arms 0:25

step 2 :Removing the Cowl Cover 2:10

step 3 :Removing the Wiper Transmission 3:41

step 4 :Removing the Lower Cowl 5:01

step 5 :Installing the Lower Cowl 6:34

step 6 :Installing the Wiper Transmission 7:45

step 7 :Installing the Cowl Cover 9:15

step 8 :Installing the Wiper Arms 10:18

Tools needed

Wheel Bearings on Cars and Trucks Sealed Bearing vs Adjustable Bearing

step 1 :Removing the Wiper Arms

step 2 :Removing the Cowl Cover

step 3 :Removing the Wiper Transmission

step 4 :Removing the Lower Cowl

step 5 :Installing the Lower Cowl

step 6 :Installing the Wiper Transmission

step 7 :Installing the Cowl Cover

step 8 :Installing the Wiper Arms