Hopefully this post will help out some folks wanting to remove their passenger's side rear plastic pieces from their 2012 JK......I needed to do so in order to run my cb antenna from my spare tire holder to the front of the JK.

1) First start off by opening the tailgate and removing the compartment tray and rug.
2) Unscrew the two star bolts that have the tie down loops on them from the subwoofer.
3) Remove the plastic seat belt cover by placing a small screwdriver in the slot where your seat belt comes out of. Put a little force in an upward motion and the plastic will let go and that piece will come loose.
4) Look behind your roll bar towards your top. There is a small piece of the plastic molding that comes off. Start by pulling the front of the piece towards your hardtop. It will let go and then work on the back. This will also let go. Basically there are small plastic clips that hold it together.
Once this piece is removed, look at your roll bar and right in front there will be a 10mm bolt. Remove this bolt.
5) Now the whole plastic assembly is loose (this includes the molded plastic pieces and subwoofer). Lift up from the bottom of the assembly and pull towards you. The piece will all of a sudden pop free.

That is how you remove the plastic assembly. Hopefully this helps you folks out! I did this on a nice warm day, and I believe it helped greatly. The plastic was easier to manipulate.
Below you can see some pics I took during the removal.

 

Awesome! I've been looking for this for a while now thanks!

 

Great right up!

You said you mounted your antenna on spare, I just did this as well, where did you ground your antenna to?

Matthew

 

Tabs on top and snaps on the bottom of the plastic trim.

 

More pictures of rear subwoofer enclosure plastic trim.

 

More pictures of rear subwoofer enclosure plastic trim.

 

Was all this done to route the antenna cable to the front?

 

Actually it was done to replace the bulky subwoofer panel (I have a Unlimited Rubicon) with a panel without the subwoofer (from the Sport). The subwoofer is not important to me and the stereo still sounds about the same and is just as mediocre. I wanted the extra luggage space as I am turning my Jeep in to an Overland Expedition type vehicle and need the more "square" trunk space to put ARB fridge/freezer and a drawer system etc. The only drawback is that I lose the built in 12V outlet, but I am runing new thicker cable to power the ARB fridge (the existing wire for the 12V outlet is very thin).

That being said, if you want to route the antenna cable onto the rear gate front the main body of the Jeep, you will most likely have have remove these panels.. The antenna cable should be run in a similar fashion as the 3rd rear brake light wires (zip-tied together). This way it provides some stress relief and provide a certain minimum bending radius (from the rear gate opening/closing).

Just be REALLY careful when you take these pieces apart. I was very careful but I still managed to break 1 of the 6 plastic tabs on the subwoofer encloser part when prying the smaller piece apart (Shown below).
Attachment 326496

 

Thanks a lot...

 

xlnt write-up, just used it while prepping for my liner to get sprayed.