Ok, I finally managed to get my button working. I though I'd share some pointers on how I did it. (NOTE: Sorry for the lack of pictures, my camera is out of commission.)
First, with some help from Kane, I figured out the best place to actually get to the pink/yellow wire is in the back, right where a bundle of wires feeds into the tailgate. It's on the driver's side, and there are about 8 or 10 total wires in this little bundle. At the end, I've put some additional info about other splice locations if you'd rather try something else. But using the one right at the tail gate was definitely the easiest, since the pink/yellow wire was visible simply by lifting the rear carpet mat, rather than having to mess with the carpet under the passenger's footwell and contending with a massive bunch of wires.
Then, after prepping the button (
Evilution - Smart Car Encyclopaedia) I inserted the end of the wire into the slot for pin 9. It's actually got a 9 right next to it, so there shouldn't be any confusion. (If you're using something other than the 3rd button, check evilution.co.uk to find the right pin.) Once that was in, I re-assembled the wire housing and button assembly.
Next, I ran the wire under the dash, to the front corner of the carpet on the driver's side floor. Basically, from there, it was just a matter of lifting the edge of the carpet on the driver's side all the way back to the tail gate.
Once I got the wire back there, I stripped my wire, then shaved off the coating of the pink/yellow hatch wire. It was just a matter of wrapping my wire around the open spot on the other, and giving it a try. All in all really not hard at all once I found the wire. Thanks to Kane for his advice.
I'm going to try to come up with a pattern for painting on a little logo on the empty button, and I'll put it online later if anybody's interested.
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If you want to try a different splice location, here's some advice from Kane:
there are 2 sure-fire places to pick it up from.
The fuse box can swing down from the front, there is a host of connections out the top of that thing.
This shows the SAM with all the connections off.
The pink/yellow comes from plug N11-8
There is about 30 wires coming from that connection, one of them will be the pink/yellow.
This is a good place to pick it up as it is close to the front.
From here it runs under the carpet down the middle of the car, over to the left, behind the left side trunk side panel, under the engine flap carpet and into the tailgate.
If you take out the left side panel as if you were changing the rear bulbs, you should be able to find it there too.
Today
Linear Mode
