Hi All,
I have to tell you that this forums rocks and it has helped me tremendously so far. So I wanted to contribute back to the community. I bought the
VR3 Backup camera the otherday and installed yesterday. I took pics of the install so I hope this helps out anybody who decides to do this.
Before we start let me stat off by saying this kit, if bought through the dealership cost about $400 with about 4 hours of install. They really like to :bananahump-slvrathl you at the dealership. Well I'm always into saving a couple of $$ so I decided to do this myself and help others save some $$ so we can buy more mods! :roller:
Here we go. Once you purchase the camera, you'll need to decide where you want to mount it. The camera has these arms on it so you can mount it on your license plate but I didn't opt for that since our plates are off to the side. So I decided to mount it on the rear bumper, right between the hitch and the spare tire. Now where to run the wires, after scouting around underneath the FJ, I noticed a harness of wires that run along the back side of the chassis and enters the vehicle (driver's side) through a 2" diameter rubber grommet. Bingo!
Now the camera wire has two leads, one positive and one negative. They will be attached to the reverse light wires.
Remove the rear access panel and twist and remove the reverse light. Pull it out as far as you can without damaging it. Should look like this:
Now you need to remove the silver trim off of the bumper. It's held on by 4 screws and 4 blue trim plugs.
Crawl underneath the FJ and with a long small screwdriver, create a hole by pushing the screwdriver up thru it taking care not to touch the other wires. Keep the screwdriver in there for now.
Now it's time to mount the camera. Like I said I chose to mount it on the bumber so I located the center and drilled a 3/16 hole just right of center. The reason for this is because the camera's wire comes out right on the back edge.
Once the hole is drilled, you need to prep the camera for install. Take a fine tooth saw and cut off the licese plate arms off of the camera housing. sand it down with a fine grit sand paper for a smooth finish.
Now thread the wire thru the bumper out to the back. If you have the tow package and park sensors, you'll see the wire harness that runs along the back. tie wrap the camera wire to this and thread it through the hole thru the rubber 2" grommet.
Using heavy duty double sided tape, cut a piece of it long enough and notch out for the wire. Clean the bumper off. Make sure it is free from any dirt or debris, and mount the camera.
Once the camera is mounted, pull the camera wire all the way thru.
route the wire up thru the panel and out where the reverse light is. Cut the plastic sheathing of the reverse light but dont cut it off. You'll be reusing it again shortly. Using wire taps, connect the red lead of the camera wire to the red wire of the reverse light wire (positive). Do the same on the other wire (negative). Use electrical tape to protect the wires.
When finished, twist the bulb back into the housing and put back the service panels.
Now it's time to install the monitor. But first you have to do a couple of things. Start off by removing the cover off of the rearview mirror and remove the mirror.
With a small screwdriver, pop off the caps off of the grab bars on the A-pillar
Remove the threshold sill by pulling it off. It's connected by a series of clips. Once that's off you can remove the passenger side kick panel. There is round cap located at the front near the floor. This twists off and there is two clips located in the front of the panel. Now the glovebox has to come off. there is a dampner located on the right. push in the clips and slide it off. The glovebox comes out by firmly grabbing it and pulling it off the clips.
Once the glove box is removed, you'll see a whole bunch of wires and the body ecu.
In that nest of wires, locate the blue/red tracer wire. It's located in pin1. Separate this wire from the rest. The blue wire of the camera wire harness will connect to this.
Below that you'll see two white connectors. locate the connector that has the white wire on it. The red wire of the camera harness witll connect into that.
a more close-up look:
What it looks like when the glovebox is removed:
Now it's time to run the camera wire harness. we've already removed the rearview mirror, now remove the passenger side sunvisor by removing the two screws holding it in. I left the visor clip in because I couldn't figure out how to remove it. Starting from the A-pillar, carefully pull down the headliner, being careful not to crease it. Using you finger to pull it down, carefully work your way around to the rearview mirror. Now thread the camera wire harness through that and pull it thru untill you have about 6" of wire sticking out.
tuck the wire up into the headliner and work your way back towards the A-pillar.
Once at the A-pillar, unloosen the nut that the grab bars bolt into and slip the ground wire into it. retighten.
Now as you can see the camera wire harness is too short to get two the other wires below. You'll need to extend it by using 16g. wire.
Take one wire at a time. Carefully run the wires down the side to the other wires.
Connect the blue wire from the camera wire harness to the blue/red tracer wire. Then connect the red wire from the camera wire harness to the white wire. When finished, use electrical tape and tape up where you extend the wires as well as where you connected them to the blue/red and white wires. I used this type of connectors:
NOTE:Before closing it up, plug the monitor in and without starting the car, turn the ignition all the way on and place the shifter into reverse. You should get a picture.
Once you verified you got everything working, re-install the threshold, kickpanel, Glovebox, A-pillar cover and the Sunvisor. Now it's time to mount the monitor!
I bought a metal strap from my local hardware store to make the mounting bracket. I cut about 4" of it and drilled two hole at the end that lines up with the mounting holes of the rearview mirror. Once I had the hole drilled, I placed it on the back of the mirror holder and bent it to where I needed it.
Once you have it where you want it, reinstall the rearview mirror and replace the cover.
Now cut a piece of that heavy duty mounting tape and place it on the bracket. Peel off the backing and carefully place the monitor onto the bracket. Besure that either of the sunvisors will not hit the monitor or the power wire.
That's it! Turn the ignition on again and place it into reverse one more time to make sure everything is working.
For those of you who want to see it in action,
click here.
Well that's it. Hope this post is helpfull to everyone.
Send any and all contributions to.... DangerisFJ
Cuerno Largo
FirstToy
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