Aftermarket Bumper Back-up Camera

[TexasCrane]

I recently installed a Slee bumper on my 06 LX470. It's a great bumper but I knew that blocking the back-up camera was going to be an issue for me. I ordered Slee's bracket which mounts the camera in the center of the tire carrier, but I decided that I didn't want to block my camera when running a Trasharoo.

While I'm not a fabricator, I figured there are plenty of places to mount a camera on the bumper and that a good shop could figure out a solution that would work for me. So I turned to Baertrax. I hadn't been there before, but they have a great reputation.

They ended up putting together a really solid solution. I think it ended up being a bit more work than Josh had initially estimated, but they really do quality work.

I wasn't there for the entire install so I don't have a bunch of pics, but basically they pulled the wiring harness completely out of the upper part of the rear hatch (vs cutting the ends off and leaving the rest of the harness like I've seen elsewhere), and then rerouted it to come out and run alongside the license plate wiring on the swing arm.

I'm sure you could get it done cheaper, but I don't think you could get it done better.

 

[Bomar]

Josh and his crew does great work...plus he is just a great guy also.

Glad your happy and a nice solution.

 

[paflytyer]

My reasoning for keeping mine in the tire was so I knew exactly where the tire was.....especially with day to day driving. https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/slees-new-backup-camera-bracket-install.725130/#post-8448038

I have yet to be offroad with the Trasharoo where I backed up into something because I couldn't use the camera. But, that looks like a nice solution they came up with.

 

[Bloomer]

Looks good. I had considered mounting my b/u camera in the same place, but opted like @paflytyer to keep on the tire carrier. Initially, my concern was the field of view with lowering the camera, but based on your pic it still seems to be adequate.

One thing I would recommend for others that may relocate their b/u camera is to fabricate your own wiring harness rather than splicing or removing existing. When relocating my b/u camera, I used @paflytyer great write up, but opted to build a wiring harness so I could have the option to relocate the camera back to its original location with little effort. @cruiserdan was a tremendous help in acquiring the connections to make the wiring harness and I used wire suggested by @paflytyer in his write up.

Whereabout is Baertrax located? Texas?

 

[Bloomer]

One other suggestion, may consider getting some large diameter heavy duty heat shrink to protect the wire and harness connections on the camera end. Can't tell from the pic but looks like they may be exposed. In the camera original position, these connections seem to be well protected so I wanted to add a little extra protection from dirt/water on my install.

 

[Bomar]

Baertrax is in Dallas.

 

[sdnative]

Looks good. I would like to add a camera to my truck. It has much less visibility back there than my 80 had.

The view seems to be mirrored 180 deg. Is that normal for backup cameras? (I have never had/used one so I don't know). Also, the field of view seems limited. I can see a couple different blind spots, such as the corners of the bumper and behind the spare tire. Is that the case or is it just the way it looks in the picture?

 

[geologic]

Really like that view better! I actually thought that triangular bracket with a flattened top mounting point on the tire swing out was for the rear camera when I got it. I'm going to call it triangular because that's its main shape but it's really a quadrangle because of the flattened top. I'd fab from 1/8 inch flat stock aluminum a quadrangular

facing piece to mimic the flat steel reinforcements just to the right on the vertical bar to tire support! It would be a facing for the existing framed triangular support and would taper less toward the top of the triangle to stand about an inch higher than the top mounting hole of the triangular frame, the top width would be a perfect mounting width for the original camera, two 1 inch tabs along the two vertical sides would be sticking out of the triangular shape to be bent in 90 degrees as side mounting tabs, then I would cut two cuts vertical from the top down about 1.5 inches down into the flat stock 2 inches apart in the center of the flat stock quadrangle top, now bend this flap you created down 90 degrees and drill your top mounting hole to mate with existing frame, the body of the camera will sit in this trough and the two camera-mounting screws drill through the face, drill through the two side mounting tabs into the side of the existing frame and add two black sheet metal screws with built in washer, paint the entire unit black to match, this should clean up the installation and hide the harness better, stainless harness mounting fasteners could be drilled into the back side of the horizontal bar of the tire swing out to hide the harness behind on its route to the triangular camera mounting pod, this should provide an even better view of the hitch and rear of the truck since it's a 1.5 inch higher mount! I think that an additional white-green factory harness section would give us the added length to route it properly, would it have the proper plug on the inside end to be a plug and play extension???, could we order such a harness affordable?? Dought it. This would allow use of the factory camera with out any compromise on replacing to stock location later while giving us a center of the truck camera location with a look that appears to be Slee designed, Angle of the view could be adjusted by making the bent in tabs a little loner with oblong mounting holes for adjustment!@sleeoffroad One of my main reservations about doing a double swing out bumper was loss of my excellent rear view camera, the stock view makes backing up to a trailer a breeze!