Back-up Camera Install help

[Blackbird96WS6]

Hey guys, I got a back-up camera for Christmas to go with the new headunit for my Trans Am and I'm kinda stumped on how to run the wiring for it. Part number is Metra BBBPC, http://www.bestbuy.com/site/metra-license-plate-back-up-camera-black/1570003.p?id=1219055952421&skuId=1570003. It mounts behind the license plate using the same bolts as the license plate. Looks like I should be able to run the wires up inside the rear bumper cover following the same path as the wire that runs to the light bulb over the license plate, but yet I pulled my tail lights and center piece off, pulled the carpet back inside the trunk and can't find where that light bulb wire runs to once it goes up into the bumper cover. Any help would be greatly appreciated, just trying to figure out what all I have to do to get the wires ran to the inside of the car to run them to the headunit.

Also, I know there should be some way to splice it in so that whenever I shift to reverse, it automatically comes on and displays on the headunit. Where would I need to splice into to make this happen?

[ZOHAN]

meissen?

Making you silky smooth...

[meissen]

Definitely able to have it only come on when you shift into reverse, just need a standard 4-pin relay. Did the kit come with any wiring diagram? Or can you explain what wires are included?

[Blackbird96WS6]

Definitely able to have it only come on when you shift into reverse, just need a standard 4-pin relay. Did the kit come with any wiring diagram? Or can you explain what wires are included?

I can get a pic of the wires it has a bit later, but no diagram unfortunately. I'll update this with a pic here in a bit.

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[Blackbird96WS6]

meissen

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[meissen]

Cool - that looks pretty simple to hook up. To do reverse you'd just want to set up a relay so that it has 12v switched source as the input (like the radio fuse in the dash fuse panel) and then the trigger for the relay being the power wire running to the reverse light (you could tap into it by the taillights). That way when the reverse light turns on, it energizes the relay and the 12v switched source is then provided to the backup camera.

If you want to go an easy way, though, you could probably just tap power straight from the 12v power wire for the reverse bulb. I'm not sure how many amps the backup camera is really pulling, so the taillight reverse bulb wire powering the backup camera may work. If it doesn't, you'll blow a fuse and have to go the relay route.

Disclaimer: I'm by no means an expert at wiring and know only enough to be dangerous :lol:

[Blackbird96WS6]

You know a lot more about wiring than I do lol. I think I must have been tired or just out of it last night. Looking at it now it makes a lot more sense. I just need to track down the +12V reverse wire to tap into, then run the Yellow plug up to the headunit. Only question left is what's the red wire coming out of the yellow RCA plug for? Does that hook into one of the wires coming out the back of the headunit? I'll have to check the manual for my headunit on this tonight...

[meissen]

The red wire coming out of the RCA plug is what tells the backup camera to turn on and what you want to connect to the +12v reverse wire. It almost looks like the red wire was accidentally cut or tore - as the 1st picture makes it look like the red wire goes into the bundle of wires.

[Blackbird96WS6]

If it was cut, it was before I opened the package lol. I opened it with my bare hands, so I'm assuming that's how it's supposed to be. Is the +12V reverse wire up inside the dash behind the radio? I was thinking I'd be looking for it at the rear of the car near the reverse lights.

[meissen]

I would tap into it right at the taillight.

[Blackbird96WS6]

Ok, now I'm really confused then. That red wire coming out of the yellow RCA jack isn't gonna reach to the rear of the car lol. That's coming right out the back of the headunit, so what do I do with that? Buy additional wire to run it to the back?

[meissen]

I might be looking at the wiring wrong - would it be possible to stretch the wiring out?

[Blackbird96WS6]

Yeah, I'll lay it out tonight after work. But to give you a quick description, if you look in the 3rd and 4th pic, there's a small circular 4-pin black connector that goes to the camera itself (which is connected in the 4th pic), then that runs into the black knuckle that you see right next to my fingers. From there, it splits into the red/black wire for +12V power and ground (I was thinking the red from this goes into the +12V reverse wire) and the cable for the yellow RCA jack. Once you get to the RCA jack head, there's that additional short red wire coming out of it (which is the one I'm not sure where it goes). I looked at the manual for my headunit last night and it has a purple wire coming out the back of it that is designated for the backup camera, so I'm hopefully deducing correctly that I would connect that short red wire to the purple wire on the headunit.

[Blackbird96WS6]

Alrighty, so the weather was great yesterday, got up to 73 and I decided to just tear into it and knock this out. Ended up not having to fully remove the rear bumper like I was afraid of to get the wires ran to the inside for the camera, all I had to do was remove the 4 push-tabs on the top-side of the bumper (after removing tail lights and center panel, of course), then pull the bumper back just a bit. Was able to feed the wire up following the same path as the license plate bulb and grab it from the top with some long needle nose pliers to pull it through. From there, I ran it through the grommet behind the driver side tail light to the interior. Spliced the power into the reverse light +12V wire (green) and grounded the negative. From there, I ran the yellow RCA wire through the wire loom following the driver side of the car from the back up to about the subwoofer in the B-pillar where the loom ended. From there, I removed the kick panel and ran it below the carpet along the edge, up to the pedals and around to just below the radio (all below the carpet). Once it was run up to that point, it was behind and below the dash, so I took it straight up and through the radio hole.

Next, a buddy who's done a lot more stereo installs than I have came over to help me figure out the wiring for the harness adapter and all. He spliced everything as it needed to be (he said it was pretty easy for the most part, 85% of it was just matching up the colored wires, the rest were tagged and labeled so he matched up function to function) and I worked on running the microphone that came with my radio for bluetooth calls. Decided to place it at the top of the A-pillar just before where it meets the T-top and run the wire down inside the pillar cover and out near the fuse panel on the driver side of the dash. From there, I popped the cluster cover off a bit and ran the wire between it and the lower dash panel, across and underneath the steering column, and over into the radio hole. Came out looking pretty nice IMO and got the mic much closer to my head than trying to mount it anywhere on the dash.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/823/hkj7.jpg
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Once the wiring harness and everything was ready to go, we plugged everything in to test and make sure everything was working as it should. Touchscreen good, backup camera comes on automatically when shifting to reverse, Bluetooth calls and mic worked, radio worked, DVD played video, and synced my phone to it and played music. Good to go, right? Well, not quite... I realized there were no mounting tabs anywhere and the ones off the stock 1.5 DIN radio are one with the unit and not removable. Yay... Ran to Best Buy and they didn't have anything, went to Fry's Electronics and they didn't have anything either. Got online and looked up the kit I'd need and found it on eBay and Amazon, but they were far too much for just 2 simple little metal brackets. At this point I decided to just make my own brackets and mount the sucker. Took some measurements and cut these out. They worked perfectly for what I needed to do and didn't cost me a dime extra because I already had the steel on hand. :D Also found that you need to cut out the tray that the original 1.5 DIN unit sat in, otherwise the double DIN unit won't fit because it's too tall. This was pretty easy, just used an air-saw and tucked the wires way back in the back to make sure not to cut any. The air-saw cut through the plastic almost as easy as butter lol. I cut it flush with the side walls of the entrance of the hole to make it look neat.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/822/hwsv.jpg
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Time to plug everything back in and mount this sucker!

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/35/g3x1.jpg

From here, I ran the bluetooth receiver down to just below the shifter plate that says 1,2,3,4,5,6,R and held it in place with the 2 bendable tabs already there holding the unused harness plug for the convertible top. Then, I ran the USB port cable down the same path, but all the way back into the center console storage area and zip-tied the cap so it would not fall back through the hole.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/20/4aay.jpg

Here's the camera mounted, kind of hard to see, sorry. Sun had gone down already and I was in my garage lol.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/853/3acn.jpg

Tested out the calling feature and backup camera one last time and I'm now very happy with the modernization this brings to such an old car. :cool:

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http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/850/lw65.jpg
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@meissen (http://ltxtech.com/forums/member.php?u=509) The only thing left to figure out later on is how to get my steering wheel controls hooked back up, which I'm assuming it this plug here from the original headunit?

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/850/l0lc.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/607/boo0.jpg

Best Buy wants $90 for the steering wheel controls adapter and that's retarded. Do you know of any way to get them hooked up and working on the cheap? Something I could possibly put together myself, if need be? Were you able to retain your steering wheel controls in your car when you put your new radio in?

[meissen]

Unfortunately I really dunno about that - I haven't ever had the steering wheel controls.

[Blackbird96WS6]

Ah, ok. Well, if I have to give up my steering wheel controls for everything else this thing can do, I'm still happy with the change. Maybe I'll figure it out later and add it here if I do. This can serve as a sort of install guide for anyone else looking to do this, since when I went searching there wasn't a whole lot of info and even fewer pictures.

[Project96]

http://www.crutchfield.com/shopsearch/steering_wheel_adapter.html

Check here. Found alot of good stuff ftom them.

[Blackbird96WS6]

I'll have to give them to call and see if they can help me find something that isn't crazy expensive. I'm not willing to pay more than like $25 to get SWC back lol. Not all that important to me haha.

But after scratching my head and realizing I had to reformat my USB jump drive to FAT32 to get it read, I got my background loaded. :)

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/199/i9rh.jpg

[Project96]

Looks good. Did you have to repin, or ground the parking brake wire for the dvd to play while driving? I have installed a cpl of these with dvds. 1 in a buddies ws6 that the parking brake wire had to be repined to another location on the plug, & the other in my exs Olds that had to be grounded to work while driving. Otherwise, they wouldn't play while the vehic was in motion.

[Blackbird96WS6]

The Kenwood DDX470 head-unit I got came with the parking line to run, but we cheated and just ran it to the dimmer wire on the adapter harness lmao. It constantly pulls a +12V signal, so works any time the car is on.

[popo8]

Just checked out ur pics on fb... SICK!

LTXtech.com is my drug.

[Blackbird96WS6]

Thank you! :D

[meissen]

That does look absolutely bad ass.

[97firehawk]

Freaking cool

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