http://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/topic/38501-guide-to-installin...

[1]

Posted 09 December 2012 - 11:22 PM

This is my 5th attempt at a guide and a photo heavy one at that. This time, it's on how to
wire in a reverse parking camera

If you've seen my guide to installing an aftermarket head unit, you'll know I recently
fitted a touch screen head unit.

I'll now show you how to wire in a backup camera to make the most of having a touch
screen.

There are various types of backup cameras available, just look on ebay and you'll see
what I mean

http://www.ebay.co.u...cat=0&_from=R40 [2]

The main ones being something like these that you can mount anywhere

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item27c7d6791f [3]

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item3f1151b177 [4]

But will require drilling holes into your boot lid

Something like this that has the camera built into a number plate light unit

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item3a78c4bd69 [5]

Or even things like this

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item4849b9a254 [6]

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Which is a number plate holder with a built in camera. This will still require a hole
drilling but it'll be hidden behind the plate holder. I reckon this will be the best camera as
it positions the camera in the middle of the boot lid for optimum results.

Personally though, I went for the camera built into a number plate light, as it requires no
drilling, and makes for a very need install and looks as close as you'll get to an OEM
number plate light and looks tidy.

Whatever camera you go for though, the installation will be pretty much the same once
you've mounted it to the boot lid.

Whatever you get should also come in 3 parts

The camera

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And 2 lots of wires, a 6metre video wire with a yellow plug either end, and a 1.5metre
twin core red and black wire

The first step of the installation, is to remove the inner boot lid trim. This is a simple job
of unscrewing these 2 screws

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From each of the handles of the trim

Next job is to simply unclip the trim, so get a flat blade screwdriver under the trim and
pop it out.

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It will then be easy to simply pull the trim away from the boot lid

Next bit of trim you need to remove is this bit at the top of the boot lid

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Just grab a hold of it and it'll pull off easily

Next step for me, which only applies to this type of camera was to remove a stock
number plate light

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2 screws then pull it out

Then it simply pull the wires from the prong things

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You can now just put this aside as a spare should you ever need to revert back to the stock
light, or sell it on if you want to.

Next job is to wire the built in light of the camera

Into the old number lights live and earth feeds

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Most people use splice blocks for this, but I personally think as long as you well insulate
it, you can just splice the wires straight together.

So first I got my stanley and peeled back some of the plastic coating behind the plug of
the earth wire to expose some of the copper wire inside

I then tightly wrapped the copper wire of the new number plate light around it

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I then taped it heavily in insulation tape

And also taped up the plug itself

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Then for extra insulation I cocooned it in fabric loom tape also

Next I repeated the process for splicing the live wires together

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At this point I turned my side lights on to check the built in number plate light of the
camera actually worked

It's hard to see in this photo but it is lit up so I then repeated the process of heavily
insulating the live wire

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Now it's time to thread all the wiring, including the other wires if the camera

Up through the hole for the number plate

You can now screw the camera/number plate light in place

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Now depending which type of camera you went for, be it a universal one or the number
plate holder, the rest of the guide will be the same whatever camera you have

Next job is to route the wiring around the boot lid, so what I did is tape it to the existing
wiring already in the boot lid for neatness to keep it all together

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Once you get to here

It's time to plug the long 6 metre video cable with yellow plugs either end, into the
yellow plug of the camera

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It's this wire that will route all through the car and plug into the headunit/monitor

The next trim piece doesn't need to be removed at all as you can simply took it in around
the edges

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Trace the wire round round the edge of the trim piece, tucking it in all the way round till
it comes out the bottom (top of the boot lid)

Repeat the process for the short 1.5metre black and red wire

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It's this wire that will go to the reverse light so the image will be displayed when reverse
gear is selected

Now you have to remove the trim pieces in the boot, starting with this big piece

It's held in by 4 of these poppers

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Simply get a flat blade screw driver under the edge and pop em out. Once all 4 are out the
way, just grap a hold of the trim piece and pull to unclip it

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Next there is a smaller trim piece either side of the boot

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Again, simply pull to unclip

And the other side

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Also the 2 screws of the top trim piece

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Once all that lot's out of the way, you'll be able to pull and unclip the trim piece around
the top edge of the boot

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Now you need to locate the rubber conduit joining the boot lid to the car

And pull it out

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Now pull the long video wire through it's hole in the boot lid

Now pull the other end of the conduit out the car

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You now need to pull the video wire through the conduit. This is known to be bloody
hard

To make it easier, get a section of wire coat hanger and slide it in one end of the conduit

Route it right the way through and out the other end

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Now you need to tape the video wire tightly to the end of the coat hanger

Thing is, I don't see any way of pulling the video wire through the conduit with the plug
intact as it's just way too tight.

Either that or I just haven't got the patience. I did try but it just wouldn't happen and it
just kept pulling off the coat hanger

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So what I did was cut the plug off completely, leaving a few inches of wire on the end of
it. And look what wiring was inside the black video wire

I found 3 different colour coded thin wires

By cutting the plug off, I taped the wire to the coat hanger and pulled it through the
conduit with ease

It's now time to repeat the process with the reverse light wire

Thing is, the length of the reverse light wire provided with the camera is nowhere near
long enough and will need extending by a couple metres. So you will require an
additional length of twin core wire.

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Simply splice the extra length of wire to the reverse light wire provided

Black to black

Red to red

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Then insulate heavily with fabric tape

You can now tape this wire to the coat hanger and pull it through the conduit with ease

Now you need to pull down the roof liner slightly

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And thread both lengths of wire into the car

Now you can refit the conduit

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Now you need to sit in the back of the car, push up the roof liner a little bit and pull the
wire through

You'll notice in the above photo it's wrapped in loom tape, this is because like an eejit, I
some how managed to pull the wire back out the rubber conduit previously, and when
pulling it back through again, I managed to pull it too hard and rip the wire in half
completely so my video wire is spliced together in three pieces all together. Still

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working though.

Now for routing the wire around the car, I found a very easy and simple route, is around
the door seal. So further removal of the roof liner isn't really required at all making it a
nice and easy route

Simply took it in as you go along and you'll never know it's there

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Continue routing it right along the edge of the roof liner tucking it behind the door seals
and pillars, then right around the passenger side door seal down to the foot well

When you get to this point, you need to partially unclip the trim piece, simply grap a hold
of it with your finger tips underneath and gently pull away from the car to unclip it

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Then you need to thread the wire behind it

And pull it out the other side

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Then you can clip the trim piece back in place

Now you need to remove your glove box, so open it, and there is a total of 7 screws to
remove

The whole thing will then simply pull out and you will be looking at this

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You then need to thread the wire up through a gap and pull it through

Now in my case, this is when I had to splice the plug back onto the wire

Simply match all the other up and splice the exposed copper wire together

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All done

Now wrap in fabric tape

Now you need to remove you head unit, and thread the wire from where the glove box

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was

And pull it through where the head unit was

Now it's time to go back to the boot

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With the extended twin core reverse light wire, Thread it down behind the trim piece

And out the bottom

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What I then did was route the wire around the spare wheel well to the other side of the
boot, where I lifted up the carpet and located the reverse light live wire among this lot

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I removed the black tape holding it all together. It looks like a mass of wires, but it's easy
to locate as the reverse light wire is green/orange. There's only 2 green wires in this lot,
green/orange and green black.

So the reverse light wire is easily distinguished from the rest.

I looked under the car to confirm this

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Crap picture as the flash on my camera distorted the colour lol but it is definitely
green/orange

So what I did is splice the earth wire for my camera into one of the 2 earth wires of the
mass of wires, then spliced the live wire into the green/orange wire

I then plugged the video wire into the back of the head unit. The camera input should be
marked RC IN

At this point I thought my work was over and it was all wired up. I tested it by getting in
the car, starting it and put it into reverse gear..

Only to find that it didn't bloody work

Didn't get why as I'd definitely spliced into the reverse light live feed, and it was correctly
earthed.

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I made sure the wires was definitely plugged in properly and it still didn't work

I then undone the taping on the wires I'd spliced on the video wire in case one had pulled
apart, only to find they was all definitely spliced together nice and tight

I had a head scratch, undone the splicing in the boot, routing the wire temporarily out of
the boot over the bumper, and spliced into the live and earth wires of the reverse light
under the car directly behind the bulb holder

Tested it again, and this time it worked perfectly and the image appeared on the head unit

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screen, so I knew all my wiring was perfect and the camera was working

I then undone this temporary splice, and spliced it back in the boot. Tested it again, and it
didn't work

I then though maybe I'd earthed it into the wrong earth wire, didn't get how this would
matter as they are all earth, but I tried it anyway and spliced into the other black earth
wire of the lot. Tested it again and it still didn't work.

This really confused me, so I spliced into it outside of the car again behind the bulb
holder, tested it and it worked normally again.

At this point I got really pee'd off and was running out of time and day light, so I taped
back up and insulated the wires I'd partially stripped in the boot

Then located the rubber thing on the passenger side of the boot with no wires going into
it

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I then pierced a tiny tiny hole in it with my stanley so it's still pretty much water tight,
and threaded the wire through it

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(the other wire is for my second boot light)

And pulled it through from underneath the car behind the bumper

I then spliced the wire permanently into the reverse light just behind the bulb holder

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Then heavily insulated with fabric tape

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Photo from underneath the car

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Finally it's job done so now just refit all trim pieces in reverse of how you removed em

After a lot of work, here's the results of all your hard work

Took this photo in tesco car park after I went to get food in with the Missus

And here's a little video of it in action (night vision so not a very good one)

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Hopefully this very long photo heavy guide will be of use to anyone planning on fitting a
reverse parking camera.

May seem like a lot of work involved but it's all relatively straight forward

If you need to know how to install an aftermarket touch screen head unit to connect the
camera to, see my other guide which can be found in my signature bellow.

Thanks for reading

[7]

Posted Today, 10:53 AM

Yeah, i thought it looked a little futher back than it would normally sit. I already wrapped
my 2 plastic surround bits, but the bigger of the 2 comes away slightly on the bottom
right, were the useless clips they supplied won't grip the console hard enough. Then the
finishing trim, it has little teeth to hold it in place on each corner, I did a test fit, but on
removing this, most of the teeth wore away. Terrible quality. All the wiring was great, if
not a tad to long for what was needed. And as stated earlier, it was a nightmare finding
somewhere for it to live grrr lol. Gonna search eBay and see if I can find one of the other

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fascias to do away with this one soon.

[8]

Posted Today, 03:05 PM

Are you sure you have the head unit/cage positioned as good as it could be?

As when i first fitted it the fascia kept coming out at the corner. But it was actually from
the head unit not being wegded in perfectly.

I just kept playing about with the position and wedged it in n eventually the fascia
adaptor seatd beautifully.

The metal clips hold it in fine, if anything a bit too well as i couldnt get the bloody thing
back out n ended up snapping 2 of the clips off in the process

[9]

Posted Today, 03:31 PM

Yeah its deffo in as good as its gonna get, its not gonna go anywhere, but looking at it,
I'm not impressed, like I said, others can't find fault, but my dam OCD is saying it would
look better with the complete fascia rather than the adaptor surround which is in there
now lol.

1. http://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/user/34566-brigante/

2. http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=backup+camera&_sacat=0&
_from=R40

3. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UK-9-IR-LED-CAR-REAR-VIEW-REVERSING-BACKUP-COLOR-
PARKING-CAMERA-120-WATERPROOF-/170856446239?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&
hash=item27c7d6791f

4. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-4G-GPS-Wireless-Car-Rear-View-Night-Vision-Reversing-Backup-
Color-Camera-PAL-/270873506167?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item3f1151b177

5. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-3C-View-Backup-Camera-Ford-Focus-Sedan-
N072-/251134262633?pt=Car_Audio_Video&hash=item3a78c4bd69

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6. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UK-EURO-NUMBER-PLATE-REVERSING-CAMERA-BACK-UP-
REAR-VIEW-LICENSE-WATERPROOF-/310474547796?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&
hash=item4849b9a254

7. http://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/user/23445-mike77/

8. http://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/user/34566-brigante/

9. http://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/user/23445-mike77/

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