What am I doing? Modernizing a dinosaur truck that just clobbered a deer and is rusting out? Yep. And what an adventure.
Installing a backup camera is a bit complex. You have to route the camera from the outside of the car, inside, which requires removal of all kinds of parts. In this process, I broke the damn Ford emblem right off the car, too.
Next, run various cables around the inside of the hatch, and then all of it through one rubber boot in the hinge. Including some connectors that are too big for the boot and it takes 100 times longer to complete than it should.
You also need to run a cable inside and down to the tail light for power. More parts are removed to find that route. Oh, and then you pull too hard on your camera cable hoping for some slack.. and break the thing.
And the already long project takes longer. Had to order a new camera, and install that, using the longer wire it came with, then splice that all together and.. this long project continues. All while vacations are happening, camp “bus” duty continues, and I await my date at the auto body shop. Which incidentally, was today as I write this (9/30/24). We’ll see how that goes! These are good times to have a third car.
Amazon orders for this project so far –
- License plate security bolt wrench. Turns out I lost mine and could not start the project until this happened, as the camera bolts underneath the plate.
- A “fish” to move wires around tight places.
- Spool of automotive wire for extra length to 12v source.
- 3M trim tape to reattach the Ford logo.
- Wire crimper, and crimps, electrical tape for the now broken camera line.
- Camera #2 (Crutchfield).