ranorris2
The Coolest
I originally had no navigation in my Tahoe, installed it and had been wanting a backup camera ever since. So if you want to add an oem backup camera to your oem nav keep reading…
You need to purchase:
OEM Backup Camera ($35.00 new on Ebay)
12V DC to 5V DC 3Amp power converter ($5.00 on Ebay)
10ft-30ft RCA cable/connectors or about 30ft of wire X2 ($13.00 at Walmart or free if you have an extra set at home)
15-20 feet of scrap wire 16-18g or so. I had some, but you can get it basically anywhere.
1.Pull the plastics off of the rear hatch/door.
a. There is an allen screw on the plastic handle and an allen screw on the leather handle.
b. Once you remove those screws, shut the hatch/door and open the back glass up, remove the two plastic pins beside the latch.
c. Open the hatch/door back up, and now everything is held with clips so just pull and it will come down. Remove the top and bottom piece and set aside.
2.If you are lucky, I was not, you will be able to remove the rear applique if you can get them loose. I spent a lot of time trying to get that mofo off and couldn’t so….I decided to just cut the hole for the camera with the applique still on the Tahoe.
a. You can cut the hole(s) anyway you choose…If you look at the camera and how it mounts, you will need to make 5 holes, one big one for the camera, and 4 small ones for the pillars/alignment pins (whatever you want to call them).
b. I drilled holes barely big enough for the alignment pins so when installed it fit snug inside all four of them.
c. For the big hole the camera will actually fit in, mine is quite ugly, I drilled holes and punched out the piece for the hole. I used a box cutter to smooth the hole out. The camera is watertight, so there is no need to worry about doing any kind of sealing on the mount unless that just makes you feel better.
3.Once the hole are made for the camera to mount now it’s time for wiring.
a. Cut the connector off of the backup camera. Strip the wires back, you should have
i. Red wire (5V+)
ii. Black wire(5V-)
iii. Yellow wire(Signal +)
iv. White Wire(Signal -)
Solder on a little bit of the “scrap wire” to each wire so you have a 12-24” of added length. Any time you solder wire wrap each one with electrical tape, or if you have heat shrink, put it on before soldering so you don’t short something out.
b. On the inside of the rear hatch/door you will see a grommet that gives access to the rear applique, remove the grommet. You can now use a fish tape to put through the access hole to the hole for the camera you previously made, or you can put the camera wire up the hole and pull it out with needle nose on the other side.
c. Once the wires are ran from the hole you made through the access hole, get a small screwdriver/knife or whatever you like to stab stuff with lol, and poke a hole in the grommet you have already removed. Force a pair of needle nose in the new hole of the grommet, open the needle nose to open the hole big enough to put all four camera wires through. Once the wires are pulled through the grommet reinstall the grommet. I did not mount the camera in place until I was done with all wiring so leave it hanging for now.
d. Install your power converter with double sided tape anywhere you see fit on the inside rear hatch/door close to the camera wiring. Solder the red+ and black- from the camera to the 5V output of your power converter. Solder the rest of the “scrap wire” to the + and – of the 12V input side of the power converter.
e. Route the unsoldered end of the 12V power wires to one of the Tahoe’s taillights.
i. Use zip ties or whatever to secure the two wires to the bundles already on the door. Follow the wire path, through the rubber hatch passage to the inside of the vehicle. This puts the wire in the headliner.
ii. Remove the plastic piece on the roof, it has clips so it just pulls off. Pick which side you are going to run the power wires. Remove the screw holding on the side plastic pillar, then pull the piece free, but be careful, because you will have speaker wire connected and if you chose the passenger side, you will have the parking sensor connected as well.
iii. Once the plastics are removed, you can see a hole in the metal close to the top of the pillar that looks as if it goes to the outside rear applique. Run the wire in this hole.
iv. Now remove the screws that hold the tail light and outside rear applique, you will see a rubber vent looking thing once you remove the rear applique. That is where you ran the wire. Use a coat hanger or fish tape to grab the wire you ran down there.
v. Once you have the wire outside of the vehicle, take the + wire and tap into the green reverse wire for 12V+ and take the black reverse wire for 12V -.
f. Power for the camera is done, now you must route the signal wires.
i. I used RCA’s for this but you do not have to, you can use two separate wires if you want.
ii. RCA usually come with a red, white, and yellow connector and the wire insulation is glued/stuck together. Separate them. Cut the end of one of them. The cable has another insulated wire in the middle of it, so when you strip it back be careful so you can get both sets, + and -, of wires out of it. The center wire of the RCA cable is the + and the free wire is the -. Solder these wires on to the yellow and white signal wires from the camera.
iii. Route this cable the same way as you did the power wire, except instead of going outside with the wire, once you have it in the headliner run it down the side of the vehicle and up into the backside of the Navigation.
iv. Here is where some of you may be different than my set up. I ordered a VSS kit on ebay, so it had a female RCA connection input for a backup camera, which is why I ran an RCA cable. So with my set up I just plugged in the male RCA connector to the female RCA connector and was done. For some you may have to solder on to the correct pins of the brown connector on the Nav or just buy a VSS kit with the female RCA Connector. If you need the correct pins to solder onto I can find out but don’t know it off the top of my head.
g.Reassemble everything. I used 3M tape and put it on the flat surfaces of the camera mount. Aligned and mounted camera. Finished the install…
h.Go get the backup camera feature turned on at the dealership and you are good to go.
Sorry I don’t have pics, but the install is fairly straight forward once you start ripping into everything. In short the camera needs 5V to turn on and then it will out put the signal to whatever you hook it too…
If you have any questions just give me a shout, I will try and answer it, if I can’t hopefully someone else on here can.
---------- Post added at 04:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:05 PM ----------
Wow...In word the format looks much better, sorry for the hard to read doc.
You need to purchase:
OEM Backup Camera ($35.00 new on Ebay)
12V DC to 5V DC 3Amp power converter ($5.00 on Ebay)
10ft-30ft RCA cable/connectors or about 30ft of wire X2 ($13.00 at Walmart or free if you have an extra set at home)
15-20 feet of scrap wire 16-18g or so. I had some, but you can get it basically anywhere.
1.Pull the plastics off of the rear hatch/door.
a. There is an allen screw on the plastic handle and an allen screw on the leather handle.
b. Once you remove those screws, shut the hatch/door and open the back glass up, remove the two plastic pins beside the latch.
c. Open the hatch/door back up, and now everything is held with clips so just pull and it will come down. Remove the top and bottom piece and set aside.
2.If you are lucky, I was not, you will be able to remove the rear applique if you can get them loose. I spent a lot of time trying to get that mofo off and couldn’t so….I decided to just cut the hole for the camera with the applique still on the Tahoe.
a. You can cut the hole(s) anyway you choose…If you look at the camera and how it mounts, you will need to make 5 holes, one big one for the camera, and 4 small ones for the pillars/alignment pins (whatever you want to call them).
b. I drilled holes barely big enough for the alignment pins so when installed it fit snug inside all four of them.
c. For the big hole the camera will actually fit in, mine is quite ugly, I drilled holes and punched out the piece for the hole. I used a box cutter to smooth the hole out. The camera is watertight, so there is no need to worry about doing any kind of sealing on the mount unless that just makes you feel better.
3.Once the hole are made for the camera to mount now it’s time for wiring.
a. Cut the connector off of the backup camera. Strip the wires back, you should have
i. Red wire (5V+)
ii. Black wire(5V-)
iii. Yellow wire(Signal +)
iv. White Wire(Signal -)
Solder on a little bit of the “scrap wire” to each wire so you have a 12-24” of added length. Any time you solder wire wrap each one with electrical tape, or if you have heat shrink, put it on before soldering so you don’t short something out.
b. On the inside of the rear hatch/door you will see a grommet that gives access to the rear applique, remove the grommet. You can now use a fish tape to put through the access hole to the hole for the camera you previously made, or you can put the camera wire up the hole and pull it out with needle nose on the other side.
c. Once the wires are ran from the hole you made through the access hole, get a small screwdriver/knife or whatever you like to stab stuff with lol, and poke a hole in the grommet you have already removed. Force a pair of needle nose in the new hole of the grommet, open the needle nose to open the hole big enough to put all four camera wires through. Once the wires are pulled through the grommet reinstall the grommet. I did not mount the camera in place until I was done with all wiring so leave it hanging for now.
d. Install your power converter with double sided tape anywhere you see fit on the inside rear hatch/door close to the camera wiring. Solder the red+ and black- from the camera to the 5V output of your power converter. Solder the rest of the “scrap wire” to the + and – of the 12V input side of the power converter.
e. Route the unsoldered end of the 12V power wires to one of the Tahoe’s taillights.
i. Use zip ties or whatever to secure the two wires to the bundles already on the door. Follow the wire path, through the rubber hatch passage to the inside of the vehicle. This puts the wire in the headliner.
ii. Remove the plastic piece on the roof, it has clips so it just pulls off. Pick which side you are going to run the power wires. Remove the screw holding on the side plastic pillar, then pull the piece free, but be careful, because you will have speaker wire connected and if you chose the passenger side, you will have the parking sensor connected as well.
iii. Once the plastics are removed, you can see a hole in the metal close to the top of the pillar that looks as if it goes to the outside rear applique. Run the wire in this hole.
iv. Now remove the screws that hold the tail light and outside rear applique, you will see a rubber vent looking thing once you remove the rear applique. That is where you ran the wire. Use a coat hanger or fish tape to grab the wire you ran down there.
v. Once you have the wire outside of the vehicle, take the + wire and tap into the green reverse wire for 12V+ and take the black reverse wire for 12V -.
f. Power for the camera is done, now you must route the signal wires.
i. I used RCA’s for this but you do not have to, you can use two separate wires if you want.
ii. RCA usually come with a red, white, and yellow connector and the wire insulation is glued/stuck together. Separate them. Cut the end of one of them. The cable has another insulated wire in the middle of it, so when you strip it back be careful so you can get both sets, + and -, of wires out of it. The center wire of the RCA cable is the + and the free wire is the -. Solder these wires on to the yellow and white signal wires from the camera.
iii. Route this cable the same way as you did the power wire, except instead of going outside with the wire, once you have it in the headliner run it down the side of the vehicle and up into the backside of the Navigation.
iv. Here is where some of you may be different than my set up. I ordered a VSS kit on ebay, so it had a female RCA connection input for a backup camera, which is why I ran an RCA cable. So with my set up I just plugged in the male RCA connector to the female RCA connector and was done. For some you may have to solder on to the correct pins of the brown connector on the Nav or just buy a VSS kit with the female RCA Connector. If you need the correct pins to solder onto I can find out but don’t know it off the top of my head.
g.Reassemble everything. I used 3M tape and put it on the flat surfaces of the camera mount. Aligned and mounted camera. Finished the install…
h.Go get the backup camera feature turned on at the dealership and you are good to go.
Sorry I don’t have pics, but the install is fairly straight forward once you start ripping into everything. In short the camera needs 5V to turn on and then it will out put the signal to whatever you hook it too…
If you have any questions just give me a shout, I will try and answer it, if I can’t hopefully someone else on here can.
---------- Post added at 04:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:05 PM ----------
Wow...In word the format looks much better, sorry for the hard to read doc.
Last edited:
