Review: bdl99 2010 Back-up Camera Install

N8GTOL

I finally got around to installing my back-up camera from Brian (bdl99) last night after work. To make the job harder on myself the garage was pretty dark and I had to do most of the work with a flashlight. I finished the install this morning and took a few pics but my camera was dying so I only got a few shots before the battery died. Also, I couldn't find any plastic trim removal tools at the local parts stores and I was too impatient to order them and wait for them to show up. In hind sight I regret not having these tools and I would strongly recommend anyone attempting to remove their trim to buy these first before you start pulling panels. Overall, I am very happy with the final product... to Brian.

Taking out the trim in the trunk was the hardest part imo and that is probably because I didn't have good light or the proper trim tools. Unfortunately, I broke off one of the 4 clips that hold the top of the rear trim piece in and put a hair line crack in another (see first picture). I was pulling in the right direction and at the right place but the plastic goes from very thick to very thin around these and they were stuck like crazy. The trim pieces on the sides came off easier and nothing broke when I popped them off. NOTE - I found that the order of removal for the rear trim pieces shown as a schematic in the provided instructions was a little off. Here's the order I took things out:
1) Removed all the trunk mats and loose pieces.
2) Popped out the 4 circle pins.
3) Remove the rear trim piece closest to the license plate (Caution with this one as this is the piece I broke a pin on).
4) Take out the center black styrofoam piece
5) Remove both side trim pieces (Note - you must pop out the black circle pins at the rear first, these circle pins were hidden by the rear trim piece before)
6) After the side trim pieces are out you can finally remove the long styrofoam piece under the strut brace.
....This was all I needed to remove in order to route the cables easily. So when looking at the instruction's schematic the order I removed things was actually: 1, 2, 5, 11, 9, 4, 7, 3.

My only other deviation from the instructions was in calibrating the guidelines at the very end. The value for the Rear Up/Dn Anlge was listed at 48.830001. This angle made the guidelines point way up in the air so I messed around with different values and found 77 to work pretty well (see attached pictures).

Hope you guys find these tweaks helpful and if you have questions let me know.

Attached Images

	PB200051.JPG (102.5 KB, 155 views)
	PB200044.JPG (78.5 KB, 170 views)
	PB200049.JPG (49.0 KB, 172 views)
	PB200043.JPG (53.3 KB, 157 views)

bdl99

Thanks N8GTOL

To explain the angle, on Jeff's car we mounted the camera slightly differently to you with the camera basically 90 degrees different with the double sided tape above (if that makes sense). The image below isn't the best but hopefully shows what I mean.

tsolin01

I mounted mine with the tape to the top next to the light as well. It hides it a little better but you can see a little bit of the bumper at the top of the image and also the license plate. i don't really mind that because my whole purpose is to make sure nothing touches the car and I get plenty of visibility already.

Either way you can't really go wrong with the mounting.

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N8GTOL

Yeah, I've thought about re-mounting it up the way you guys are describing in order to hide the lens a bit more, but I was worried that I wouldn't get enough longer range visibility. Mounting it up higher would force the camera to point more down and likely make the original angle supplied by Brian dead on.

I may remount it like you guys did and see how I like it...I would like the lens to be a bit more hidden so no one tries to mess with it.