Well folks, you know that I had bought that camera off eBay that is advertized as one for E53... The back of the camera is too fat and will not fit into the opening of the license plate light, as the light assembly has only the lid that comes off, and not a "box" with the light bulb, like in E39 or the others... I let the eBay seller know but they continue selling that camera to E53 drivers as evidenced by the number of people who are trying to use it.
I have decided that it is better to modify/break a $20 chinese camera off ebay to suit the car than to modify a $150 piece of $75K German car to suit the cheap camera.
I have taken a utility knife and gently cut out the cover of the camera to open it up... There are two screws that need to come off - on mine, they broke off the base but it did not affect the usability of the camera.
also, please note that the dimensions of the OE cover and the camera housing are different, the camera housing is slightly wider and shorter than the OE cover.
since the camera cable will not fit through the opening of the OE plug, I cut the cable - now it will fit with no questions.
the camera will fit into the opening with a slight push - the inner side of the trunk handle is more plyable than the outer, body colored shiny part - you can see how the inner part is buldging... But since the camera housing is shorter, it leaves the opening holes wide open to the elements - hence I got the liquid rubber in hopes to insulate the holes and cover up the open circuit board of the camera, and also I used the rubber to attach the LED for the license plate... at one point I was thinking about keeping the original light bulb inside and get whatever light will get through the little window but I think that the heat generated by incandecsent light bulb will be to much for the camera to tolerate...
Here are the pictures - i don't really know how to stick the text in between the pics... one day I will learn...
Since I can stick only 12 pics at a time - check the following post for more...