E53 Rear Camera Shortcut Mounting

[semcoinc]

Today I installed my rear camera in anticipation of receiving my Eonon GA6166 head unit tomorrow. Forgive me if this approach has been done before, I'll just share my current take on how I went about it.

I've seen lots of amazingly good work by folks here and elsewhere on installing their rear cameras and give props to them for their efforts. Many of these approaches involve mounting the camera in the rear lift gate, and that's, IMHO, an optimum position for them, however, I wanted a simpler approach that would avoid me having to pull all the inner trim off and run the cables down to the floor near the spare tire from nearly the highest point of the vehicle.

This is the camera I selected. Part of my selection criteria was having the trigger wire running within the video cable so only one cable needs to be pulled up to the HU where you can make the video and trigger connection.



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This is my end result, incorporating the camera alongside my retrofitted OE trailer connector & harness:





This location allowed me to come into the rear floor pan in through the tailgate wiring boot, which I liked for ease of access and the perfect location for me to make my connections in the spare tire area. This also puts me right smack in the area of where the reverse bulb wiring is located, so as to make that connection tap easier.







A slight razor blade cut in the side of the boot just big enough to allow a push of the connectors through was all I needed. I feel the boot seal around the wire is adequate enough for my needs.

Here below is the camera wire going through the side of the boot



Here are the camera wires coming inside the body just behind the spare



Pulling the video cable through to mate up with the camera





Connections to camera made and hidden behind the factory wiring cover



Granted, this is not as clean an install as some of the amazing work done by others, but it will work for my needs and is low enough to be subtle to my eyes.

This is the left side reverse light bulb wiring so when I dive into the wire bundle I can tap into the correct reverse positive trigger wire



This is the right side reverse light bulb wiring, it has a different colored positive wire with stripe. I've been told that in BMW wiring, brown is ground.



I'll figure out which one I can find in the wiring bundle when I tear into that tomorrow.

I'll adjust the angle of the camera after I am able to view the image on the Eonon screen.

I've wanted a video TPMS system for a while (don't have one in my E46 w/Eonon GM5150) and with this install I'm going with this external sensor TPMS system and will incorporate it into my HU and camera install.



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Mike