TMW597

My installers are going to take care of it, I'm not doing it myself. I'm told that is a "punch out" where the camera goes. I too have the camera and yes it doesn't have a bracket. Not sure what it looks like in there, but my guys will just fabricate something and weather seal it when they put it in. Again, I don't believe that you have to order a special piece for that.

tj

Thanks for the info TMW597.

All the parts add up to about $530. Then you have the 1 hour of labor to reprogram the NAV radio to display the camera. That's about $600 total to add a part that would have been a $225 option if ordered from the factory when the car was built.

Does anyone else see the problem here? And, yet some people still wonder why GM, FORD, & CHYSLER are hurting.

I saw on a previous thread that the first round of 3LT's had the wiring harnesses installed but the mid-cycle and later 3LT's did not. Of course I'm in the latter group. Oh, well. For that amount of money, I think I'll try one of the $150 units on ebay that incluce a small monitor before laying out $600. Just another example of how the decision makers at GM screwed up. They should have charged a couple of hundred more for the 3LT and included the wiring harnesses. I wouldn't have known the difference.

I also find it hard to believe that the discount parts houses are charging a couple of hundred per harness. Rediculous.[]

biglg

tj,

Its easier than your thinking. Just buy a kenwood camera, i believe it is ccd-900. They go for around 115 on ebay. then get a harness from jpcustoms for $25 and your done.

TMW597

Yep! "That's about $600 total to add a part that would have been a $225 option if ordered from the factory when the car was built." And keep in mind it's a lot more than $225 because you have to have the Navigation option first, which is over $2000.

I know in my case though, the money isn't really a big deal. I just want everything on the truck to be "factory", personal preference.

tj

This would be cool.

So will the camera just come on my NAV/RADIO display when I put the car in reverse? I was under the impression that the module piece provided power to the camera as well as reversed the image so things would be on the correct side of the screen when viewing. Does the ccd-900 flip the image for you and will it come on from the reverse lights?

I'm guessing you still need to have the NAV/RADIO programmed to display this as well. Am I right?

biglg

TJ,
Yes it will function just like the factory camera. It will come on the screen when you put the vehicle in reverse. All you need is the adapter from jpcustoms, then your camera plugs into the adapter they give you. This is new technology for the 2007 units, the previous units were not compatible with aftermarket cameras.

I personally dont know much about the Kenwood Camera, just seems to be highly recommended. I havent made this upgrade yet, however I will soon. Call JPcustoms, they are very informative people and will direct you in the right path.

You will have to have dealership tech 2 the addition of the camera so it comes on when the vehicle is in reverse. Good Luck.

nilsm

If you're talking about the factory camera, you'll need to cut the applique for the backup camera. It's not a punch out. Not even close. also you won't need to weather seal the camera as the applique is not sealed in anyway shape or form.

I bought an oem camera to work with my kenwood stereo. my buddies didn't/couldn't get it to work so I ended up buying the kenwood camera wasting all the cash on the factory. But, the kenwood camera actually looks better installed in the applique than the factory. You can barely see it. Cut a square away where the factory camera goes just big enough for the kenwood camera. It looks nice that way.

biglg

nilsm,
Do you still have your factory OEM camera? If you want to sell it email or PM me a price. Thanks.

TMW597

That is correct, the OEM camera does not come with any type of bracket. In doing all of my research on this, I found that unless I'm the actual person behind the computer screen in a GM parts department, no one is going to take the actual time to find these parts for you or me. (Or unless you're friends with someone in the parts department.) At any rate trying to track down the actual wiring harnesses was the biggest pain. I pretty much got the definitive last week when I found out that GM has a part number for one of the harnesses, though they're not actually selling them yet as "spare" parts. Really the only way to get it is to go strip it off of a brand new 07' that has the back-up camera installed on it.

Now back to your bracket, or lack of. What we did to install the OEM back-up camera was cut a little hole in the area for it, made sure it fit nice and snug, then we used this bonding gel to secure it, and to weather it in. It was that simple. If any of the bonding gel squeezed out while securing it, we took a little Q-tip to smooth it out along the edges, or you can wait for it to dry and shave off the excess with a straight edge. (I chose to do the latter because I wanted to make sure that there was a excellent seal. I'll trim off the excess next time I detail the truck.)

So now you're probably thinkin', "Well what about the camera module?" The camera module is now sitting in a box, in my closet. My hypothesis has been (and I think it's been confirmed on this forum) that the only thing the camera module underneath the passenger seat does is convert the 12 volt DC that runs throughout the vehicle, down to 6 volt DC to run the camera. So what we did to get around this was to pick up from Radio Shack a 12 volt to 6 volt power adapter, or DC power regulator if you will. (This is it: 6-Volt Vehicle DC-to-DC Adapter $18.99 I then took a 12 volt power port (cigarette lighter) splitter and cut one of the female leads off, and plugged them both together. So now we had an inline solution to replace the camera module. Total cost, less than $25, and it was much better than trying to figure out how much resistance is needed, ohm=X and blah, blah, blah. Everything we needed was all wrapped up in this adaptor.

As you may or may not know the OEM back-up camera comes wired in the "mirror image", so you don't have to worry about flipping the picture or anything there. There are 4 wires that come off of the camera. We cut the plug off of it. Red and black are for the power (red +/black -), so we wired that right to our little adapter, and the other 2 are for the video. From the top of the tailgate we rand the wires into the back headliner with the bundle of all of the other wires, and then down the pillar in the corner on the driver side. We then ran the four wires all the way to the front of the truck, behind the head-unit. Now at this point since I have a GMLockPick 2 (fully automatic) this step was super easy. I put a male plug on the video from the camera and plugged it right into the back-up camera video plug that comes with the GMLockPick 2, and I actually wired the camera's power off of the 12 volt accessory wire that they have on the GMLockPick 2.

I have to tell you the turning point for me with all of this was when I read ZX1100F1's post HERE on the configuration of all of the pins in the harnesses. I suggest everyone that cares about this stuff read that post and a lot of things should start to make sense to you. It also made me see why electronic savvy people out there make products like the GMLockPick.

Sorry I got off of the subject. So what it comes down to for those that want the OEM camera install, it's going to take a couple of work around parts, and steps, but it will work! Ha, ha. I see my camera now every time I put it in reverse and it's great. I can't wait to hitch up my 29' travel trailer for the first time with it. I have to solo hitch every single time, and with the back up camera it should be a breeze compared to how I do it now. When I had my 03' Expedition, at least I could fold down the 3rd row seats and sit real high in the driver seat ,and look back at the hitch while backing up. I actually had "eyes" on the hitch. The Yukon XL is longer so I can't even do that. I just back up a few inches, get out and go look, back up a few more inches, get out and go look. Back and forth... So again it should be much easier.

In summary how I installed the OEM camera:

OEM camera, mount it in the spot above the license plate by cutting a hole and using adhesive/weather sealant. Cut the plug off the camera and wire up 4 leads. Drill your own holes in the top of the tailgate (You can try to use the existing path that houses all of the tailgate wires for the lights and stuff, but it may be difficult to find space. Probably easier to drill your own.) for you wires and run them all the way to the front of the truck via the driver side paneling, under the seats, door panels, etc. Once it's behind the head unit, wire in the inline "Radio Shack solution" for the power, you'll have to tap into 12 volts somewhere though. And then on harness/plug C-4 use pins six and seven [6 PK 6972 Camera Signal #2 + (UVC) and 7 L-BU 6973 Camera Signal #2 (UVC)] to wire up your video.

The truck is all buttoned up so I can't send you all of the pictures but here are a few. (My truck is super dirty! Gotta' get that detail this week, after it stops raining off and on.)


[IMG]local://upfiles/5036/6702C3B9D4634F72BAB75DDF7AB7F81D.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/5036/BF6A51ED35724ED29773E1D6E2133F29.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/5036/D6F1EB91C30045E6BDFD04C55591DC28.jpg[/IMG]

tj

Awesome news, TMW597. Glad you got it working.

So, with the Lockpick, was it still necessary to cut into pins 6 & 7 on connector C4 or does the Lockpick feed the video in for you? I gathered that you could just connect the camera to 6 & 7 and have a dealer enable the backup camera and it will work. I assume the Lockpick negates the need to have the NAV radio reprogrammed by the dealer, right?