myoung84
Senior Member
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2010
- Posts
- 1,899
- Reaction score
- 319
- Location
- Tulsa, OK
- Ram Year
- 2012 Power Wagon
- Engine
- Hemi 5.7L
I decided to go ahead and tear apart my dash again last night and install my backup camera. While I was behind the dash I also put in my parking brake bypass so I can watch movies while driving. 
Anyways, the camera install was fairly simple. You have to take off the access cover on the back of the tailgate and remove the tailgate handle. On the left side of the handle on the back there is an outline of where the factory camera installs. I used this as a guide to drill a 1" hole with a hole saw. I then had to slightly enlarge the hole with a dremel and the camera fit perfect. At first I installed the camera flush with the handle but I could not see the hitch, which is a big reason for me getting the camera. It came with a couple of angled spacers, so I used the thin one to point the camera a little closer to the ground. I can now see the hitch, but just barely. I will be taking it apart later and modifying the spacer, but for now it will work.
It comes with about 17' of video cable, but that was about 15' too short for me. I had some shielded data cable cable laying around, so I got an extra 6' video cable, cut it in half, and made a longer cable, then used a female-female adapter to join the 2 cables. I will buy a longer cable to install when I put in my amp and sub here soon. I ran the video cable through the cab under the door sils to the under floor storage on the drivers side. If you pull back the carpet inside the storage cubby, there is a plastic grommet that you can drill out for your cable. Then just route it along side the frame to the tailgate. For the camera power I used the reverse output at the 7 pin trailer plug and grounded the ground wire on some nearby sheet metal.
Overall it turned out nice, but I still need to clean things up a little and do some adjusting. Here are a couple of pics. Sorry for the dirty truck.
Anyways, the camera install was fairly simple. You have to take off the access cover on the back of the tailgate and remove the tailgate handle. On the left side of the handle on the back there is an outline of where the factory camera installs. I used this as a guide to drill a 1" hole with a hole saw. I then had to slightly enlarge the hole with a dremel and the camera fit perfect. At first I installed the camera flush with the handle but I could not see the hitch, which is a big reason for me getting the camera. It came with a couple of angled spacers, so I used the thin one to point the camera a little closer to the ground. I can now see the hitch, but just barely. I will be taking it apart later and modifying the spacer, but for now it will work.
It comes with about 17' of video cable, but that was about 15' too short for me. I had some shielded data cable cable laying around, so I got an extra 6' video cable, cut it in half, and made a longer cable, then used a female-female adapter to join the 2 cables. I will buy a longer cable to install when I put in my amp and sub here soon. I ran the video cable through the cab under the door sils to the under floor storage on the drivers side. If you pull back the carpet inside the storage cubby, there is a plastic grommet that you can drill out for your cable. Then just route it along side the frame to the tailgate. For the camera power I used the reverse output at the 7 pin trailer plug and grounded the ground wire on some nearby sheet metal.
Overall it turned out nice, but I still need to clean things up a little and do some adjusting. Here are a couple of pics. Sorry for the dirty truck.
