DIY: OEM tailgate camera in pre '09 taco. LOTS OF PICS

I’ve wanted to do this mod for a while now because it’ll help hitching up my trailer. Trying to get this done with my GF spotting me, “Left, Right, More, Oops, etc.” got pretty irritating (me: “Which left? More? Am I right on top of it?”)
So I finally found a good deal on an OEM tailgate camera and harness back in January from TW member TiMe (thanks again Tim!).




The actual camera/monitor set up is I believe 4 total pieces. The tailgate camera, the harness that goes to the camera, the Gentex mirror/monitor, and a harness that goes from the mirror/monitor to the harness that comes from the tailgate camera.

I tried looking around for the Gentex rear view mirror with the monitor (and harness), but couldn’t get one for a decent price (what can I say, I like looking for deals). So after thinking about it a lot, I decided to just get a flip down monitor instead. This is where I got lucky. My GF’s dad had one in his Dodge that he never uses anymore and so I scored it off him for free and he helped me with the entire install.

I was searching all over for a thread on this DIY, and actually found quite a few, but none of them had all the info I needed in ONE thread. So here is a thread that will hopefully help others trying to do this mod.

So now for the install… (please excuse the crappy cell phone camera quality)

First I took off the tailgate and proceeded to take off all of the bolts (remember to put the tailgate on a soft surface. I put it in my bed with towels underneath). The top plastic piece of the tailgate holds down the main cover. After taking off all of the screws, lift the top plastic piece and remove the main plastic piece. Leave the top piece on, it’s a PITA to take it off.


Here’s a shot of the tailgate handle without the camera and the one with the camera underneath. You’ll see that swapping this out is fairly easy.


You should probably Loc-Tite the screws to be on the safe side.


Next you’ll take off the pieces that open the tailgate when you turn the handle. Use some pliers to rotate the little plastic pieces that hold the rods, remove the rods and then remove the tailgate handle. Remove the little plastic tabs from the old handle, and put them on the new handle.


Put in the new rods, and tighten it down by rotating the plastic pieces back in.


Now the fun part. Time to start cutting open your tailgate. I didn’t have an ‘09+ tailgate to look at while doing this, so it’s really up to you where you want to cut open the tailgate. You really can’t go wrong here, its up to you. The little brackets on the harness are removeable too, so you can adjust this to your liking. Trace the bracket (from harness) onto the tailgate.


And then use anything and everything you can to cut it to your drawing. We used a combination of a drills, files, grinders, dremel, etc)






Remember to cut small and keep test fitting the bracket. Better to go slow, than to make a bigger hole than you need and not being able to clip in the bracket. (You can kind of see in this picture where the hole is in my tailgate.)


Next I traced the bigger hole onto a piece of paper, you’ll need it to cut the same exact hole onto your truck bed for the other bracket on the harness (same size).


Then, you’ll cut two more small holes along side of the tailgate to fit the smaller brackets on the harness. I then painted the inside of the cuts to prevent any rusting (tip: using a q-tip works great as a paintbrush!).


Transfer the image to our truck bed and cut away. NOTE: This section of the truck bed is A LOT harder to drill/cut into than your tailgate.


Complete (ended up switching the direction of the hole). Paint the inside of this hole also.


Installed. View from above. Very discreet.


Now since I didn’t have the harness that plugs into this harness (and that goes to the mirror), we cut it off and used a molex connector instead. NOTE: Contrary to the wire colors that most electricians are used to, this is what each wire is for:

1 CV- (White) Camera Video Negative
2 CV+ (Red) Camera Video Positive
3 CGND (Blue) Camera GND (Shield)
4 CB+ (Black) Camera Power


Now the camera requires 6v , which comes directly from the Gentex mirror/monitor via the harness that I don’t have. But if you’re like me and don’t have the monitor, let alone harness that goes there, it’s perfectly fine to use 12v (other members have also done this and having no problems). I tapped into the passenger reverse light, that way the camera will only be powered on by going into reverse.


From the camera harness, you’ll want the negative wire to tap into the reverse bulb’s white wire with the black stripe, and the positive wire to tap into the reverse bulb’s red wire (Don't pay attention to my wire colors, I used Cat 5 wire from the other end of the molex connector)


Here’s a shot of the molex connector from underneath the truck.


The other 2 wires (WHITE and RED) from the molex connector go to your monitor. I ran them under the bed, into one of the grommets that go into the cab, then along the rocker panel (I used Cat 5 cable here also).


Then up the pillar. To take off the pillar, remove the little tabs on the oh-shit handles and you’ll see 2 screws. Unscrew them and the handle comes off. Then the pillar is just a snap off. (You can also see a ninja pic of TW member w3tw0rks haha!)


Move the wire along the headliner. I just followed the wires that Toyota used to run the temp/compass harnesses. You can’t see it from this picture, but the the two wires from the camera are now wired to an RCA plug. My flip down monitor has a video RCA in, as most head units with screens do as well. So if you’re going to use a flip down monitor like me, or an aftermarket HU, the install would be the same.





I removed the temp/compass unit to mount the flip down monitor to the sunglass holder.




Installed the temp/compass unit back to the headliner. I wired the monitor separately using another molex connector. It’s connected straight to my blue sea aux fuse panel so that I can turn it on at anytime (reason explained later).


And finished! Good thing about this flip down is that it can rotate horizontally toward me.




Now, this is only PART ONE of my install. Here is a preview of PART TWO


I’m going to wire it so that I’ll be able to watch movies from my iPod as well as the reverse camera using a video switchbox. And I’ll use the RCA board to make for a clean install. You’ll notice that the RCA board has 4 RCA holes. 3 will be for the video in to the monitor (and audio to the stock HU using the ipod2car adapter), and the 4th will be a video out for my portable TV. Might as well try to entertain everyone in the truck, right?

Some of you guys may be wondering, "Why go through all this? Just get an aftermarket HU with a screen" Let's just say...


http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/84738-hu-stolen-rant.html

I'd rather that not happen again.

I hope this thread provides a lot of help to other members attempting to do the same to their pre ’09 taco. Stay tuned for PART TWO!

PART 2 pics below on post #11

 

very nice, but im not a huge fan of the monitor. sure is a lot easier to see than the little one in the mirror though, good job

 

Nice job. Would this be plug and play on a 2010 double-cab? I want to do this on mine.

 

I think all of the 09+ models are wired for it already? I'm not too sure

 

Great job. Most anyone should be able to follow this write up! Be cautious with that red loc-tite. That stuff dries really stiff. Blue would have been better if there's a chance you want to take it out of the tail gate again! You only need a drop on the threads to hold it tight.

 

I have a 09 PreRunner and it's prewired for the camera. I'd expect anything 09+ will be prewired.

 

nice. I need to do this to my truck.

 

Subbed. Nice write up!

 

nice write up. +1 for you sir

 

Thanks!

I finished part 2 of this install, but I haven't taken any pics yet. Maybe I'll get to it this long weekend

 

I finally got around for pics of PART 2:

Here's the switchbox mounted upside down (you can also see where I went dremmel-happy and where my pen leaked)


The RCA input/output plate (the black is the video out)


The audio in amplifier


The monitor


The second monitor coming from the video output

 

This is sweet! I would like to do this some day. I have seen complete sets for sale using car-part.com for around $500 which includes the rear view mirror that has the screen and mic. Some day I will do this... +1 for taking lots of pictures!

 

nice pics and directions, I'm just wondering what other steps/harnesses you need if you go with the OEM Mirror/Monitor also?

 

The OEM mirror/monitor comes with a harness, that just goes directly to the harness that connects to the camera.

If you look at this harness



The black end goes to the back of the camera, and the white end goes to the harness that goes to the mirror/monitor.

In my case, I cut that white end off and used my own molex connector because I was too cheap to buy the mirror/monitor and came up on the flip down monitor for free

 

MJ, thanks for the great pictures. I just installed my tailgate camera following your instructions and pictures. The only thing I did different is I ran my wrining harness on the inside of the tailgate instead of on the outside like yours.

 

excellent! glad you found it useful

 

Here is how I ran my wiring harness inside the tailgate. Just another twist on they way you ran yours.

 

OP, I had a couple of questions. More for curiosity than anything else. You made sure to use weatherproof CAT5 for protection I am sure, but why use snap-locks to get power and ground from your reverse lights which are not weather tight, and why use a unsealed molex connector under the rear of the bed? All of that allows moisture in. I am just curious if you left it like that, or sealed it up later and just didn't mention it.

the other question is just pure curiosity, in the last photo of your first post I see what appears to be a lot of broken window glass on the passenger's seat. Was there a whoops during installation?

 

Yeah I haven't touched anything since the install, so I still have the same molex connectors and snap locks. Very true about the moisture, but I guess it hasn't really been a problem. And yes, I've tested it. Everything submerged in water here:



And believe it or not, the only thing that has crapped out on me was the free monitor! I just picked up a rear view mirror with the lcd display from ebay. It's not the Gentex OEM one, but its very comparable and it was only $145 shipped (compared to the Gentex ones that are twice as much). It even fits on the very same way, and better yet, it has TWO video RCA inputs, so I'll be going away with the AV switchbox and just wiring 2 RCAs to the mirror. I just got it in yesterday, so pictures to come!

Oh and about the broken glass, I posted that picture because that is the reason why I didn't upgrade the HU to one with a display. Because I had one at one point, and it got ripped off. So now I just want everythin inside to look OEM. Thieves are an issue where I live and work

 

ebay mirror:





http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rearview-mi...&fits=Make:Toyota&hash=item2a1e4003d2&vxp=mtr