keeping wires tidy and other Kenwood Q's

My Kenwood 7120 head unit, backup cam, and Ipod interface arrived today but it looks like the actual Toyota wiring harness will not arrive until possibly Monday. So I went about using my day off as productively as possible, which pretty much used up the entire day.

I first mounted my Boyo 350 backup cam. Crappy instructions. Wait, no instructions. Exactly what am I supposed to do with the two stripped wires on the HU side? One's for power and the other's a ground, but where am I connection them?

I have an ARE topper with electric locks synced to the trucks key fob so I already had split loom running from the cab to the rear. I couldn't believe it took me the better part of an hour to snake another cable through the loom. I had to tear apart the dash to route the cable, which prompted me to start another project. I pulled the driver's seat and the entire center counsol. One because I needed to route the Ipod cable into the center storage compartment, but also because I'm replacing the stock inverter with an 800 watt unit. I ran 4 guage through the firewall and to the battery, with a fuse mounted to the side of the engine compartment. I wasn't ready to hookup the invertor so I coiled the wire and left it hidden in the center counsol.

I also want to run a USB cable into the center counsol, but cannot decide between having a pig-tail of a cable like I have for the Ipod, or cutting in a female terminal. I didn't have a USB extension cable or a spare USB hub, so I couldn't finish this project.

What I did mess around with is mounting the GPS mouse under the dash and connecting various harnesses to the back of the HU.

What a mess all those cables are. Does anyone have any tips on keeping them organized behind the HU? I just kept poking them further into the cavity until I could get the bolts started. I need to find room for a USB hub in there, plus have enough slack in the line to be able to install everything. As it is, the Hazard/clock harness barely reached when I reinstalled it.

Another question about the backup camera, can I use it while travelling? All I know is that it will automatically activate when I put my truck into reverse, but being a manual, a lot of may backing up happens in nuetral. It appears that if I hold down the NAV button for 1 sec, that it turns on, but on all the forums I've read, no one has mentioned this. The Kenwood owners manual is a little short on useful information too.

I'm without tunes until that harness comes, but I'm still tinkering. I'd appreciate any tips anyone can offer on mounting or using a Kenwood. BTW, I am using the Metra dash kit.

 

While I went with the Eclipse AVN 6620 in my truck I had the same question about my rear camera when driving and as it turns out from the settings menu if I touch the button for the camera it turns on (and stays on till I select a different function). While this isnt very useful the kids get a kick out of it.

I think you will be pleased with the metra dash kit. I tried both the metra and scosche kits and not only do I like the look of the metra better, but the scosche caused me some rattling with the weight of the nav type deck (metra uses the metal factory mounts to attach your deck instead of the plastic ones in the scosche kit).

I wish I had an answer for what to do with the wires but I just ended up shoving and craming them deeper until i had a nice fit.