Not one to do anything the easy way, I decided to pull the interior panels off rather than just stuff wires into the trim. I put the rear camera cable inside split wire loom, tie wrapping it to other loomed wiring in the car.
I thought I'd mention a couple of tricky parts and a cable length problem to save others some grief.
The rear camera cable will just make it if you route the cable as I did. I ran the cable from the rear hatch ceiling down to the floor and along door sills so that takes up some cable. The mistake I made was putting panels back as I went along. When getting to the driver door sill I realized I was about 6 inches short. Arrggh!
I ended up pulling off the panels I had just reinstalled then cutting some of my many tie wraps. Fortunately having the cable inside the split loom allowed it to slide. I pulled 6 inches of cable which is just about what I left extra at the rear hatch as you can see in this picture. The split loom is hanging out the same hole before I trimmed it and put the cable in it.
To the left is the rubber conduit for the hatch wiring. The top end is pulled out before I pushed it back in. I snaked the camera cable through this conduit and then over to the rectangular hole using a piece of stranded 12 gauge wire which was stiff to use as a snake. The conduit is not overly spacious as with the other wires going through it, the loom stops and just the wires go through. I used Dawn dishwashing liquid to lube the camera cable because the conduit is soft rubber and resists wires being pushed through it.
This is the finished product on the hatch. I put a rubber grommet around the cable where it exits the trim.
Below are some pictures of the trim pulled off. Most of it pulls off with little effort. The hatch trim above is put on with much stronger fasteners presumably so the trim won't come off with repeated slamming shut of the hatch. I actually called a friend in the auto glass business to ask about the force to take this trim off because I was afraid I'd break it. But it didn't break.
The left rear cargo area is shown here with the panels off. The thick wire loom in the middle is what I tie wrapped my camera cable loom onto (not done yet)
To be continued....
I thought I'd mention a couple of tricky parts and a cable length problem to save others some grief.
The rear camera cable will just make it if you route the cable as I did. I ran the cable from the rear hatch ceiling down to the floor and along door sills so that takes up some cable. The mistake I made was putting panels back as I went along. When getting to the driver door sill I realized I was about 6 inches short. Arrggh!
I ended up pulling off the panels I had just reinstalled then cutting some of my many tie wraps. Fortunately having the cable inside the split loom allowed it to slide. I pulled 6 inches of cable which is just about what I left extra at the rear hatch as you can see in this picture. The split loom is hanging out the same hole before I trimmed it and put the cable in it.
To the left is the rubber conduit for the hatch wiring. The top end is pulled out before I pushed it back in. I snaked the camera cable through this conduit and then over to the rectangular hole using a piece of stranded 12 gauge wire which was stiff to use as a snake. The conduit is not overly spacious as with the other wires going through it, the loom stops and just the wires go through. I used Dawn dishwashing liquid to lube the camera cable because the conduit is soft rubber and resists wires being pushed through it.
This is the finished product on the hatch. I put a rubber grommet around the cable where it exits the trim.
Below are some pictures of the trim pulled off. Most of it pulls off with little effort. The hatch trim above is put on with much stronger fasteners presumably so the trim won't come off with repeated slamming shut of the hatch. I actually called a friend in the auto glass business to ask about the force to take this trim off because I was afraid I'd break it. But it didn't break.
The left rear cargo area is shown here with the panels off. The thick wire loom in the middle is what I tie wrapped my camera cable loom onto (not done yet)
To be continued....