Well several months have passed without me having the time to look at doing this, so last night I rigged it up to a power supply to test that it worked. I plugged in a little 7" monitor I had kicking around and, although the camera resolution isn't great, the image was easily viewable on it.
I had already wired in the rear camera at the same time as my rear dashcam so first up were the side cameras. First job was to take the door card off and then the dreaded mirror covers, going very carefully and managed not to break any of the clips! I had decided I was going to mount the cameras in the fixed base of the door mirrors so that I could still use it whe the mirrors were folded up, but when I got the mirror mount off the door I found that there wasn't enough room for it. I wouldn't have been able to get to the other side to tighten the camera either unless I drilled off all the plastic "spot welds" holding it on to the metal plate.
So I drilled a hole and mounted in the underside of the mirror trim, in the place I thought it would get the widest coverage of the area I needed.
So now to just put the covers back on - and this is where it all started to go wrong. The lower cover was easy enough to get back into place, just a matter of lining up and putting the two mounting screws back in. The upper one was a bit of a pig, but I managed to get it back on with only one clip broken, but when I came to push the mirror glass back on I realised I'd let the heater connection wire get behind where I couldn't retrieve it and had to take the top cover off again - breaking a 2nd clip. Then putting the cover back on broke the 3rd top clip
There was nothing left to hold it on by now so I had to glue it on until I get it sorted. Then I did up the 3 screws holding the mirror mounting to the door - only to realise I'd forgotten to put the rubber gasket in, so it had to come off again. Anyway, drivers door finished and it looks like this
So on to the passenger door, and it occurred to me that I might be able to do it without taking the mirror mount off the door, and hence not have to remove the door card.
With the covers off (one clip broken) and the door cable shroud (or whatever it's called) unclipped from the door, I managed to fish the wire through from the mirror and out of the door, and then through into the cab, much quicker.
I really struggled to line the covers up this time for some reason and it took me a while, but I managed to get them on without breaking any more clips, so the passenger side now looks like this
Bit of experimentation next, I can rip a T5 dash to bits in minutes but the T6 is new territory so I went carefully with removing the glovebox and radio trim so I could route the various cables, including one up to the dash top lidded cubby to put the monitor temporarily. In the end was easier than I thought and quite logical
So now to plug in and test it so far (not mounting the front camera today, still haven't quite decided where it's going, and I'll probably do my amp cable at the same time so I can get both under bonnet jobs done in one day). This is the little box of tricks that does the magic. I'll mount it somewhere behind the dash eventually, but for now it's going to be velcroed into the passenger footwell where I can get at it easily
So now the test, what will it actually look like in the car?
Like this, that's what
Well b&gger this, I've had enough for today and I'm starving, troubleshooting can wait for another day.
To be continued...
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