Peak Performance Products Backup Camera Review

Review of a Peak Performance Products Backup Camera

Today we are going to be installing the backup camera from Peak Performance Products, and it is model number PK015737. The first thing we are going to do is to find a suitable mounting point for the mounting bracket that holds the monitor. You can typically mount it to your windshield here, but you want to make sure you put it in a location where it is not going to interfere with your sight line while you are driving. I am actually going to put it down below here and from there we can just kind of mount the monitor onto the bracket, and that snaps into place. Go ahead and plug the power source into the camera. You can see there is a little port here right on the side that that will plug into. And then the other end has a standard 12 volt cigarette lighter plug. On this particular vehicle it has actually got two, a cigarette lighter and then we have a 12 volt power source. So we can go ahead and plug into there. I am going to go ahead and hide the wires a little bit, from the camera over to the power source. Okay, a suitable routing point for the wires would be down the threshold here, along the door frame. And I am going to just kind of hide the wires back up and behind there. Okay, with the wire pulled through over here, hidden beneath the dashboard over there, I am going to pull this panel portion away, and again that further hides the wire for me. Makes a cleaner appearance. Then we just want to go ahead and plug that into our 12 volt power source.

Okay, the next step is to come to the rear of the vehicle, where we are going to actually mount the camera. It actually mounts to the two bolts holding the license plate on, so we are obviously going to have to remove those to mount the camera into position. This wire is going to need to go to the inside of the vehicle, where it is going to merge up with this transmitter here. And then there is this other set of wires, as well, that go into this transmitter, that actually hook directly into your reverse lights, on your tail light assembly. One goes to the reverse light, and one goes to the ground. And that is what is going to activate your camera, once you put your vehicle into reverse. So this transmitter needs to be mounted somewhere on the back area of your cargo area of your vehicle, so we actually need to find a routing position for this wire, from the outside license plate position into the vehicle. Some vehicles may have a hole that you can kind of route it through. This particular one does not, so I think we probably will have to drill a hole right up under here somewhere and then route the wire through that way. In order to drill the hole for the wire for the camera, again, we want to make sure we find a good spot going through. And that is also going to include making sure there is nothing on the other side of where you are going to be drilling the hole, such as electrical components or any kind of a motor for your rear wiper. In order to drill in the area I was referring to, I am going to go ahead and take off this flanged piece here. And in order to ensure that there is nothing behind where I am going to be drilling, I am going to go ahead and pop off this back panel here to make sure everything is out of the way. As you can see with the paneling off here, there is definitely a lot of stuff here that we could potentially drill into if we are not careful. So I want to pick a location close to the license plate right here, right to the inside of where the wiper motor is. So I think we are going to drill right into this area over here. As you see, I have got the hole drilled now, and I kind of deferred from where I was going to drill originally, which was over here, because there was just not enough room and it was going to be a little more visible than I would like. So, going back up into here it is pretty well hidden.

The next step is to just go ahead and route the plug through. And the hole size that I decided on was 7/16, which appears to be just about the right diameter to get that plug through. With the excess wire pulled through, we will shut this back down. We are going to go ahead and mount the camera now. Actually before I mount the camera here I am going to install this threshold piece back into place because I do not think I am going to be able to get it back up there once the camera is mounted. We want to make sure when we put this back on that the wire is not in any position where it can be pinched. Seems to be pretty good right there. You can see that the hole that I drilled is pretty well covered from the elements on the outside. If yours is not, then you definitely want to use silicone to fill that hole, which I am actually going to do from the inside of the vehicle, as well. The silicone will keep the elements out and keep any kind of fumes from entering the inside of your vehicle. Now we are going to go ahead and mount the camera to the license plate. Okay, we will go ahead and mount the camera into position now. We will go ahead and align our license plate with the holes. The installation kit comes with shims that will allow you to mount the camera either downward or upward, depending on how you put the shim in there. But we are going to go ahead and mount it so it angles down. And you can see I have got the camera mounted into place now, and the manufacturer actually calls for you to use two shims - one on the inboard side of the camera and one on the outside, as well, which kind of fills in the gap that the screw will have in it. The particular screws that I had were not long enough for both shims to be put in place, so we went ahead and omitted the one on the outside. With the wire routed through the hole we drilled, we just need to find a good location to route the wire down into the opening that we have over here. I am going to actually run it right along this existing wire behind this piece of threshold, down inside the panel over here. Some of the zip ties that were provided with the kit to hold the wire into place for you. I am just going to wrap the wire inside of there, and I am going to make sure that the wire does not have any pinch points that would make a fire. I have to grind out a little spot in the metal so that the wire can sit kind of flush. Okay, now that I have ground, you can kind of see why I grounded down. Trying to route the wire through here before, you are coming up against a pinch point with the metal. With this little spot grounded now it actually works as a little channel for the wire to sit in. And I can kind of put the trimming back in, and that will kind of keep it from getting pinched.

Okay, now that we have got the camera mounted, we are going to go back inside the trunk area to mount our transmitter. And again, the wire that was coming out of the back of the camera is going to go into the side of the transmitter here as well as this secondary cord that was in the kit, that needs to be wired directly into the reverse lights and the ground as well. I think a suitable position to mount the transmitter will be right in this area over here and so for that to be done I am going to go ahead and have to route the wire from the camera over there as well as find an opening to get behind the tail light so that I can mount the reverse light as well. But first I am going to take off the threshold piece here that is going to allow me to pop this panel back so that we can access the wires behind the tail light. With the panel pulled away, we will go ahead and remove the tail light so we can access the wires back there. And again, in order to mount the transmitter inside of here we are going to have to have a small hole drilled so that the wires can come through. So if I am lucky the facing of this chamber here will come apart. And then I am going to go ahead and drill a small hole a 7/16 diameter should be just about right. Now that we have got the camera wire mounted we are going to go ahead and connect the reverse light feed that is going to go into the transmitter. And you can see where I previously removed the tail light assembly. We just need to probe the wires to find out which one is going into the reverse lead. I have currently got the vehicle in reverse, with the emergency brake on, so that we can go ahead and probe the wire and find out which one is active with the reverse lights on. Okay, so it looks like we found our reverse wire. And now we want to go ahead and hook in our reverse lead into that wire there. And we are going to use the Scotch locks that are provided in the installation kit. And the red wire is the one we want to hook into the reverse lead. The black wire we are actually going to tap into the ground wire that is feeding that light as well. Typically, that wire is going to be black on most vehicles. With those connections made, we want to go ahead and route the wire to the grommet here. It is going to lead into the area where we are mounting our transmitter. And I have slipped a little bit of the grommeting open so that we can route the wire right into there. Make sure those are nice and secure.

With our connections made, we are going to go ahead and put the tail light assembly back on. This is the wire going to the transmitter that I had pulled through the fire wall over here, behind the tail light. Now we want to route it through the hole that I had drilled earlier. So now we have got both wires inside of our pocket here. Now I am going to go ahead and put the interior back together. At this point we are going to mount the transmitter somewhere inside of here. Typically, you have notches here where you can run the zip ties through that they provided with the kit, but you can see there is nowhere really to zip tie to in here, so I am going to go ahead and use Velcro and just Velcro it to the inside of the wall. And then we just want to plug the wires into the side of the transmitter here. And then kind of funnel the excess wire back out through the hole that we drilled previously. Then I can slot the panel back on, the front cover here. And then all we have to do is to reassemble the interior of the vehicle and then test the unit to make sure it is working okay. So, to give it a test run, we are going to put the vehicle in reverse and there you go, she is working just fine. And then again, once we kick it out of reverse, the camera automatically shuts off for you. And this concludes the installation of backup camera, part number PK015737.

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