Back when I was at C.City, I bought a display Pioneer Avic Z1 in dash double din that had zero parts with it… but I got it for dirt cheap. So for the wifey’s christmas present this year I bought all of the parts for it including the bluetooth adapter, back up camera, and an upgraded Z3 hard drive to bring it 100% up to date. And today I actually had some time to put it all in… so the fun began…
I started off with the back-up camera since that involved the longest run of wiring and probably the most work out of everything. So I pulled down the plastic trim piece on the hatch.
Then I worked on figuring out where to run the wire for the camera. There were no exposed grommets or factory holes to run it through, and I didn’t feel like drilling so it was time to go hunting. Knowing that the plastic release handle cover had to have wiring coming through for the plate light and window release, I decided to remove that whole piece.
Success!!! Found a good grommet to run the camera wire into the cab.
Routed the camera video wire as well as some speaker wire for the power/ground along the hatch and through the 3rd brake light access hole. Then fed the wires through the factory hatch boot to keep everything well hidden.
Then had to pull every pillar panel off (A,B,C,and D) to route the video and power wires along the top of the pillars just behind the headliner and then down the A pillar and through the dash to the radio “hole”.
Wired up the harness using an XSVI harness which produced the required reverse signal wire and speed sense wire through the data connection. Made the install a little bit easier. Wired everything up and connected the harness. Also ran the GPS antenna from just above the windshield on the driver side, in through the door jam, through the dash, and behind the radio.
Ran the microphone to pretty much the only place I could find to hold it at the right angle and still be in a good location to pick up the driver’s voice well and not get too much interference from wind, heater vents, etc.
Got everything all connected up, installed the new HDD, and put it all back together. Wasn’t the hardest install ever, but wasn’t the easiest either. All of the panels were still virgins so they fought me every step of the way… nothing wanted to come apart. But in the end it came out nice and works great!
