“Will I be able to install a rear cam on my mini van lift gate window?”
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Hi There, you should be able to, however, as mentioned below, you will need to investigate and plan the best way to run the cables. You can use our Youtube tutorial videos as a reference.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.The quick answer is “yes” you can install it on your lift gate, but you’re going to have to spend some time investing and planning the route. I installed this bundle in my wife’s 2016 Tahoe and my 2020 XT5. I did the Tahoe first and it took me a while to figure out how to run the wire. When I did the XT5 it only took about an hour to do the rear camera. I marker the one XT5 photo with some numbers to help with the explanation. 1) Hopefully your minivan has a cable tube (bullet #1 in the photo) that carries wires etc. for the rear wiper. This is your path to get the wire safely into the lift gate. 2) You need to “pop out” both ends of of the cable tube. This will vary greatly. Some are just rubber grommets that will remove rather easy. Others could have plastic connectors that snap in. You need to slightly lift the rubber edge and locate the clips that make it “snap” into place. Normally you can use a small flat-head screwdriver to disengage the clips. There can be anywhere from 2 to 4 clips. 3) Once both ends of the cable tube are free, you then pull out the rubber trim seal (bullet #2) in the mid-section to give you some working room. This will give you access to the headliner. 4) Gently pull the headliner away from the roof (you may need to pull a little more of the rubber trim seal to give you more working room) so that you can see the hole that the cable tube was connected to. 5) Once you see the hole, you can fish the camera cable through the hole. 6) The next step is to fish the cable through the cable tube. With each step you will want to pull a little more of the cable through, giving yourself some slack to work with. Usually about a foot is good. 7) This part could be more challenging dependent upon the configuration of your van. On both the XT5 and Tahoe, the rear wiper is top mounted, so there is a big plastic shroud that covers it. This is somewhat flexible and easy to fish the wire through. However, if your wiper is mounted in the middle, at the bottom of the rear window. You will have more work to do. You may have to remove / pop-out some of the rear hatch covering in oder to allow you to fish the wire to the top edge of the rear window. I did not have to do this, so you’ll have to Google the instructions for your car. You don’t want to bread the clips that hold that panel in place. Otherwise you’ll have to replace them in order to snap the panel back in place. 8) Once you fish the wire to the top of your window, you’ll be all set to mount the camera per the vendor’s instructions. 9) With the camera mounted you can leave a little slack and then adjust / pull any access cable back through the path that you fished it. While doing this you can reassemble as you go. Snap both ends of the cable tube in place etc. 10) You can then go about routing the cable along the side edges of the headliner all the way to the camera in the front. My suggestion is that before you start running the wire that you connect it to the front camera and being tucking / fishing the wire from the front if the car to the back. There is a good chance that you will have extra cable that you can tuck in the headliner or beside the rear side window next to the hatch. 11) You can replace the rear rubber trim seal and you’re done. I would also suggest Googling “Installing at rear dash camera” and or installing a dash camera. Watch some of the resulting videos so that you have some ideas / understanding how to fish the wire to the rear camera so that you don’t cause issues with your side airbags. These video show you that you can simply pull away the rubber trim seals along the top edges of your doors, exposing access to the headliner (just like I explained for the back). This allows you to easily run the wire. I’m not going to lie, this will be a bit of a challenge and will take you several hours depending upon your car. So, don’t start unless you have all day to play. If you do some research as I suggested and watch some videos, it is “easily” doable. You just have to take your time and be patient. Good luck!
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