carcollector
Active Member
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2007
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- 211
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- Location
- Adelaide
- Members Ride
- WM Caprice, VZ SS Crewman, ZB Calais V,VE CalaisV
Hi all, I thought I'd post some detail about my experience in recently fitting a dash cam to our ZB Calais V.
To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to it with such a new car, but several interactions with crazy drivers on the road convinced me to fit one in our new car. We've had one fitted in our previous cars for many years and they are very useful.
I fitted a Kapture KPT-1240 with an optional rear vision camera. The car already has a rear view camera for reversing, but I wanted a dash cam to record any incidents from behind, after a recent car park bingle with our other car where another car backed into us while we were in our car park. If we hadn't had a dash cam fitted, we could not have proved that we were stationary and he hit us, which would have cost us $500 in excess.
Anyway, back to the ZB fitment. I fitted the dash cam to the passenger side of the windscreen, just to the left of the rear view mirror with enough cearance betwen it and the forward facing camera pod so that they didn't interfere with each other. The power cable for these dash cams is the traditional cigarette lighter plug cable (with a USB plug in teh back of them), which I fitted into the power receptacle in the front of the console. Ther is a small gap just above this plug where the cable can be fed forward through the console, allowing the console lid to be closed fully, then across to the right under the steering column all the way to the driver's door where it can be fitted in behind the rubber seal running up the A pillar to the roof lining. there is plenty of room for the cable to run across the top of the windscreen behind the roof lining up to the rear view mirror and forward facing camera pod. There is just enough room between the windscreen glass and the pod to push the cable in behind the pod, and then up to the dash cam. All neat and hidden, and easier than I thought.
For the rear camera, that was a bit more tricky. The cable for the rear camera plugs into the top of the dashcam. I fed this wire across the top of the windscreen tucked in behind the roof lining and back to the rear of the car inside the upper rubber door seals, but tucking it in behind the B pillar trim between the doors. Our ZB is a hatch/sedan, so at the C pillar, the cable went from the rear door seal straight back to the hatch area in behind where the C pillar trim meets the roof lining trim. From there, it follows in behind the hatch rubber seal all the way down to the carpet area of the boot. I didn't want to drill any holes in the metalwork of the car, so I removed the plastic trim over the hatch latch and fed the wire to the passenger side so it exited near the battery. From there, you can just access the pressure equalisation vent to the left and below the battery and feed the wire through the last partition in the vent. This gets it from the passenger cabin area of the car to the outside of the body shell without drilling through any metal. This is a tricky bit to get done. If you are not fussed by drilling a few holes in the metalwork you can make it much easier by drilling through the metalwork near the boot/hatch latch. I removed the passenger side tail light, and fed the wire up around the base of the tail light gap and into the rear bumper cavity (looking towards the front of the car, at the extreme bottom right of the tail light cavity). I removed the passenger side number plate light fitting and used a stiff piece of wire to feed the wire through to this hole. I mounted the new rear view camera just to the passenger side of the OEM rear view camera, taking care to place the new camera behind the OEM one so it didn't obscure the vision of the OEM camera, and screwed the new camera into place. The short camera cable can then be plugged into the long cable via the number plate light cavity, the cable fed back up into the cavity, then the number plate light replaced.
It all worked well, without drilling any holes in any metalwork, and only two tiny screws into the rear bumper bar plus a slightly larger one for the camera cable.
For the Dash cam rear view camera to automatically come on the dash cam screen when in reverse, the camera requires a connection to the reversing light. Problem is, the reversing lights in the sedan are in the hatch door, so the reversing light cabling takes a fair bit to get to. I dodn't bother, as the car has its own reversing camera. The dash cam will still record video from behind the car without this connection being made. If you really want to, you can manually switch the dash cam to reverse camera mode by pushing a switch on the dash cam to toggle between front view, rear view, and front/rear split view.
I hope this helps with anyone considering fitting a dash cam to their ZB. It takes a bit of time and patience, but it was easier than I thought it would be.
To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to it with such a new car, but several interactions with crazy drivers on the road convinced me to fit one in our new car. We've had one fitted in our previous cars for many years and they are very useful.
I fitted a Kapture KPT-1240 with an optional rear vision camera. The car already has a rear view camera for reversing, but I wanted a dash cam to record any incidents from behind, after a recent car park bingle with our other car where another car backed into us while we were in our car park. If we hadn't had a dash cam fitted, we could not have proved that we were stationary and he hit us, which would have cost us $500 in excess.
Anyway, back to the ZB fitment. I fitted the dash cam to the passenger side of the windscreen, just to the left of the rear view mirror with enough cearance betwen it and the forward facing camera pod so that they didn't interfere with each other. The power cable for these dash cams is the traditional cigarette lighter plug cable (with a USB plug in teh back of them), which I fitted into the power receptacle in the front of the console. Ther is a small gap just above this plug where the cable can be fed forward through the console, allowing the console lid to be closed fully, then across to the right under the steering column all the way to the driver's door where it can be fitted in behind the rubber seal running up the A pillar to the roof lining. there is plenty of room for the cable to run across the top of the windscreen behind the roof lining up to the rear view mirror and forward facing camera pod. There is just enough room between the windscreen glass and the pod to push the cable in behind the pod, and then up to the dash cam. All neat and hidden, and easier than I thought.
For the rear camera, that was a bit more tricky. The cable for the rear camera plugs into the top of the dashcam. I fed this wire across the top of the windscreen tucked in behind the roof lining and back to the rear of the car inside the upper rubber door seals, but tucking it in behind the B pillar trim between the doors. Our ZB is a hatch/sedan, so at the C pillar, the cable went from the rear door seal straight back to the hatch area in behind where the C pillar trim meets the roof lining trim. From there, it follows in behind the hatch rubber seal all the way down to the carpet area of the boot. I didn't want to drill any holes in the metalwork of the car, so I removed the plastic trim over the hatch latch and fed the wire to the passenger side so it exited near the battery. From there, you can just access the pressure equalisation vent to the left and below the battery and feed the wire through the last partition in the vent. This gets it from the passenger cabin area of the car to the outside of the body shell without drilling through any metal. This is a tricky bit to get done. If you are not fussed by drilling a few holes in the metalwork you can make it much easier by drilling through the metalwork near the boot/hatch latch. I removed the passenger side tail light, and fed the wire up around the base of the tail light gap and into the rear bumper cavity (looking towards the front of the car, at the extreme bottom right of the tail light cavity). I removed the passenger side number plate light fitting and used a stiff piece of wire to feed the wire through to this hole. I mounted the new rear view camera just to the passenger side of the OEM rear view camera, taking care to place the new camera behind the OEM one so it didn't obscure the vision of the OEM camera, and screwed the new camera into place. The short camera cable can then be plugged into the long cable via the number plate light cavity, the cable fed back up into the cavity, then the number plate light replaced.
It all worked well, without drilling any holes in any metalwork, and only two tiny screws into the rear bumper bar plus a slightly larger one for the camera cable.
For the Dash cam rear view camera to automatically come on the dash cam screen when in reverse, the camera requires a connection to the reversing light. Problem is, the reversing lights in the sedan are in the hatch door, so the reversing light cabling takes a fair bit to get to. I dodn't bother, as the car has its own reversing camera. The dash cam will still record video from behind the car without this connection being made. If you really want to, you can manually switch the dash cam to reverse camera mode by pushing a switch on the dash cam to toggle between front view, rear view, and front/rear split view.
I hope this helps with anyone considering fitting a dash cam to their ZB. It takes a bit of time and patience, but it was easier than I thought it would be.
