Rear view camera

What would it take to install rear view camera for a 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan? Easy? Difficult?

There are many places that will do this for you such as BestBuy and any good after market stereo type shop . Even J C Whitney has some you can order that are wireless. Not knowing your skills makes it hard to say how difficult it might be.

Also what may end up being the last retailer on earth ( Amazon ) has a big selection with reviews .

I am probably going to slammed for this but here goes. Just for fun I entered ( installing a wireless backup camera ) in my search engine and saw that there are several videos showing how to do that. Watching some of those should let you decide if it is something you can do.

3 Likes

If you expect to use professional help, @VOLVO_V70 gives a good advice above.

If you are DIY-er, I would recommend this camera:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Z9R77GO/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It is easy to install and it has very good night time performance (I tried multiple, this is the best I had so far), the downside is that color reproduction is slightly skewed toward purplish hue, which is not critical for the application.

As for the monitors, I’ve installed the next one in 3 cars already:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XHQ1QXX/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I remember that buying these two pieces included a long cord to connect one to another, do not recall if it was in camera set or mirror set, but you do not need to buy anything else.

Connection goes to the backup light in the rear, easy to do since you have to remove the rear door cover to feed camera cord anyways.

Caravans are notorious for blind spots.Depends on system on installation. Follow instructions. The wired one I installed was pleasantly easy. I imagine wireless ones are just as easy or easier.

On a caravan, you will need to remove the inner panel from the tail gate. Not sure on the details of the rear of a 2007 Caravan but if you have a trim piece that runs along a ridge over the license plate, it may have a cutout or punch out for a rear view camera IF that was an option that year. Otherwise you will need to make one.

Some rear view camera kits come with a mounting bracket, others use the license plate. In any case, you will need to get the power wire for the camera from the camera to the inside of the lift gate. There maybe an existing hole for trim that you can use, otherwise you will need to drill a hole. I do recommend that you use the ridge above the license plate for this hole so that if there is any trim, it can hide it. Also a hole in the underside of an overhang like the ridge helps keep water out from the interior.

If there isn’t any protection around the hole, like a grommet, then you will need to RTV the wire where it goes through the hole. I would suggest a layer or two of heat shrink first to protect the wire. The wire must then get to the back-up light. If your backup light is in the tail gate, then you are lucky. If not, you will need to snake the wire along an existing wire bundle, through the tube between the body and the tailgate and finally back down to the nearest backup light.

Then you will need to find the hot wire to the back up light and splice the camera’s power wire to it. All of this is just for the wireless camera. A wired camera will require running the signal wire from the camera to the dash board to the display.

Have fun.