2003 Explorer 4 door
The license plate is on the rear liftgate so I will have to run the camera cable through the rubber boot somehow. Also at the license plate there is no hole to run the wire into the rear lift gate.
Anyone ever install one of these on the rear liftgate and if so how??
It should not be difficult at all, you will have to remove the panel from the inside of the liftgate. There should be a harness that goes to the license plate lamp. You may have to drill a hole in the back of the gate to get the wires into the liftgate. I have no idea what else would be wired in the gate, but you may have to unplug all wires from their components. Tape the camera harness to the bundle of wires at the beginning of the boot, find the harness on the end of the boot on the inside of the vehicle. Pull the harness through so you can get to the taped on harness for the camera, separate the camera harness from the truck's harness, and pull the truck harness back into the gate and plug all harnesses back to their original spot.
You should silicone the hole you drilled, and also make sure you put a drain loop on the cable, IE make sure that if water runs down the cable and drips off, not allowing the water to run into the liftgate.
If you do not have the camera yet, I would highly reccomend that you get a BOYO branded unit.
I already have the camera, not sure what brand. It is the license plate frame type and on the bottom part of the frame it says "Patent # xxxxxxxxxxxx" obviously the "x's" are real numbers I just don't remember them.
After looking at the back of the X, I really don't see anywhere else that would be better to mount a camera. If I were to get one that is not a license plate type I would have to mount it under the bumper, in which case I would want it tucked back a bit for protection so the top of the image would be cut off by the underside of the bumper if that makes sense.
I think I am going to just do as you suggested and drill a hole in the liftgate behind the license plate loop the wire behind the plate and run it into the door sealing it with silicone after I am done.
The headache now is that the rubber boot going from the liftgate to the truck is at the top of the door meaning I will have to get under the headliner to fish the wire in. Fun...Fun...