So I originally started this thread asking for some help on the wiring side of things for integrating the sync mirror cam to my new double din unit but now that I have successfully completed the project I figured I would share my process to anyone that is inexperienced with car wiring.
This will work in any escape from 09-12 that has a mirror backup camera, the end goal of this is to take the feed from this display and make it into an RCA connection that is friendly to a stereo
To begin you will want to verify a few things, first remove the wiring harness from the back of your mirror and verify that it is 16 pins, next make sure that your new stereo can support camera feed with reverse signal wiring (if it doesn't support signaling then it isn't worth it to harvest your mirror setup
Now to actually start you will want to take off the sunglass holder and light fixture, this is fairly straight forward to remove all you have to do is remove the two Phillips head screws located under the sunglass holder portion
Note: when removing you want to pull from the windshield side of the fixture toward yourself, the unit hooks in at the top and if you pull it the wrong way you will tear the headliner (there will be a lot of resistance before that happens tho so don't pull too hard at any point)
Then you will want to take your camera harness pull it through the opening to get more space to work on it, the little cloth sleeve will come of to reveal all the wiring
The wires we will be tapping into are on Pin(s) 2, 8, and 16 (they are respectively the reverse signal, video in +, and video in -)
Note: with the locking tab of the harness on the RIGHT side the top two pins will be 8 and 16 and the second one up on the right side column will be pin 2 (in my case the wire was green)
Next all you will need to do is unravel the shielding on the video cables, the cables coming out of 8, and 16 should be wrapped together with electrical tape, if they are not don't proceed until you can do further testing to ensure you cut the right wires (in my case there were two pairs wrapped in this order but 8, and 16 were the video cables because there colors were Brown-VT for 16 and White-GN for 8
Once you do that there should be enough length to make a cut in that gives a good length of wire on both sides (remember you still have to run this harness to the mirror, it is best to keep all the wiring in the ceiling) also a good rule of thumb is to always cut the wire so that there is enough to reattach it if the project needed to be abandoned for some reason
After the two are cut you can attach it to your RCA cable, and for this any old cable will do, I harvested cable from an old gamecube AV multi out, but of course newly bought cable is best.
if this is your first time attaching an RCA cable it is a fairly straight forward process, there will be a central wire that has an exposed wire wrapped around it, all you have to do is splice each one of your video connections to the two wires. I put my pin 8 positive on the central wire and my pin 16 on the negative, but I don't think it matters.
After that is done splice into pin 2 and check the wire with a volt meter if you have one, make sure that current flows through only when the car is in reverse, if that works then good news all you have to do is splice some wire onto it and you're off the the races (for this I chose 16 gauge wire, I don't think is was the best choice for the job but it didn't cause any issue so it's fine)
Once you got all of your cabling you'll need to run it to the dash and with the lighting assembly off this should be a piece of cake (I chose to do this on the passenger side pillar because the glove box gave easier access to the head unit)
Note: you do not have to remove the side pillar to hide this wire, due to it being a ford interior it has pretty big panel gap in some places and with a well placed Flathead you can tuck it behind all the weatherstripping on the door just fine
If you are running it down on the passenger side you can simply remove the glove box by pushing in on the sides and this will give you enough access to get your wires in
Now all you gotta do is take apart the dash and get it wired up to your display (I do not recommend putting any panels back on until you can guarantee that it's always gonna work
With all that done you should be able to flick it in reverse and notice that the camera comes on right away, (one tip is that if your headunit was setup before you did this make sure to actually enable the camera before testing it, that one got me pretty bad for a sec :doh: )
An interesting finding I had is that this harness is identical to the F150 harness except for the wire colors so you can use that as a frame of reference
Links for the Photos (they aren't mine)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected] ... zH-2aTCNeE
https://www.f150forum.com/f6/rearview-m ... ut-284771/
Good Luck and keep Escapin!
This will work in any escape from 09-12 that has a mirror backup camera, the end goal of this is to take the feed from this display and make it into an RCA connection that is friendly to a stereo
To begin you will want to verify a few things, first remove the wiring harness from the back of your mirror and verify that it is 16 pins, next make sure that your new stereo can support camera feed with reverse signal wiring (if it doesn't support signaling then it isn't worth it to harvest your mirror setup
Now to actually start you will want to take off the sunglass holder and light fixture, this is fairly straight forward to remove all you have to do is remove the two Phillips head screws located under the sunglass holder portion
Note: when removing you want to pull from the windshield side of the fixture toward yourself, the unit hooks in at the top and if you pull it the wrong way you will tear the headliner (there will be a lot of resistance before that happens tho so don't pull too hard at any point)
Then you will want to take your camera harness pull it through the opening to get more space to work on it, the little cloth sleeve will come of to reveal all the wiring
The wires we will be tapping into are on Pin(s) 2, 8, and 16 (they are respectively the reverse signal, video in +, and video in -)
Note: with the locking tab of the harness on the RIGHT side the top two pins will be 8 and 16 and the second one up on the right side column will be pin 2 (in my case the wire was green)
Next all you will need to do is unravel the shielding on the video cables, the cables coming out of 8, and 16 should be wrapped together with electrical tape, if they are not don't proceed until you can do further testing to ensure you cut the right wires (in my case there were two pairs wrapped in this order but 8, and 16 were the video cables because there colors were Brown-VT for 16 and White-GN for 8
Once you do that there should be enough length to make a cut in that gives a good length of wire on both sides (remember you still have to run this harness to the mirror, it is best to keep all the wiring in the ceiling) also a good rule of thumb is to always cut the wire so that there is enough to reattach it if the project needed to be abandoned for some reason
After the two are cut you can attach it to your RCA cable, and for this any old cable will do, I harvested cable from an old gamecube AV multi out, but of course newly bought cable is best.
if this is your first time attaching an RCA cable it is a fairly straight forward process, there will be a central wire that has an exposed wire wrapped around it, all you have to do is splice each one of your video connections to the two wires. I put my pin 8 positive on the central wire and my pin 16 on the negative, but I don't think it matters.
After that is done splice into pin 2 and check the wire with a volt meter if you have one, make sure that current flows through only when the car is in reverse, if that works then good news all you have to do is splice some wire onto it and you're off the the races (for this I chose 16 gauge wire, I don't think is was the best choice for the job but it didn't cause any issue so it's fine)
Once you got all of your cabling you'll need to run it to the dash and with the lighting assembly off this should be a piece of cake (I chose to do this on the passenger side pillar because the glove box gave easier access to the head unit)
Note: you do not have to remove the side pillar to hide this wire, due to it being a ford interior it has pretty big panel gap in some places and with a well placed Flathead you can tuck it behind all the weatherstripping on the door just fine
If you are running it down on the passenger side you can simply remove the glove box by pushing in on the sides and this will give you enough access to get your wires in
Now all you gotta do is take apart the dash and get it wired up to your display (I do not recommend putting any panels back on until you can guarantee that it's always gonna work
With all that done you should be able to flick it in reverse and notice that the camera comes on right away, (one tip is that if your headunit was setup before you did this make sure to actually enable the camera before testing it, that one got me pretty bad for a sec :doh: )
An interesting finding I had is that this harness is identical to the F150 harness except for the wire colors so you can use that as a frame of reference
Links for the Photos (they aren't mine)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected] ... zH-2aTCNeE
https://www.f150forum.com/f6/rearview-m ... ut-284771/
Good Luck and keep Escapin!
