etrailer | Hopkins Smart Hitch Backup Camera Installation - 2008 Ford F-150

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Hi there F-150 owners today on your 2008 Ford F-150. We're going to be taking a look at and showing you how to install Hopkins rear view camera system. This backup camera system is going to install behind your license plate, and make it easy for you to see when backing up as well as easily see your hitch ball in your new camera system. This makes it easier to line up your truck with your trailer when getting it set up, so you don't need a spotter at the back. Some other features I like about this camera are the grid lines on it to help show a straight path when backing up, as well as the audible blind spot detection. You can see here that our adjustable ball mount here is being detected by our system.
So the red lines are flashing indicating that an object is very close. And if we turn up the volume here, we can hear the audible sensor as well.And when you don't have a ball mount installed, it's also a great help when you drive around town, getting into tight parking spaces. Along with your display, you'll also receive a license plate mounting bracket, that includes our adjustable camera, as well as our backup sensors. All of those are going to be adjustable as well.It's an easy installation. It simply installs behind your license plate and then plugs into your factory seven way connector.
It comes with all the wiring you need to get it installed. Let's go over that installation together so you can have the confidence to do it at home.We'll begin our installation at the back of the vehicle by removing our license plate.We can then take our camera assembly, our license plate, line up the holes with your license plate and the holes in your camera assembly. We'll then flip our sensors out on each side, slide your license plate into those. Feed your wiring down, back behind the bumper. There's just an opening there above it, we don't want to use the opening here, we're going to go above the top and then we can re-install our license plate with our included bracket.We'll tighten down our new screws using a Phillips head screwdriver.We're now underneath the vehicle at our seven-way connector.
We'll need to remove the plug off the back of the seven-way. There's a lock tab at the back. You want to pry that out first, you can use your finger, or you can use a flat-bladed screwdriver to pull that back. That'll just allow us to push down on the release tab after sliding it back so we can disconnect our connector.We'll then apply dielectric grease to our factory connector, and we're also going to then apply it to our new harness as well. By adding dielectric grease, before plugging our connectors together, it's going to help keep moisture out of our connectors, ensuring a long lasting connection and helping to prevent corrosion.You want to squeeze pretty hard when plugging these together as they can be pretty difficult, but you want to make sure you've got it to where it clicks in all the way.
So after you plug it in, give it a pull, if it comes right back out, you didn't have it in all the way. So it can be a little difficult to squeeze it, to get it to fully seat.We'll, then plug the other end of our new harness back into our seven way connector.after you've got them plugged in, make sure to push your lock tabs back into place. If you follow your red and black wire down from your harness, it's going to eventually lead to a splitter where it comes together and to where we get our female connector here. This is where our camera's going to plug into.That wire that we had dropped back behind the bumper, take this and plug them in. You'll see those little white arrows on them. You want to line those white arrows up as this connector is only designed to plug in one way.The rest of our wiring here we'll need to get routed to the front of the vehicle inside the cab so we can connect it to our monitor. I'm going to route this wire now, and then I'll show you the path I took to get it there.I've gone ahead and bundled up our wiring here at the back, any of the excess that we had mainly with the red and the black. And I also took some electrical tape and I wrapped it around the connector where we plugged our harness into our camera here at the back and just help ensure that they don't come disconnected. The rest of our wiring was then routed towards the front of the vehicle. And we just followed our factory wiring going forward because we k