How to fit Reverse Parking sensors by DodgyDave..IS200
How to fit Reverse Parking sensors by DodgyDave..IS200
Funny you should ask this question as I have just fitted sensors to the rear of mine about a month ago and I have been thinking of doing a bit of a walk through on here.
I did a bit of research before on LOC and found a post by Cous3 (Keith) who I believe is a member on here too.
He bought a kit from Maplins complete with digital display but I wasn't bothered about the display so I sourced a kit with just the bleeper.
I bought the kit off ebay and cost me around £23 including the delivery . I chose this kit because they are sold in a choice of 18 different colours and I thought I might be able to get a colour that was close to mine. If the colour didn't match then I could paint them.
Here's the kit I bought
The kit comes complete with 4 sensors, 1 bleeper, the module unit and even a cutter to drill the right size hole in the bumper.
When the kit arrived it was quite obvious that the colour wasn't going to match so I had to spray them up. A couple of colour coats of paint bought from my local Toyota dealer followed by a coat of clear lacquer which I got from halfords.
As you can see I just used a bit of card with holes in to support the sensors while spraying.
First job was to remove the boot lining around the offside rear light and the boot floor cover.
I measured where I wanted the Sensors, approx 22cm up from the groove near the bottom of the bumper (Don't measure from the ground, especially if you are parked at ther side of the road on a camber!) and approx 41cm between the Sensors. I also used the boot latch as a guide to the centre of the bumper. I placed masking tape on the bumper in the correct places and marked with cross hairs.
Once I was happy with the positions I had to remove the bumper to drill the holes and feed the cables behind.
I found a good walk through on removing the rear bumper on my.is site here http://my.is/forums/f68/is300-rear-bumpe...al-341081/
Of cause this is on an American IS300 so ignore bit about the side markers.
Once the bumper was off I took it into the garage to drill and fit the sensors.
Just take it very slowly and dont push too hard as when the drill bit gets through you may damage your paintwork.
Next job was to tape all the sensors wires together and run them along to the offside of the car were they will be run up behind the offside rear light and enter into the boot space through the same rubber grommet that the rear light cable comes through. I didn't take any pictures of this but in the next photo you can see the where to put the cable through where the bulbs are hanging down.
After re-fitting the bumper it was time to mount the central control unit and connect the supply wires into the rear light wiring loom. I mounted the control unit in the well under the boot floor using the sticky pad provided in the kit as you can see.
Then I made the 2 connections from the Control Box to the Reversing Light (Live & Earth) with Scotchlock connectors and taped them up securely. Red from the Control Box goes to the Red/Blue wire in the OEM Harness, and the Black wire from the Control Box goes to the White/Black in the OEM Harness.
I made this connection just before the connector block for the rear light.
Next I mounted the bleeper using the sticky pad provided up just under the rear shelf. I first tried every thing out to see if the bleeper was loud enough to hear inside the car and found that it is.
So all I had to do now was put all the panels back in the boot and stand back and admire.
Having had these fitted now for about month I am over the moon with them.
When you first go into reverse you hear one bleep from the bleeper, just to let you know that the system is working, then as you reverse towards an obstruction you start to hear a bleep at about 1 per second at about 1.5m. When you are about 90cm the bleep is about 2 per second and at about 40cm it's continuous; you should stop now.
All together I suppose it took me a couple of hours to fit not including spraying the sensors.
Hope this helps and thanks to Cous3 for his original post on LOC.
Dave
Good stuff Dave:thumbup1:
This is going to be a big help when i do mine soon.
Good walk throw and easy to under stand.
One question, would people recommend fitting my sensors before fitting my trd rear skirt???
Problem i have is the body shops doing most the work.
But may just drill the holes before it goes in and ask them to fit the sensors and just throw the wires in the boot and i will deal with the rest when i get it back
excellent write up mate, we do these in my work and dont do it any different, well done, plus rep there.
Got mine on Tuesday.prob I had was I had oem ones fitted and the ones in the middle where bigger holes than the side ones. Managed to strip the sensor down bore the hole out needed from the oem sensor paint it and slide the new ones into it like a sleeve.all fitted and for only £14.50 ace much cheaper then getting the holes filled and painted.