Sequences

Things have been a bit slow here lately so I figured I would provide some reading which, unfortunately, has little to do with fishing.

Patrick McManus is an outdoor writer of mostly humorous stuff. One of his short stories is titled "Sequences" and it describes life as we are likely to encounter it. Mainly it deals with starting out to do one thing and ending up with a dozen other things that need doing before you can actually get around to doing what you set out to do to start with,
Where is all this going??

Well I was in Sinkermaker's truck a while back and he had added an aftermarket back up camera and since I tend to back into things I decided it would be a good idea to add one to my car. Napa had a sale on them so I picked one up yesterday.
I had already decided I could not easily hook the camera to my backup lights because the camera mounts on the tailgate and the BU lights are on the fender, which was way more wiring and routing than I was willing to tackle. I could, however, hook it to my license plate light wiring and just turn it on and off as needed.

First thing I noticed was neither of the two plate lights were working. The car is 14 years old so I figured I needed two bulbs. Borrowed wife's car (never a good idea) and ran to parts store and got two lights. So far so good.
I replaced the bulbs and.......no lights!! So now I have to put the back panel cover off the tailgate to see what is wrong. It came off pretty easily, going back on was another story. I check the voltage at the plug in on the back side of the tailgate and had no voltage. I tried tracing the wiring but it melded into one loom of wire after another so I finally gave up and put the car back together and go to the internet for some help. Only broke two of the plastic tabs getting it back together, which equaled two beers on the backyard swing while I regained some modicum of composure before going inside to look on the net.

Turns out the most probable cause is a broken wire in the transition from the car body to the tailgate, which is a encased in a flexible rubber tubing at the top corner of the tailgate. Prior repairs have required splitting the tubing down far enough to see of a wire is broken, then splicing it and then taping the tubing back together and reinserting into the hole in the car body.
So that is where I am at today. If it works, great, if not I will make somebody a really good deal on a back up camera.
To be continued.

PS
I could be a ghost writer for Brett, don't you think??

Ray "if" you can get it to work you will love the back up camera. My first one I installed on the Ranger and could never do without one now. Now Doug's (striperking) new F150 came with a "BIGSCREEN" BACK UP CAMERA!!!! Wow how nice would that be :) May be a 6 pack job :ThumbsUp

Well thank goodness there is an MDX owners forum on line and they put me right on the problem. The red wire is the hot wire to the lights.

Attachment 238135

While I had it apart I found another broken wire,(green) and fixed it and my rear wiper is working again. It quit a while back and was never enough of a problem to run down.
Got the camera hooked up and everything works again. This was only a 1 beer fix today. :biggrin

Them backup cameras can be a pain. We install about 3 a week on old trucks that aint never had one but now they need it. Congratulations on working out the puzzle.

:HandsClapping Jumping Jacks Icon :fingerdance way to go Ray
now hook up to the boat and lets go fishin