Well, I`ve got some answers to my questions now. I recently spent a couple of days working through the replacement of the production Mercedes camera, and am happy to report that we are back in the backing up business.
Do you have to remove the top rear roof cap in order to replace the Mercedes camera? Yes, you most certainly have to. But, contrary to what I was told by the factory, the connections are not in the wall – instead the camera lead follows a routered slot up the wall and pops back out of the wall under the protection of the back of the top roof cap. The Mercedes camera comes with a wire bundle that has a coaxial connector, and a four wire power and control connector. Winnebago cut off the four wire connector, and used butt splices in its place.
Is there enough slack to be able to pull the connections and cable out of the back wall to simplify the camera replacement? Well, there is a ton of slack... maybe a bit more than four feet of slack, but Winnebago have caulked the hole to protect against water ingress and in the process rendered the cable and connections immovable. It does not budge, for good reason. Thinking ahead to the next time you wanted to replace the camera - even if the top hole was left unprotected, it is unlikely that you would be able to get the cable slack, connections, and camera lead back up the wall and successfully out the hole and back into the roof cap cavity. The bottom flange of the back wall of the roof cap actually covers up part of the hole, as well.
There is no way around not having to remove the roof cap, but there is a better way to re-install the new camera in case there is ever a “next time”. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of this better idea until I had closed things up by reproducing what the factory had done. As a result, there won’t be a next time for me, but if you are considering replacing the Mercedes camera, I would recommend that you locate a larger camera fairing that has enough volume to be able to accommodate extra cable, the wiring connections, and the camera lead so you can store it all external to the wall. After you have got the roof cap off, and the slot in the back wall all cleaned out, pull the Winnebago wires down through the slot, out the bottom fairing hole, hook up the camera, and store all the wiring slack in this larger camera fairing. Backup cameras have not always been this small; earlier cameras required larger fairings, so there must be some out there.
A few photos might help with the above information:
Picture 1 is what you find when you get the roof cap off
Picture 2 shows that little bit of slack that Winnebago has left you...
Picture 3 shows the entry and exit points for the camera lead cable
And Picture 4 is my recommendation for closing things up – pull the Winnebago connection wires out the bottom fairing hole and plan on storing everything external to the wall in a larger fairing that you picked up somewhere. This photo was taken when I had plans to store the slack in the existing View fairing, but there is not enough room in there to be able to do that.
I didn’t have any prior experience with removing and replacing roof sealant, so I found that to be my biggest workload. I was happy to see that the roof and back wall joint is sealed up very well with an eternabond tape type of product, so the roof cap sealing is a bit of belt and braces.
One last thing - the camera has a 5 amp fuse. If you have an inoperative camera, it might be worthwhile to check out the fuse box under the driver's seat before launching into plans to replace it. Our View's camera fuse is #4 in that rack.
If anyone is considering this job and wants more details and photos, drop me a line; I have more information I can share.
Cheers,
