Rear Dashcam Mount

[Hacksaw]

No the weight of the camera doesn’t factor in because it is clipped into the roof with the factory headliner clip. It probably looks like that because I pulled the headliner down to see what it looks like in there and to more easily remove the clip. Or maybe it always look like that I never noticed it.

Just to provide a visual on this, here's a pic of the metal bracket that the headliner plug (or screw) goes in to. You can only see the bracket if you pull the headliner out of the way. This is a zoomed pic with the rear hatch open, zoomed in at the top-middle of the rear opening, and also showing that the headliner, while being somewhat rigid, is flexible enough to pull it down and deform it a bit with your finger. Once you're done, you can mash the headliner back in place and squeeze it strategically to get it to fit back under the weather stripping.

If you look carefully at the pic you can see a fuzzy white dot area right below the hole in the middle of the bracket (this is where the plastic headliner plug comes through from the visible side of the headliner and plugs into the bracket)

And just as an additional FYI, here's another pic zoomed in on the headliner bracket. I ended up using a u-nut on the bracket so I could add a screw from the visible side of the headliner instead of using that plastic plug that just has a friction fit into the hole of the bracket. Obviously the screw isn't yet tightened down here because I wanted to be able to show the threads in the pic:

And here are a couple pics of the final install of my rear dash cam, from the front and side. I made a custom bracket out of aluminum bar stock since I wanted the lens of the camera to be lower than a flush headliner mount (to clear the rear wiper housing without needing to tilt the camera down too much), and a couple extra inches out toward the back window (figuring the smaller the distance between the lens and the rear glass, the less chance for reflective glare under some lighting conditions). I cut a small notch in the headliner to feed the cable through below the weatherstripping, and I used a screw rather than the plastic plug to fasten the camera and bracket to the headliner/bracket.

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[rocktheroad]

That is a clean install! How is the recording? Is it wobbly when you are going over a rough road?

I've got an even crazier idea now, just to extend bit longer the power cable to reach the bare metal upper part of the door and stick the cam there. I guess I would have some extra cable dangling when the door is closed... I might try and make that and as a DIY coil cable, to minimize it.

 

[Hacksaw]

I haven't really reviewed much footage beyond the first couple days after the install. The single attachment point via the headliner bracket is not ideal, but since I use a screw and a u-nut, I can cinch it down a lot more than you could if you use the plastic push-in pin to attach the bracket. I don't see it drifting left to right from driving vibration (I tightened the screw enough that the bracket slightly compresses into the headliner), but if you directly bump the camera/bracket hard, it will move about the pivot point.

As far as vibration, since the camera is effectively mounted to the body(roof), I'd imagine the recorded vibration is about the same as a more typical rear camera install where you adhere the bracket to the window (meaning it's going to bounce in harmony with the overall vehicle). I'm not aware of any dashcams that have in-body image stabilization (that's a pretty costly feature to implement and I think you'd need a much bigger camera body to do it), but maybe there are some that try to do that digitally (or you could probably do post-processing).

 

[Timmybung]

I'll start by admitting that this looks a little janky if you look closely, but it's been working great for the last couple weeks.
I've used Garmin dash cams for several years and they're good units. They typically use a magnetic base to attach to a magnetized mount that is stuck to your windshield. *I didn't have any more of these kicking around so I scrapped that part of it.
In my case I used a sander to grind down a little material on the base; essentially there was a raised plastic lip surrounding the magnet which would allow it to center on the mating magnet on the windshield side. The magnet on the mount is perfectly strong enough to attach to some metal of the tailgate just above the rear window, but with the glossy paint texture as I opened and closed the tailgate the power cord would pull on it and the angle would change slightly. I remedied this with a small piece of doubled -up duct tape to give it some grip. Essentially the magnet is providing all of the holding force, and the little bit of duct tape just keeps it from moving around. The power cord is routed under the headliner which then goes down under the plastic near where the battery is, it is grounded on the body and I ran a wire from the aux plugs under the kick panel by the driver to power it.
As you may have heard before in another context, "she may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts..."

 

[rocktheroad]

Nice! That looks awesome! I'm planning something like that too. Is your camera set up in a spot where the wipers move? I’ll see if I can flip my camera so I can get the cable closer to the pillar on the left side.

Have you thought about coiling that part of the cable that goes from the headliner to the camera? Something like this:

Great Job!

 

[Timmybung]

Nice! That looks awesome! I'm planning something like that too. Is your camera set up in a spot where the wipers move? I’ll see if I can flip my camera so I can get the cable closer to the pillar on the left side.

Have you thought about coiling that part of the cable that goes from the headliner to the camera? Something like this:

Great Job!

As far as I know the cam isn't in the path of the wiper but I didn't pay close attention to that when I mounted it. Mostly I wanted it close to a side, preferably the battery side for power, so it would be hidden behind the rear headrest and not in my line of sight out the back window.

I like the coiling idea; I'll have to look at doing that.

 

[Marty60]

My custom rear cam mount, that houses my custom security system

 

[Roach011]

I just double sided tape that to joke to the push pin. Works great

 

[David1435]

Tape and a 3m double sided adhesive thingy on the plastic clip lol. I removed the tape and the headliner looks fine. It was lopsided since the day I installed it and 10k miles later its still there with the original tape. (pic is from today 8/17)

 

[DannoSchmanno]

And just as an additional FYI, here's another pic zoomed in on the headliner bracket. I ended up using a u-nut on the bracket so I could add a screw from the visible side of the headliner instead of using that plastic plug that just has a friction fit into the hole of the bracket. Obviously the screw isn't yet tightened down here because I wanted to be able to show the threads in the pic:

thanks for posting this of what you've done!
soon i'm going to replace the plastic retaining clips with a screw like you have, but wanted to know if you happened to know what size of u-nut and corresponding screw size that fits in the hole. that'd save me a bunch of time on trial and error. thanks in advance!

 

[Hacksaw]

Danno, here's the info on the u-nut:

Yep, due to the minimal clearance between the headliner and bracket, it was nearly impossible to fit anything in to make measurements of the bracket and hole. So here are my estimates:

I have a set of transfer punches (precise diameters), so I used those to figure out the diameter of the hole in the bracket. The hole size is between 3/16" transfer punch (i.e. 12/64) and 13/64 so it's probably a metric drill for an M5 screw which has an OD of .197, so the hole diameter is probably around .202" or so. I used a #10 screw (a #12 screw diameter is too big)

The thickness of the bracket looks slightly thicker than a .025" feeler gauge but less than .040".

The width of the lower flat part of the bracket is also about 0.8" (beyond that it curves upward to its mount) so the width of the u-nut has to be less than that.

The height of the bracket (i.e. max screw protrustion) looks to be about 0.4" so add to that the thickness of the camera bracket plus a washer plus the thickness of the headliner to get desired screw length for the u-clip. 5/8" length screw might work, but I used a 3/4" #10-24 pan head screw to get more thread engagement.

There are different styles of u-nuts. Some have a ridge that fits entirely inside the hole, and some have a compression tang that just engages half the hole. I used the latter style of u-nut. Then you have to get the distance from the centerline of the u-nut hole to the bend in the u-nut to fit the bracket and its hole offset.

Long story short, I used this #10-24 u-nut:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BY61V2NN
While it's crazy to spend $16 on a 30 pack of u-nuts, I'd probably have spent hours searching for some smaller unit count that met all the specifications and probably only would have saved a few bucks, so I just went with this, under the "time is money" principle. I just consider it as spending $16 on bracket hardware. Note that with this particular style of u-nut, the tang compresses once you tighten it down (i.e. it's essentially single use only, once you compress it) so it's good to have spares as I did test fits of the bracket, or may need to temporarily remove it in the future.

And I used a #10-24 pan head screw, 3/4" length.

And a photo, from a few different angles:

 

[spwaca]

Does anyone mount these on the outside? I don’t want a dirty window to interfere with the video.

 

[shine]

Does anyone mount these on the outside? I don’t want a dirty window to interfere with the video.

I have mine mounted underneath the rear spoiler - seems to work well. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TT1RRGP

 

[DannoSchmanno]

Does anyone mount these on the outside? I don’t want a dirty window to interfere with the video.

i had one outside on a previous vehicle and it was constantly dirty with road grime and mud and snow. dirty windows can be cleaned with the wipers from inside the vehcile at any point, even while driving, and doesn't require me every single time to ensure that i wipe the camera lens before driving.

 

[DannoSchmanno]

Danno, here's the info on the u-nut:

Yep, due to the minimal clearance between the headliner and bracket, it was nearly impossible to fit anything in to make measurements of the bracket and hole. So here are my estimates:

I have a set of transfer punches (precise diameters), so I used those to figure out the diameter of the hole in the bracket. The hole size is between 3/16" transfer punch (i.e. 12/64) and 13/64 so it's probably a metric drill for an M5 screw which has an OD of .197, so the hole diameter is probably around .202" or so. I used a #10 screw (a #12 screw diameter is too big)

The thickness of the bracket looks slightly thicker than a .025" feeler gauge but less than .040".

The width of the lower flat part of the bracket is also about 0.8" (beyond that it curves upward to its mount) so the width of the u-nut has to be less than that.

The height of the bracket (i.e. max screw protrustion) looks to be about 0.4" so add to that the thickness of the camera bracket plus a washer plus the thickness of the headliner to get desired screw length for the u-clip. 5/8" length screw might work, but I used a 3/4" #10-24 pan head screw to get more thread engagement.

There are different styles of u-nuts. Some have a ridge that fits entirely inside the hole, and some have a compression tang that just engages half the hole. I used the latter style of u-nut. Then you have to get the distance from the centerline of the u-nut hole to the bend in the u-nut to fit the bracket and its hole offset.

Long story short, I used this #10-24 u-nut:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BY61V2NN
While it's crazy to spend $16 on a 30 pack of u-nuts, I'd probably have spent hours searching for some smaller unit count that met all the specifications and probably only would have saved a few bucks, so I just went with this, under the "time is money" principle. I just consider it as spending $16 on bracket hardware. Note that with this particular style of u-nut, the tang compresses once you tighten it down (i.e. it's essentially single use only, once you compress it) so it's good to have spares as I did test fits of the bracket, or may need to temporarily remove it in the future.

And I used a #10-24 pan head screw, 3/4" length.

And a photo, from a few different angles:

thanks so much for this, this is so helpful!! i really appreciate it!

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