I think you're putty is definitely the way to go to get it positioned. If you use a piece of plastic or something to go from the bolts that held in the original GPS, you can use that for a backing plate, and your putty to line everything up, then the pressure from the wood piece can hold it in place if the putty cradles it enough.

 

Ah ha! I figured out how I'm going to do the speaker. I have a set of old amplified computer speakers. They are very small and the transformer is 12vdc. I'm going to crack them open and use the amplifier and one speaker. I'll just open the GPS and take the output from the speaker and run it directly to the input from the amplifier. I'm not sure what the impedance is supposed to be, but in my experience it doesn't make much difference at very low power settings anyway. Then I'll just mount the speaker behind one of the two holes on either side of the GPS. Heck, I could mount one speaker behind each hole. Then, I'll use the pot from the computer speakers to adjust the volume, but I'll leave the pot behind the bezel. Volume adjustments can still be done by the touch-screen volume control on the GPS.

 

That sounds like it will definitely work. But seriously, try it before you do that, you may find that it is loud enough without separate speakers.

 

OK, I wasn't quite sure if I should hijack jnporcello's thread, or start my own, but another thread on this topic seemed a little redundant. I'm doing something similar to him. First of all, I wanted to make sure the GPS was positioned precisely in the center of the opening. I took his idea with the blue stuff and changed it up a little. I wrapped up my Garmin 1490t in plastic wrap (like the kind used to wrap sandwiches) and positioned it exactly where I wanted it on the bezel. I then taped it in place, making sure it stayed exactly where I wanted it. Then, I simply mixed up some Bondo body filler and applied it at the upper corners and top of the GPS. See pic:



After the Bondo hardened (about 10 minutes) I test fit the installation in the dash, just to make sure everything was going to fit. It was still looking good, so I pulled out the GPS and here's what it looked like so far:



The plastic wrap kept the Bondo from sticking to the GPS, which is what I wanted. I then pulled the piece of tape off of the bottom of the bezel and repeated the Bondo process along the bottom of the GPS. I also went back and added some more bondo to the top, and I realized at this point that I wanted to go ahead and leave the GPS in place, so I removed the plastic wrap and taped up the GPS before I applied the bondo.



That seemed to be holding it in very well, but Bondo isn't very strong in tension, so I wanted to add some kind of brace behind the GPS to keep it pushed forward. I didn't want the Bondo to break and for the GPS to fall back into the hole some day while I was pushing on the touch screen. I used a piece of aluminum angle from wicksaircraft.com. It's dirt cheap, easy to cut with a band saw, and very strong. Here's a link to what I used:

http://www.wicksaircraft.com/catalog...155/index.html

Of course, I had this laying around from when I built a gyrocopter a few years ago. Most people won't have it in their garage, but Wick's doesn't care if you only want to order a foot of the stuff. That's how much you need, by the way, one foot.

I cut some notches in the end of the aluminum angle and drilled a couple of holes, and here is what it looks like:



I then installed the aluminum angle in the dashboard, and here's what it looks like:



I then test fitted the bezel/GPS assembly. To my surprise, there was only an eighth inch or so of space between the angle and the back of the GPS unit. My plan was to drill a couple of holes in the angle, tap the holes to receive screws, and use screws to put pressure on the back of the GPS. However, now that I see how little space there is, I think I'm just going to get some of that foam double-sided tape and put two or three layers on the aluminum angle. I'll cover the tape with paper or something because I don't want it to stick to the GPS, I just want it to put some pressure on the GPS to keep it from being pushed backwards.

I'm partial to Garmin products, but one of the problems I ran into was that the power connector was pushing against a metal piece of the dashboard behind the GPS. I don't have any pictures right now, I'll post them tomorrow, but cutting away that piece of metal was an absolute bitch. I finally got it done, though, and now the GPS fits nicely into the dashboard.

Tomorrow I'm going to figure out which wires from the plug are the power wires, and wire the GPS into switched power so it automatically comes on when I start the car and turns off when I turn it off. So far the GPS seems loud enough without adding a speaker. I went for a quick drive and got up to 60mph or so, and I could hear it just fine. It might be totally different on the freeway with big-rigs driving by, though. I'm also going to get some of the mesh stuff tomorrow and make the thingys to cover the holes where the switches were.

 

Okay, here are the pics of the jig and speaker material I used to make them look more "factory" than a flat backing piece. My friends tell me its a little over the top, but they also say they'd never know it wasn't factory, so I'll let you decide
It did take quite a bit of pounding. The mesh I had was harder than you think. I also had to go slowly, because too hard pounding, or pressing it in the vice would tear the mesh.

 

I just went to TWO car stereo shops and they told me that they don't have the mesh! I was pissed. I was going to set up a rig identical to yours, but now I can't find the mesh. I can't even find it on eBay. The guys at both stereo places told me that all of their speakers always come with the mesh.

 

sacrifice a couple old speaker grilles from ebay, large enough that you can can cover your needs?

 

I just bought six speaker grills on eBay. The set of six was $12 including shipping. They are 6.5" X 9.5" each, but they are white. I guess I can spray paint them black after I hammer them into shape.

 

Waterboy (or anyone) do you know the pin-out for the nav connectors? I need to know which pin/wire color is switched 12vdc.

 

I can't make heads or tails of this stupid diagram...maybe you can find the hot lead. click for a big version

 

Unit will fit if you remove screen ***'y . There is a pocket about 1.5" deep behind. I mount my Parrot Bluetooth there.

 

Unit will fit if you remove screen ***'y . There is a pocket about 1.5" deep behind. I mount my Parrot Bluetooth there.

 

The power leads are in the smaller wiring harness. I believe it was the BK and BRG ones. If I remember correctly they were on the bottome (away from the clip) and in the middle. In your diagram you are looking at power to the control module, which is in the trunk, you want to look at power to the display unit, so look at the diagram from that perspective and double check the colors. Good luck.

 

I wonder if those 4 wires at the bottom of the screen are the Navigation Audio going from the display into the input of the head unit. Since the head unit has a volume control setting for the Nav voice then the audio should be running from the Nav system to the head unit.

If someone has there dash apart to check out those 4 wires I would love to know if that's the audio, cause that's what I want to locate before I start the install so the audio outputs of the nav are integrated into the Jaguar system.

Dave B

 

I don't think so. The module on the right of the diagram is nothing but the display unit. The big module in the middle is the actual Navigation Control Module (GPS). If you look at the top right of that module, you see the audio output marked. It's two wires clearly marked "Audio +" and "Audio - ". They go straight from the Nav Control Module to the amp. You'd have to intercept those wires. My guess is that the third wire of the group is the mute wire which mutes the audio coming from the stereo so you can hear Sophia telling you where to go. (I call the nav lady Sophia). There are only two wires for audio from the nav unit because it doesn't need to be in stereo. It's just mono audio.

 

OK... I got the Garmin 1490t all mounted in the dash and wired in. I used these nifty little splice thingys that you squeeze onto the wire with pliers. They have a little metal thing in them that cuts into the insulation and makes contact with the wire so you don't have to actually cut the wire. They worked great, although they are a little bulky (not as bulky as crimps or wire nuts would have been, though). I got them at Radio Shack. They really made the job easier. Plus they are easily removable.

For anyone who is curious, to get 12vdc behind the nav unit that comes on when the key is on, you need to splice into the Black/Pink wire (negative) and the White/Blue (+12vdc). There are two plugs onthe nav unit. One of them has all solid color wires. Just push that one to the side. The other one has all two-color wires and is slightly smaller. That's the one with the voltage that you need.

Anyway, the next step is to put the wire mesh over the two holes where the controls used to be and cover it with speaker fabric. The wire mesh is supposed to be here tomorrow.

 

Apologies for resuscitating an old thread, but I would really like to do this mod - probably using a TomTom device. I have a couple of questions:

- any signal reception problems? Do you advise an external antenna?
- can you hear the satnav voice ok from inside the dash?
- how can you make it so that the satnav switches on and off with the ignition (on a TomTom, for example, there's a button on top of the unit to switch it on & off)?
- any issues when pushing on the screen? Has the glue held up to use?

TIA

 

I actually removed mine a few months ago when was going to sell the car, and then reinstalled last weekend. I'd still like to do the fancy mesh speaker grills like jnporcello used, but I simply can't find the materials anywhere.

To answer your questions, I have no reception problems at all. I don't see any need for an external antenna, however I'm not familiar with Tom Toms. They might not have reception as good as the Garmin that I used.

The second time I installed it I took some metal flashing like what is used to waterproof around windows and door sills, and cut the flashing slightly larger than the two openings. I painted it flat black and just glued it into place in the openings with contact cement. It looks decent, but not as good as jnporcello's. However, even with the openings completely sealed, I still have no problem hearing the GPS, even when the top is down.

My nav unit is hard wired into the car, so when I start the car it automatically turns on and when I turn off the car it turns off. I don't really foresee wanting to turn it off when the car is running, but I'm going to add a switch to the right opening that will allow me to do that. On my Garmin the unit turns itself off after 30 seconds when it loses power. I have it wired in to "switched" power so turning off the car removes power to the GPS and it shuts down after 30 seconds.

I put an aluminum bar behind the unit on mine, I could hit it with a hammer and it wouldn't fall back into the cavity behind the unit. I have no problems with pressing on the screen at all.

 

Very nice but I'll stick to my HTC 3D phone on a mount for nav.