After about 3 months of off and on work, I finished and installed a hand made custom install of the Nuvi 670 GPS and V1 radar detector. This is a replacement for a version I made several year ago for the Garmin Street Pilot III.

I made the change because the Nuvi is a much better device than the SP III. The Nuvi has complete maps for the US as well as Western Europe, plus lots of goodies, like traffic alerts, and MP3 player, and others. It's also easily pops out of the mount, which was impossible with the SP III, which I had taken apart to make it fit into the assembly.

The new mount is all carbon fiber, so it's much lighter than the old (which was fiber glass a a few pounds of Bondo). This is not a job for the faint of heart, but it can be done by anyone with moderate skills, great patience, and imagination. Here are a few photos showing the finished installation and a few steps along the way.

Here's a few shots of the finished mount installed in my car. the V! is mounted to the right, on the passenger side.





For comparisons sake, here's s shot of my old SPIII install. IMHO, the new install is much better -- smoother integration and lines and better alignment with the driver's line of sight.



Here's how it all started. I made a rough mold of CF around the Nuvi then used CF strips to mount it on the windshield roof rail plastic piece. This took a lot of trial and error to get right, but it was the most important step, since everything else flowed from the postion of the mount.



Here's another shot of the basic mount on the roof rail. At this stage, the looks of things didn't matter, since it would all be covered later once the basic exterior shape was laid up in CF.



This photo shows some of the forethought required for this kind of job. The aluminum tube stick out of the CF mount is there to create an opening in the finished piece for the tab under the Nuvi mount that release the Nuvi from the mount when you want to remove it. Without the access hole this provides, you wouldn't be able to remove the Nuvi once it's snapped into the finished piece.

Here's the trick of the whole job. That's two part epoxy foam (you pour two liquids together and the mixture expands to about 50 times the original volume to an enclosed space) poured into a space around the mount and damned with plastic sheet taped to the roof rail. Once this stuff sets, it's incredibly easy to shape with files, sandpaper, and a hack saw. I made the entire shape around the Nuvi and the V1 with this foam, shaped it properly, then covered it all with carbon fiber.



Here's the rough shape once it was covered with CF. Basically I laid the CF cloth over the shaped rail, brushed resin into it all, then tightly wrapped vinyl electrical tape around it all, which pushed out the excess resin and forced the CF cloth to confirm to the foam shape underneath. From here, it's all finishing work with a drum sandpaper and lots of hand work.

 

Seems you 've completed your "prototype" and I'm impressed. When do you think you will be ready for a "proof of concept" (I have a Nuvi 660) .... I'll be glad to be your tester ........

 

looks good rick, let us when you can mass product it for sale.

 

Any pics of it from the driver's seat?

I'd like to see how much this bezel will impede the driver's line of sight.

 

Rick, can you make me one of those V1 stealth installs??

 

Nice job! Now you need to take it out and plot some nice back roads???

 

Very nice. You should put in a custom mount for ezpass too! ;-)

 

my easy pass stays hidden in my secret compartment, never have had an issue. even with the top up!

 

I have had mine in the SC for ages. I have run it up and down the east coast without issue. Works every time.

I have been told, though, that it won't work with a hardtop.

 

... I hate you ross ...