GregMN

We took a 2 week, 5327 mile, trip. On the trip it became clear that the "state of the art in 2002" sat nav needed to be replaced. The photo below illustrates why:


When the photo was taken we were 62 miles from our destination on a US hwy. The sat nav wanted us to drive 359 miles in 7 hours to get there. No matter how we changed the settings the outcome was the same.

I ordered a and installed it as follows:


Remove the entire unit from the car. Remove the sat nav unit from the cradle by removing the cover for the 4 plugs and unplugging. Then take it to bits by removing screws until you have what's in the photo above.
Left side, top to bottom: 2 pieces of the front molding, the lights and circuit board out of the molding.
Right side, top to bottom, the sat nav screen (face down now) with it's circuit board, the mounting cage with the plugs circuit board, the back cover for the cage.



Above with the circuit boards removed, sat nav screen still in place (face down still).



The sat nav screen removed from it's mount and the Garmin set in it's place in the mount with the front moulding in place.
The plug's circuit board back in place because it needs to in plugged in for the door to open and close and the tilt to work.
I mount the Garmin to a metal plate, in place of the middle circuit board, using the Garmin's supplied mount. I have seen another mounting method using pieces of foam to hold it in place and that seemed to work fine too.


The back of the unit, assembled.

The front. This is before I drilled 2 small holes in the molding above the Garmin's microphone.
Put it back in the cradle and put it back in the car. Install up under the dash to the right of the vent. Plug in the garmin power cord and stuff the extra cord up under the dash to the right of the plug. The cord is the antenna for the Garmin so for the best reception keep it up high in the car.

I installed this Garmin in a sat nav unit that I bought on ebay. I still have the original, intact, working as it was supposed to in 2002, OEM Sat Nav. Let me know if you need one.

I now have a modern GPS that holds more than just 10 addresses, has voice control, traffic, blue tooth telephony, updates maps and software via wi-fi.
I also have the that I will be installing in place of the SC430 mods plug and play unit. That will also be available it anyone wants one.

DshngDaryl

NICE JOB! That is a great swap!

Do you happen to have a picture of the finished product?

With those 4 plugs, I bet it wouldn't be hard to find a 12V power source you could splice the garmin plug into. But, I do like the way you made it completely removable/OEM restorable with the AUX plug.

Bgw70

Looks Great, nice job!
now you have a reliable and accurate GPS without using your phone

Jimgonz

Good work. I want to do this as well.

can you tell me how much space there is between the back of the garmin unit and whatever else is behind it?

I want to fabricate a mount that lets me remove the garmin from the front if I want to.

Thanks

GregMN

Look at the photos in this thread (posts 12 & 16) on my installation on my other SC. You can better see the installation of the piece of sheet metal in place of the middle circuit board that I installed the Garmin mount to.

To be able to remove it from the front would require trimming quite a bit of the front molding. I am not sure how that would look. You would want to make sure that you did not create clearance issues for the tilt and door functions.

You might want to look for a Garmin that is a little smaller so it would fit within the molding frame.

GregMN

The screen is washed out in this photo because it is turned up to full bright for the best top down, sunny day, viewing and in the dark garage it is the brightest thing in view.

GregMN

You would think so wouldn't ya. It seems that nothing is simple and straight forward with the electronics in these cars. It was simpler to just tap the wire for the cig. lighter plug.

wsvc206

wsvc206

you would need both of these to work

GregMN

Looks cool. Explain what we are looking at. It looks like the original sat nav screen is being used for the carplay/androidauto while still retaining some, if not all, of the original functions of the sat nav system.

Jimgonz

Thanks for that info. That is what I was thinking of doing. Where did you draw power from for the GPS? I really want to try this but I already have issues with the motorize door and the screen tilt. The buttons do nothing and the current Navigation doesn't function. The previous owner had a Sony head unit put in and I don't know if that installation had an effect on the navigation system or its just broken. I also don't have steering wheel controls. Not sure why someone would go to all that trouble and not include that. There is a lot of comments and posts on this subject but its difficult to filter out just what I need.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

wsvc206

with a switch I can go back to stock sat navigation system and all will work like how it came from factory, when I hit the switch next to my volt meter in the ashtray I transformed to Apple CarPlay and it connect wirelessly, for my back up camera no need to hit the switch it will automatically go to camera regardless I’m in CarPlay or oem sat Navi system once I put in reverse

GregMN

In the first post on this thread I have a link to the power socket. Tap into the cig lighter power wire and connect the ground wire to chassis ground.

Without the OEM radio, the door and tilt will not work without an adapter. I am working on a alternate solution for that for the other car and will update that this winter. I have heard that the Beatsonic adapter will solve those problems.

For the steering wheel controls you need an adapter. Post #19 on this linked thread.

I hope that gives you a start.

GregMN

Looks ideal. Can you install that using the OEM radio & amp, or is the aftermarket radio an integral part of the system ?

wsvc206

you can use the oem radio & amp only if you have this adapter sound link Q so you would need to have all three, I only use two because I swap out my speaker and amp but retain the stock sat Navi system. Also my tilt, open and close button still work as it should