You can use any unpainted steel stud which is fastened to the bodywork; just be careful what it's holding in postion before you undo it. Then find an eyelet to fit the stud, merley wrapping the conductor around the stud is bad practice. Then crimp and solder your earth lead to the eyelet, fit under the stud and retighten. Another member of the failed FL2 clutch/DMF club, twice.

I bought some crimps from JayCar (in Australia) and then I found a bolt behind the glove-compartment to use as the earth point. The silver box section runs from left to right if you want to try and find it in your car.

This photo is from my gallery...

Click image to enlarge

In case you haven't seen it, I put up a thread on mounting the GPS in the dash, which might be helpful http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic8949.html The power supply suggestions here are great though, and I'll look to modifying mine the same way.

Last edited by Past master on 11th Jun 2011 5:40 pm. Edited 2 times in total

Perfect, exactly what I needed, thanks.

Past master wrote:

Edit: For some reason the link doesn't work.

Oooh yes!

Right, I've had a good crack at this. Everything installed perfectly with just one issue-
I cannot seem to get a spare fuse location which is live on ignition only. I tried F5 but that doesnt seem to be live. I've tried the other blanks and sunroof but they dont seem to be live either. The only ones I can get to work are F15 and F16 (I think- bottom left two as you look at it) which are both permanently live. I'm concerned that leaving my satnav cable permanently on will drain my battery despite the GPS unit not being connected.
An thoughts on this? Including on how I might get some power on via ignition only, and potential battery drain from a satnav power cable...?

Thanks in advance

JB

Great thread; 1490 is in the mail. Egipp, Great mount in your pics. Did you end up having something laser cut? your finish looks amazing, as good as factory. If you did, could you give us a little info on this? what kind of plastic? how thick? how is the garmin attached to the plate, and how is the faceplate secured to the dash? thanks for the help and again, GREAT JOB!

G'Day Arctic Fire, First, thanks for your very kind comments - glad you like it. The material used is 1mm thick clear plastic sheet, supplied and cut using the 1490T, minus it's outer frame, as a template, by a local plastics fabricator. How they actually cut it I don't know, but it's very precise. I then sprayed it matt black with paint for plastic sourced from the local model shop. If you look at the (rough!) drawings in my gallery, the larger gives you the external dimensions OK, but please note that you will need to cut a small cut out -about 2 mm - in the top centre edge to clear a projection on the OE box. It's all best done prior to painting, since it's easy to mark the finished painted mask. Once you have installed it there is no problem. The faceplate is actually clamped between the OE box and the console surround, against the Garmin which, in turn, rests against stops in the OE box. There is another thread on the Garmin 1490 installation in the Australia and New Zealand section under 'Has anyone had the Garmin 1490T installed by dealers?' which gives more details. It sounds a complicated installation, but it is quite straight forward, just a bit painstaking. Anyway, good luck, and I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results. Cheers, Graham.

Jimmyb79 wrote:

I cannot seem to get a spare fuse location which is live on ignition only. I tried F5 but that doesnt seem to be live. The only ones I can get to work are F15 and F16 (I think- bottom left two as you look at it) which are both permanently live.

alex_pescaru wrote:

Jimmyb79 wrote:

I cannot seem to get a spare fuse location which is live on ignition only. I tried F5 but that doesnt seem to be live. The only ones I can get to work are F15 and F16 (I think- bottom left two as you look at it) which are both permanently live.

Use F15.
It will switch off after a while as it is powered through a Battery Saver relay together with the interior lights.
After a while, when the car enters sleep mode, the power to interior lights is cut in order to not drain the battery if you forgot one of the interior lights on.

Also F5 meets your requirements, but I don't know why you can't get power from it, as, based on circuit diagrams, is connected on the same power rail with F4.

Sorry all, don't know what happened to my earlier post; I'm pretty sure I didn't send it twice, certainly not with an hours gap. Re Jimmyb79 and alex_pescaru's reply, I took power from F5, ignition switched, with no problems.

Hi all,

Possibly a question for alex....

So
F5 switch live
F15 perminant live but switches off after an hour when car goes to sleep mode
F16 perminant live

Do have any in the bonnet fuse box that are spare like these ? 

I know that, based on the schematics, on a Diesel,
F10, F23, F27, F30, F36 are all permanent live.
Repeat, based on schematics, I didn't test them...

If you are after egipp's flush mounted look, then don't purchase the Nuvi 2000 series as the surround is all one piece and doesn't come off separately like the Nuvi 1490 does.

I bought a Nuvi 2460LT last week, took it apart and whilst doing this I broke the clip that holds the wiring for the screen

So, I have just ordered a Nuvi 1490 but they are a rare find in Oz now as the 2000 series superseded this model.

Looking at various websites, they are still readily available in USA and UK.