I made this NUVI mount for a friend to fit in his 'Nav Box'. The Stainless Steel 'slot bracket' attaches to the rear bottom of the lid and a thin strip of Velcro attaches to the front edge (not shown).

 

Here it is with the NUVI windshield mount.

 

This is how the mount looks in the car, and with the NUVI attached. The nice thing is that it swivels to give either the driver or a co-pilot a good, glare-free view of the screen.

The mount can easily be removed with one hand, and the mounted NUVI is actually even more stable than mounted on the windshield!

 

Here's a second modded mount that I use for my own car made of a piece of aluminum that I machined and the 'Ball Arm' from a NUVI mount. This allows a more compact, adjustable unit that I can remove quickly to stow in my Nav Box, power cord attached.

 

I hard-wired the NUVI mount with the wire running into the Nav Box so of course my NUVI 650 powers up just by clicking it onto the mount. I got the 650 over the 660 since I didn't need the Bluetooth or the FM Traffic features. Trying the 660, I found the FM transmitter was a bit weak, but a nice feature. The occasional static was rather irritating and negates some of the benefits of the transmitter! The great price of the 650 was hard to beat as I recently got it for 30% less than I could buy the 660 on sale for.

I ended up trying a Belkin Tunecast II and almost took it back. The stock transmitter signal is pretty weak, with frequent static, and the volume on the NUVI needs to be output at 100% to even make it useable. I decided to hack it, bypassing the inductor that limits transmission power (man, is that thing ever tiny! ), and attaching a 1/4 wave antenna to it. Hardwired into the Nav Box, with the antenna running down and inside along the center console, the Tunecast now works great! Much better than the NUVI 660 transmitter, and I can even get good reception on a portable FM radio up to about 40 or 50 feet outside the car! It's actually powerful enough through the car radio to overpower and mute strong local FM stations.

I'm pretty happy with how well the NUVI integrated into my G! Everything mounts and dismounts easily with one hand, and IMHO, looks pretty good in the OEM Nav location. Now I can easily play MP3s as well!

 

Very nice job Gord, looks slick, very professional .
You definitely can't beat a Garmin.

 

Nice job and looks good too.

 

Nice custom setup...looks great. I've got a Garmin hard wired in my nav cubby as well.

 

Looks great Gord! Any chance of making up a mount for me?

 

Whoa.... awesome mount!!!! I'll pay you to make me one!

Where is the nuvi supposed to go if you dont have the mount like you do?

 

I'm actually not set up to manufacture the mounting bracket commercially. If you have the original style dash (flat push button volume and heater controls), the mount takes about 1 hour to make and with a simpler bracket attached to the rear of the box lid, and fits securely just by slipping it in and snapping it down in front.

The one shown with the stainless steel slot bracket takes about 2 - 2 1/2 hours to fabricate and is used on the newer style dash with the rotary controls and requires a thin strip of velcro at the front edge to be secure.

 

I used around a 1" binder clip (just check which size will fit in the cubby hole as in pic): removed the arms and used 2 plyers to pry the opening apart about 1/16" to 1/8".

Clean both surfaces and used Lepage double sided tape. This is really strong stuff and sort of permanent. It's from the makers of Loctite. Pic may be in the other thread as there is a 5 pic limit.

Got a custom made polycarbonate plastic (2.5"x3.25"x3/16")...size really depends on the mount as my suction cup mount was about 2.25" in diameter. You can go as wide as 3.5" I believe but you can check that. This cost me $10.

You can also use those picture/photo frames made from clear acrylic. I've seen some for key chains or fridge (with magnet on back) where the photo is sandwiched in between 2 layers of plastic.

I put 2 strips of the soft or fabric side of velcro on both sides of the plastic and 2 small strips on the front. This helps slide the back into the binder clip. The 2 small strips in the front help it from lifting up.

All together, this cost me about $25 to make which is cheaper than a proclip solution which I was considering. Since it all hides away cleanly, not bad and good enough for me. By the way, my GPS is a Garmin Nuvi 250W.

Pics are continued on my next thread...

 

Here are some more photos...

Hope instructions are clear and photos show how easy this is.

Very simple to store all parts back in the compartment.

Power adapter is connected to passenger side outlet.

Anyways, let me know if anyone has any further question.

This design inspired by Gordgee's solution.

 

Great job! Glad to have been of help.

By adjusting the width, the mount should work with most other windshield mounts of different Nav brands.