I am not the first one to do this migration from the permanent dash mounted Silverleaf unit to a PC based system. Tim Bentley had some photos of his installation. The Siverleaf unit installed in my 2002 Marquis is no longer available, parts at Silverleaf Electronics for my unit was down to just one circuit board, and no displays were available for repair. My screen was getting unreadable due to banding, so the VMSpc was the only option. Looks like others may be forced to deal with this problem in time, so this is one approach in dealing with the empty dash space and at the same time improve the driver options as to what is conveniently in view. Photos of the build and final result are attached.
BTW Silverleaf has been outstanding in their help and support with my issue, cannot say enough good things about their customer service. The software drivers were an issue with my tablet and Windows 7. Silverleaf tech support tamed the beast while on the phone with me for over an hour.
Install:
Removing the old unit involves disconnecting a piece of dash vent ductwork, easily unclipped, removing the dash heater control unit, easy just two nuts. Removing the Silverleaf unit, moderate difficulty given the reach, 4 allen heads, two per side, and one plugged cable needed to be removed which will later connect directly to the VMSpc.
I already had added a tablet PC and mount for navigation so I decided to migrate some of the navigation to a new Garmin 7 inch, 760RV unit which I found fits the existing Silverleaf space almost perfectly. What was needed was a mount for the new Garmin as well as a mount for the black box VMSpc unit. My goal was to have a way to reach the VMSpc unit from the front of the dash and to have adjustment of the mounting depth and position of the Garmin from the front side of the dash.
I used a cabinet grade plywood and made a "black box" using the same frontal size as the old Silverleaf. The "black box" was built with a movable plate that fits inside the box that acts as the back of the box. On the back of the movable plate is a shelf for the VMSpc unit.
A series of holes were drilled so the back plate, that is mounted within the box, is adjustable depth wise. The supplied Garmin mount is screwed to the back plate. The reason to make the back plate adjustable, depth wise, is so that the spacing of the Garmin from the dash can be set to whatever works best. Things like the on off button are on the back of the Garmin and need to be accessible along with the mount release button. I drilled the suction cup mount that comes with the Garmin unit and mounted it with screws onto the backing plate. I used some stick on felt for the front of the box edges to be sure that the unit would not produce any dash squeaks with movement. I used the same screw mounting holes as the old Silverleaf used that were in a two inch wide steel band mounted to the back of the dash. In the end there were no dash modifications involved and if the VMSpc needs to be changed out it can be done from the front side of the dash.
If I had to do this project over the only change I would make would be to use some blind T mounting nuts on the black box and use machine screws for holding the unit in place in the dash mount. The Silverleaf unit has some mounting nuts epoxied to the side of their unit. It was difficult, given the reach and position of the mount, to use wood screws given they were nearly impossible to start by hand......much cursing was involved. When this project is done the dash changes look acceptable as a factory install.
With my tablet and the the VMSpc unit I can use either half screen and run Delorme Street Atlas with my full trip planned on the other half. I can also run the VMSpc full screen if I prefer. With the Garmin I run point to point with a days travel planned.
I also tied the audio out with cables from the Garmin and the tablet PC to the AUX input of the dash radio unit using audio cables and Y adapters. One side of the stereo input comes from the tablet and one side from the Garmin. I use the balance control on the dash radio/camera unit to balance the audio volume between the two. This handling of audio is loud and clear from both units while the camera display is on the screen.
Hope the photos are self explanatory but if you have questions, let me know. Hope this helps.
Later Ed