go.illini's radar detector hard wire install
 

Recap: Picked up a CPO 991.1 C2S about a week ago. Drove the car home with the Uniden R1 suction cupped to the base of the windshield which was less than ideal and jiggly. I knew I wanted to mount it up high. I don't care for the location and look of the mounts attached to the rearview mirror so I ordered a mount off ebay that uses 3M adhesive. It's small and can be mounted anywhere on the windshield.

Some of these steps are documented elsewhere in different threads. I thought it was worth documenting what worked for me in one place with as much detail as possible.

I've seen threads that involve taking apart the mirror covers. I found a thread that showed dropping down the cover that houses the map lights. 2 pushes with a credit card and it was open. No fuss.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...e3702c1f1c.jpg

Here you can see the two clips. As you push forward with the card pull down with a finger until that side is free then do the same on the other side.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...723430c5e7.jpg

Once the cover is out of the way (I looped it behind the rearview mirror) you can can see inside. On the right is the plug (yellow female and blue male) that will provide switched power. The arrows show the 2 clips that are holding the yellow in place. I used my finger to lift the top clip up enough so I could begin to pull the yellow plug out. Once it was started I was able to pop it out with no problem.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...469cf8ed36.jpg

While there are cheaper options I read nothing but good things about the MirrorTap MTX. I went with the 15" because that is what many recommended. For my install I probably could have gotten by with the 10" but the 15" works fine. The extra is tucked inside.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...b1607fc52e.jpg

The kit gives you 4 different sizes of taps I arranged them from smallest to largest. The circled taps I believe are the .045 size and were the ones that fit best. A good snug fit that went into the blue plug fully leaving nothing exposed.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...3f3498c113.jpg

I read that there could be challenges trying to force the RJ-11 connector through the headliner so I did it in reverse. Feeding in the wire end through just to the right of the mirror. There is actually a bit of a gap between the headliner and the glass so it went thru with no problems.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...50861cff8c.jpg

Showing it fed thru.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...350695fb1e.jpg

The red '+' tap connects to the blue wire (switched power) and the black '-' tap connects to the brown wire (ground). It might be hard to see but the arrows are showing how the taps fit in best for me. With the yellow plug oriented this way, the taps went in best above the corresponding wire to make a nice snug fit. For the other 3 sides of each wire (front, back, bottom) the tap either wouldn't go in or didn't fit well.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...bf435c5b31.jpg

Once the taps were installed I completed the connection to the rest of the MirrorTap wiring making sure to fully seat the taps. I then heated the supplied heat-shrink tubing to make as secure connection as possible. After cooling, the yellow/blue plug is seated back into its holding clip.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...3fed7d4a9d.jpg

It lives!
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...eb725a0682.jpg

I only ended up using one zip tie to secure the wiring so the taps couldn't be pulled out. It's hard to see in this picture but there is a little tab above the yellow plug where another wire is taped in place to secure it. I wrapped the zip tie around this tab and pulled it tight.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...3bb669b691.jpg

After messing around with various placements, I cleaned the inside of the windshield with alcohol and mounted the clip for the radar detector.
It uses a permanent 3M adhesive so I expect it to have a strong bond.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...47afd8207d.jpg

Location shown from inside the car.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...c41fc55f8a.jpg

Fully installed. The sun visor will hit the detector if it's rotated fully forward but I felt this was a fair tradeoff for my preferred high mounting location.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...c1f244c816.jpg

This last picture shows the power cord in its stowed location. When not in use it can be fed back in so only the connector is visible. It can't be seen from inside the car and you have to really look for it from the outside to spot it. Did you spot it in the previous picture showing the radar detector mounting clip from the outside? The RJ-11 power connector can be seen if you look for it!
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...775bf106a8.jpg

All in all this was an fairly easy install. I spent more time setting up to take pictures than what it actually took to do the install. I estimate this would have taken less than 30 minutes.

excellent diy instructions

nice setup

this will help lots of people

Well done. Thank you for taking the time to write it up and share.

:thumbup:

Thanks! Great write-up and photos.
I had ordered the 10" and MirrorTap took it back for a no-hassle free swap to 15".

When tapping, sometimes its better to have a few more inches than the job requires. :evilgrin:

AWESOME!!!!! This was perfect. I just used it to set up my 991.2. The only thing I found different was that I needed to use the smallest plug. But, I dropped the next to smallest one (never to be found again). The only other was no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the blue connector back into the clip. Neither made any difference. I was happy it worked. Took me about 20 minutes. I can't thank you enough, for the great write-up and photos.

Nice job. This procedure works like a charm.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...2733e834b5.jpg

I believe MirrorTap only sells the MTX which comes with the different tap sizes.

Once the yellow plug is unclipped from its mount there was plenty of slack in the wires for the yellow and blue plugs to pull it out enough for access.