First off I'd like to thank Stanton for his OVMS posts.
I didn't even know this item existed until I came across his threads.
Thanks again!!!
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So I purchased, set up, and tested out OVMS before finalizing exactly where I was going to hide it.
I wanted it working, out of sight, not hogging my precious OBD2 port (Leafspy needs love too

), and able to be easily disconnected.
I have a Leafbox tucked up under the steering wheel, so it would just be too cramped with OVMS in there also.
I had planned from the start to put the GPS antenna above the glovebox and under the dash where I already knew there would be no metal in the way of the satellite picture.
I thought I'd give that area a shot for the entire install.
And I thought if I could put the whole thing in the factory TCU location... that would be awesome!
So that's exactly what I set out to do.
I started with a bbfly splitter extension that has the factory style clips on the two ends so one of the two actually stays in the factory location.
Under the steering wheel everything looks stock and I still have a working OBD2 port for Leafspy use.
I plugged a 5 foot extension into the other port and ran it behind the dash and under the radio over towards the passenger seat.
That was pretty easy.
It just required pulling the large radio bezel off.
My TCU was the original 2G unit that had been burning 12V power for absolutely no reason for quite some time.
I pulled the board out of the TCU shell and there is actually a little area where the OVMS box sits nicely.
There's just a little plastic in the way.
(That and the OVMS box is fat... too fat for the TCU shell to close completely with it in there.)
I Dremeled some of the plastic away in the area I wanted the OVMS to sit.
I completely removed the posts and nubs in red; cut the sides out in blue; and trimmed back the posts in green.
After Dremeling, the OVMS looks like this in the TCU shell.
Like I said earlier, the OVMS is fat and the TCU shell won't completely close around it.
So I had to flip the shell over to get it to screw to the factory TCU bracket.
And since it wouldn't close all the way, the factory screws were too short too.
I picked up some #4 x 3/4 inch pan head phillips screws from Lowe's and they tightened up enough to close the shell and hold the OVMS inside.
There is still a small gap between the two halves, but I was OK with that.
If nothing else it allows a little air movement around the OVMS box.
I stuck the GSM antenna on the side and ran a few zip ties around the antenna, OVMS, and TCU shell.
The OVMS fits pretty tightly and the antenna adhesive seemed like it would hold it just fine, but I figured a little extra securing wouldn't be a bad thing.
All the extra wiring from both antennas is zip tied behind the TCU/OVMS box.
When put back in the Leaf it looks like this.
Here's a pic of the completed install prior to glovebox replacement.
The GPS antenna is up above that yellow arrow.
My GPS antenna has a magnet in it (I didn't know that at first), so I stuck it on top of a metal bracket above the glovebox.
I had it up there for two weeks during testing and it didn't budge.
But as with the rest of the install I figured a little extra securing couldn't hurt.
I used 3 strips of double sided Tesa under it and a zip tie around it.
It's on top of the metal frame where that green arrow is pointing.
Like I said at the beginning, I wanted the ability to shut off OVMS.
I don't need it running for 1-2 weeks when I'm on vacation and messing around under the steering wheel with the bbfly splitter is not quick or easy to do.
So I left the OBD2 extension / OVMS cable junction in a fairly accessible and slightly hidden spot.
There's some large factory flexloom under the glovebox in the passenger footwell.
I have that cable junction tucked up behind the flexloom.
There is a few inches of slack in those cables so I can pull them down and disconnect them if needed.
It's also easy to tuck back up out of the way when reconnected.
And don't mind those Anderson Powerpole connectors in the bottom right hand corner of that pic.
That's a different project.
I just needed access to the firewall grommet behind the TCU and this was the perfect time to get to it.
Perfect time to swap out the cabin air filter too.
It was full of leaves! :shock: