Made my own GPS Mount

Since I wired in power for my GPS and installed a Power outlet last night, I decided to be really engineering and create my own GPS mount based upon the DennisB design.

1 7075 Aluminum bar, 1/4" thick, 1" wide and 12" long (don't need that much, but thats how they sold it.
Aluminum Bar on Amazon

RAM Mounts RAM-B-238 RAM 2.43" x 1.31" Diamond Base with 1" Ball
RAM Ball Diamond Base

A couple M6 metric hex bolts, spacer collar and smaller bolts and nuts to attach RAM Ball mount.

I had my local machine shop cut the aluminum and round the edges (he wasn't even going to charge me, but I gave him $10 for doing it)  and I drilled the holes after taking measurements and marking spacing.  I then polished the unfinished aluminum bar and attached to the handlebar. Sits about where I want it but I may change to my longer RAM mount bar to pull it out further from the dash.

Hello bicyclenut
                    Looks like a job well done.If you need a sun shade check out www.glarestomper.com.     Howard

p.s. Sorry, I see this website is not available right now.

That's pretty much what I did on my first SW. Used a couple of longer bolts with spacers to mount the aluminum piece which had the GPS mount on it. I hung onto it and put it on my second SW a couple years later and now it's on a friend's SW. I prefer centerline GPS mounts because you bike tends to go the way your eyes do. A centerline GPS prevents some of that moving off side to the direction of the GPS. I've got my GPS on my BMW GT mounted in the center of the handlebars as well. I found that setting the angle of the GPS screen parallel to the forward angle of the instrument panel helped a lot with glare.

That GPS mount is similar to the ones DennisB used to make. I like that the RAM ball is the one with two screws, Dennis's used a different RAM ball that only had one screw. I found that was my Garmin in it's Touratech holder, plus a 4" or 6" RAM arm with lockable knob quite a bit of weight on the ball and it would occasionally work loose. With my older TomTom Rider I definitely needed a Glarestomper to make the display viewable in bright sunlight. I removed my DennisB mount a few months ago and fitted a RAM Mount cover on the left brake reservoir.

I'm currently in Bremen in Northern Germany and the weather is cold, wet, and blustery. One the ride up I had all this plus crosswinds going through Holland, and a lot of spray kicked up by autobahn traffic. I was fine with riding in the cold and rain and the Silver Wing handled cruising and overtaking effortlessly.

The only minor irritation was the screws on the RAM cover on the brake reservoir working loose, I had to stop and tighten them 3 or 4 times. This might be the weight problem again (I switched from a medium 4" arm to a smaller 2" on the ferry over from Hull). Or I've put shorter screws in by mistake, there's rubber spacers between the brake reservoir and the RAM cover and I'll sort it out when I get home. Meanwhile I've had to get creative with the zip ties and electrical tape when I arrived at my hotel as a temporary fix.

I may even ditch the RAM cover and go back to the DennisB mount again, I do like the one bicycle nut has made.  

I found the brake/clutch reservoir mount from Motorcycle Larry worked very well. All Hondas seem to have the same cap.

Very creative and well done. Too bad machinists where I am are not so charitable. Would have cost a pretty penny here and made it impractical. Fortunately I have one from Dennis B so not a problem, but great job and enjoy!

It was designed based on the DennisB mount. Initially on my Reflex I used a single bolt RAM mount to one of these bolts but it would turn and had some flex. From my view, this one does not block any of the warning lights as it did on Reflex and they put the turn signal warning lights up high which I find as an improvement to see if you left them on after turning.

bicyclenut wrote:

<>1 7075 Aluminum bar, 1/2" thick, 1" wide and 12" long (don't need that much, but thats how they sold it.<>

 
Half inch thick? Holy cow, that's bridge girder material. Quarter inch stuff would have more than sufficient.

Tim

Not bad at all, I like having left over metal for my junk box. Those extra pieces will come in handy some day to make something else. I used 3/16" stock for mine but I'm blessed in having a metal scrap yard down the road a few miles. They'll sell you a tiny scrap or a trainload, even buy back scrap in small amounts. I love the place. Lots of steel and aluminum sheet and bar stuff, rods of all kinds and sizes, lovely place to prowl and get ideas from.

I made my own out of aluminum bar stock as well. I used 1/2 copper water pipe, about 1/2 inch long as my spacers. I got the M6 (if I recall) bolts for free so cost was just the ball. I sprayed all my components black. It jiggles a bit when you hit a bump and I think it's because the nuts you screw in to are only meant to hold the weight of the plastic shroud.

Tim (Cosmic_Jumper),

I corrected the specs on the aluminum bar I used, it was only 1/4 thick, NOT 1/2 as I originally listed. That would have been a heavy duty mount, I could have mounted a large screen TV to that!