mounting gps

I am considering of buying a zumo 660. Any suggestions how to mount it including a tank bag.
Found something but i dont think you can see the display when a tankbag is mounted.


How did you do it?

Just used standard mount that came with my Zumo 550 which works fine for me - with or without tankbag


.

After spending ages thinking about the best mount to use and how and being pretty adamant that i wanted it in the middle, I found the best place was on the left handlebar with the supplied bracket.

I can reach it easy with my left hand at speed on the motorway if I need to without having to reach all the way across to the middle and I can still see it past my chin bar without taking my eyes off the road too much.

It doesn't block the speedo or get in the way of my tank bag.

I fitted an additional bracket to my RC8 and it really put me off when checking road layout ahead or selecting nearest petrol station and the like as I had to look down to see it and this is what I'd have had to do if I mountd it in the middle on my SD.

I thought I'd hate it being on the left bar, especially without the sat nav in it, but they've made a good job of the cradle design, not as ugly as the 550 one and I would never put it anywhere else now. For track days I just turn it downwards into the centre of the bars to keep it out the way as the cables aren't removable easily. It survived 160 miles of pissing down rain at motorway speeds as well which I figured was a pretty good test of it's waterproofing, the gear I was earing didn't fare so well.

Here's a couple of pics

No worries, you're absolutely right, aesthetically speaking the middle is the best spot and is what I thought I'd go for.

I think unless you block some visibility of your clocks or have a very tall mount which would ruin the look, you're going to have serious problems being able to use a decent size tank bag.

The simplest ways though to mount in the center without having to get a bracket or something made up is to use a ram ball with a bolt attached and screw that in place of your tank bolt or one of your riser bolts, you can then use the mount that came with the zumo to connect on to the ball rather than the handlebar clamp and position it in the center.

It used to be that you had to go to http://www.telferizer.com/ for one of these but they work out quite expensive for what they are.

However I just did a bit of searching for something I saw when I first got mine but wasn't on sale yet and I found it's available now.

Ram are now doing their own bolt on ball for handelbar clamps but unlike the Telferizer these just pass an M8 bolt straight through the ball, the ones they supply are shouldered bolts for the handlebar clamps but as long as it's M8 and allen head you could stick a std bolt through it, don't remember what the tank bolt is but if it's M8, you could just swap out the sholdered bolt for a threaded bolt to go in the tank position.

Here is the link, it's a heck of a lot cheaper than the telferizer ones

http://www.buybits.com/product/sku_6011.aspx

If you have a look in the gallery there are pictures of pliptons bike showing a bll mount in both of the positions, clamps and tank, and i you search the forum for GPS or sat nav I know that he listed the bolt sizes for those two locations in a thread as well

I played around with all sorts of positions before I ordered any parts and just wasn't happy with the centre position because of the visibility and functionality disadvantages but it does look good

Once you've played around a bit you'll figure out what's best for you anyway but even if you want something a bit more custom like the pic you showed, it might be worth setting it up in the centre using one of the methods I mentioned just to get a feel for the location before getting the engineering work going so to speak.

Saw this on ebay recently and thought it might be ideal for those guys that wanted something like this to mount their sat nav

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SWMotech-GPS-Halt ... 2c50ca4fd3

OK - didn't know they were there...awesome! Guess I shouyld get around to reading my manual some day huh?

Katoom, you could chance driling a hole and fitting a Powerlet

http://www.powerletproducts.com/product ... socket/280

I put two on my GS and one on my SD-R.









I've ridden through a tropical storm and the connector was water tight and the connection secure.

Cheers
Steven

FlyingScotsman...very neat and clean setup...and waterproof as you point out. Definitely will look into that type of deal.

Thanks very much for the suggestion.

If you go for a bar mount then it's easier to put the socket on the dash. I did the same on the 08 SDR but didn't take any pix, but it was a doddle!

http://www.superduke.net/forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=347

Not sure if this pic uploading thing will work but i wanted to show you another way of mounting the Zumo 660. Althought the Touratach lockable (that's what they say...) bracket is expensive, it comes with the clumsy universal clamp for the handlebars and I didnt like it. There is a great little steel work specialist here who knocks out brackets just for bikes and they do a great job. This is what they came up with for my SDR at SGD$100 only. Built to order while you wait in stainless steel and fitted at no extra charge.

Contact them at Seng Kwang Metal Industries. +65 6481 9580.

[img]
[/img]
[img]
[/img]