Mounting a Garmin GPS

[BusaBoy]

Anybody do this yet? I have a stem mount that fits the bike perfectly. The Garmin GPS requires the funky docking mount to supply power to the unit. The docking mount has the female portion of a ball mount. How do I make this transition to the steel plate without having the GPS sticking up too high?

[Qfactor]

a couple pictures would help.

shoot me an email

I can probably make you a little something...

Q

[idratherberidin]

I made my own mount for my Garmin Nuvi a couple weeks ago. Total cost was about $1.00. I can take some pics for you if you cant follow what I'm about to say.
I used a #3 rubber stopper (right size for my stem)
a 3/16 by 3" screw with 1 washer and lock washer, nut

I drilled a 3/16" hole in the female portion of the dock. Helps if you have a drill press, straight through into the rubber stopper to make sure everything was in line.

I then used a file to remove some of the top of the stopper so it would fit right into the round opening of the socket of the dock.

After everything fit well insert screw through dock into stopper, add washer (must be same size as bottom of stopper) followed by lock washer and nut.


Insert into your stem (my cbr had a plastic cap over the hole) Once its in there begin to tighten the screw as you do this the stopper will expand on the bottom giving you a secure fit. If your worried about losing it, I can move the front end around with the dock, its not going anywhere. I have tested it to squidly like speeds and haven't lost it yet. Plus it looks like its supposed to be there. Overall I was very happy with the results.

[BusaBoy]

Where are you located?
I would love to take a look at it!

I made my own mount for my Garmin Nuvi a couple weeks ago. Total cost was about $1.00. I can take some pics for you if you cant follow what I'm about to say.
I used a #3 rubber stopper (right size for my stem)
a 3/16 by 3" screw with 1 washer and lock washer, nut

I drilled a 3/16" hole in the female portion of the dock. Helps if you have a drill press, straight through into the rubber stopper to make sure everything was in line.

I then used a file to remove some of the top of the stopper so it would fit right into the round opening of the socket of the dock.

After everything fit well insert screw through dock into stopper, add washer (must be same size as bottom of stopper) followed by lock washer and nut.


Insert into your stem (my cbr had a plastic cap over the hole) Once its in there begin to tighten the screw as you do this the stopper will expand on the bottom giving you a secure fit. If your worried about losing it, I can move the front end around with the dock, its not going anywhere. I have tested it to squidly like speeds and haven't lost it yet. Plus it looks like its supposed to be there. Overall I was very happy with the results.

[idratherberidin]

Im in Danvers. I will take some pics tonight when I get home around 5. Its really simple.

[ssg]

what type of Garmin GPS are you trying to mount?

[BusaBoy]

Garmin Nuvi 730

what type of Garmin GPS are you trying to mount?

[catamount]

Ram also makes a stem mount that looks nice too.




However I was going for the lowest possible mounting position so I bought a chrome TechMount and took off the stem. It mounts directly to my bars and almost looks like it belongs there:

Only used the parts pointed to:



To come up with this:



Which ends up looking like this:

[idratherberidin]

Here are the pics of how I mounted my Nuvi which is only the 250w so I am not sure we have the same dock

[ssg]

The OEM Nuvi mount is meant to hang off a car windshield, not very heavy duty (the Zumo pictured on the bottom is a different animal altogether).

If you're going to be sticking it on a vibey, wind-laden set of handlebars you should really go with something like this to at least hold the unit - then attach a ram ball to the back and tie to an arm or shortlink to a ubolt on the bars.
RAM Mount System

The RAM solution isn't very 'pretty' (well, they do sell Chrome parts now for the harley crowd ) but it does do the job fairly well.


Quality is expensive but you only need to buy it once...

[Mr Bread]

Where did you guys get your gps, and what is around usual to pay?

I would like to do some really long distance trips and the gps seems like a good idea.

[Jayspeed]

I just ordered 4 pieces from RAM to mount my nuvi 360. I'll try and post some pics in a week from now. I basically got the cradle for the gps which mounts to their diamond base which mounts to an arm which mounts to a base that will mount to my camera mount on my gas tank. I'm going to wire a weather proof 12v outlet that will most likely tie wrap somewhere up front to feed this and a radar detector. I'll of course have to get a splitter to create a duplex outlet.

[ssg]

Jayspeed have you looked into Powerlet - Powersport Standard Connector stuff? Little spendy but bit more convenient than using big 12vdc outlets everywhere.

[ssg]

Where did you guys get your gps, and what is around usual to pay?

I would like to do some really long distance trips and the gps seems like a good idea.

Costco.com: Offering thousands of items you won’t find in your local Costco. or
GPS Discount, Inc. sells name brand GPS receivers, fishfinders, marine chart plotters and topographical mapping software along with other outdoor items.

Price - what do you want to do with it? Full on route-planning, waterproof, motorcycle-friendly Zumo 550 is about 600$ these days,
or you can get a Nuvi 200 for ~150$ on Craigslist that is a 'simpler' solution.

If you buy used, just make sure it's not too old, as the roads and maps do change and buying something 3-4 years old most likely means you've gotta spend another 100$ on maps to make it truly useful for traversing the continent.

[Jayspeed]

Jayspeed have you looked into Powerlet - Powersport Standard Connector stuff? Little spendy but bit more convenient than using big 12vdc outlets everywhere.

]

Thank you for the link. I picked up an extension cord for my sae battery tender connection and got a sae converted to 2 cigar outlets. Now I don't have to do some radio shack hack wiring.

[ssg]

yeah, save the hack wiring for when you get a KLR or something no place for that on a sportbike.

[Jayspeed]

Here it is.



Cockpit view



After I figured out what to do with the wires and outlets

[BusaBoy]

After all the bullshit and strong recommendation not to use the Garmin Nuvi 750 on a bike, I decided to mount it in my car and buy a Tom Tom Rider with Bluetooth and head set. The Garmin is not water resistant and I was told that th Nuvi 750 will not be very forgiving from shock. The Tom Tom has mounting holes with threaded inserts that makes it quite easy to mount. The plate that came with the stem mount that I bought matched the mounting holes perfectly. My only complaint with Tom Tom is Verizon is not compatible with Tom Tom. I thought I would be able to use my phone with this GPS and apparently if you want Tom Tom, you can't have Verizon!

"Onto Verizon...Our Plus Services connect through a GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) wireless data service. At this time, Verizon uses a CDMA wireless data service. Again, we do understand the frustration, and we do apologize for the inconvenience.

If you have any further questions or comments, please email or call us at 866-486-6866 Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM until 7:00 PM EST. Thanks again for writing. At TomTom we believe in showing you the way the easy way."