GPS mount on stem nut?

[squeezer]

And just so you know, in case, The place Iris points out will also sell you just the stem nut without all the other parts for a gps or what have you.

That way, you can just get the right ram ball (they'll tell you the pitch etc). Just the stem nut (taller then stock, for the hole) is about 16 bucks iirc.

I have one, good product.

Been using this set up for five years now. Still love it.

 

[Bike Effects]

Here is the Techmounts answer. Note discount information link below;

Techmount Stem mount at Bike Effects

 

[Fred W]

Not to dis you Jeff. I'm a loyal customer of yours and greatly appreciate the discount that you offer to us Feejer Forum folks.

But the Techmount (at least by itself) is a poor solution, IMO. For one thing, it ain't cheap. Plus it is (supposed to be) a rigid mount, which means that the device being mounted gets no vibration isolation. Any sort of a RAM ball mounting gets the intrinsic rubber ball mounting that helps isolate vibes from the GPS or other device being suspended. Some people don't like that the RAM mounted stuff appears to "move" when the bike vibrates, but that is actually less stress on the device than when it is absorbing all the vibration internally.

I owned a Techmount previously and it would never stay tightened up and in position (which is why I said "supposed to be" above). It was a total PITA. I sold it and never looked back. Have Ram mounting hardware on all of my bikes now, which makes swapping stuff around trivial.

 

[Fred W]

duplicate

 

[bucky]

I know I will probably get roundly booed here. But here is what I did. I would post pictures, but for the life of me I can't figure out how. But I digress.

My brother in law, who owes me plenty of favors is a machinist. He made a little "L" shaped piece out of 1" x 1/4" aluminum and mated a 1" round piece( all painted black to match the brake reservoir) to the end that screws over the top of the brake fluid reservoir. I then bought a cheap but quite sturdy black colored mount on ebay that works for a tomtom gps unit and attaches to the 1" round part of my bracket, my old trusty car gps touchscreen model snaps into that and I route the power cable behind everything to the outlet in the glovebox.

Total cost not counting the $100 4.3" gps unit that I use in my car and rv: $12

Works fine for me for the past year and about 1500 miles so far. In the brightess sunlight I can read it ok all of the time. From my vantage point while riding it is almost centered immediately below the lcd panel on the bike. I can rotate up/down or side to side as much as I want to minimize sun glare very easily.

I only say this whole blurb because I am just such a damn cheapskate. If I can ever figure out how to post a picture I will, but it actually looks very nice and for the price, can't be beat. Now I know everyone says, well what if it falls off. Well, it hasn't in 1500 miles of roads so far. And even if it did it would only fall about 4 inches and still be held by the power cord.

And for all those anal retentive fjr owners out there fretting about getting their $600 unit ripped off and everything. Alot less to worry about, but I do remove it when leaving the bike for more than a short time. Takes about 10 seconds to snap off/on and attach/re-attach the power cord.

 

[bramfrank]

I've been running the MCL stem nut because I feel the Techmount is overpriced. There ARE other solutions out there, but RAM has so many options that you can get the device placed almost anywhere - I use a 3" arm between the stem-mounted ball and the Zumo. I plug in-ear headphones into the jack on the side of the navigator and have 8 gigs of music and my phone connected through it.

While I'm not entralled with the Zumo 660, having paid an arm a leg and one of my nuts for it when they first came out I am going to hang onto it until Garmin eventually gets it right.

 

[azitlies]

I've been running the MCL stem nut because I feel the Techmount is overpriced. There ARE other solutions out there, but RAM has so many options that you can get the device placed almost anywhere - I use a 3" arm between the stem-mounted ball and the Zumo. I plug in-ear headphones into the jack on the side of the navigator and have 8 gigs of music and my phone connected through it.

While I'm not entralled with the Zumo 660, having paid an arm a leg and one of my nuts for it when they first came out I am going to hang onto it until Garmin eventually gets it right.

Just an FYI, for those that may not know or realize... MCL was out of the stem nut recently, so I asked Techmount if they had just the nut and yes they do, although it isn't advertised on their website.

So you can buy just the stem nut from them and then add the rest if you so desire, or just use it with a ram ball as bramfrank is pointing out. I like mine, it works very well. Huge butt 6 point socket needed to change them though :blink:

 

[rfespinosa]

I use the Tech Mount, mounted on the stem nut. It's a couple of years old, the new ones are a little different.

 

[Fred W]

@bucky -

Being cheap is a worthwhile goal, IMO. If you can make that car GPS setup work for you, then by all means don't go spending a lot of good money "upgrading" to a motorcycle specific one. I originally started down that path myself using a Garmin Streetpilot 550 GPS, which is the unit I have been running in my car now for the past 4-5 years. That old Streetpilot has a butt load of useful features, almost like a Zumo 550. Other than not being waterproof (which can be taken care of with a plastic bag) it was only missing one key feature that made me start down the upgrade path. It does not accept uploaded routes to it.

I know that there are some automotive specific GPSes that do accept routes. The (now obsoleted) nuvi 765T had all of the features of the Zumo 660 except it wasn't waterproof and didn't come with a MC specific cradle. Lots of folks use those along with a waterproof box of some kind (RAM aqua boxes are popular) as a less expensive option to the bike GPSes.

 

[Bike Effects]

Not to dis you Jeff. I'm a loyal customer of yours and greatly appreciate the discount that you offer to us Feejer Forum folks.

But the Techmount (at least by itself) is a poor solution, IMO. For one thing, it ain't cheap. Plus it is (supposed to be) a rigid mount, which means that the device being mounted gets no vibration isolation. Any sort of a RAM ball mounting gets the intrinsic rubber ball mounting that helps isolate vibes from the GPS or other device being suspended. Some people don't like that the RAM mounted stuff appears to "move" when the bike vibrates, but that is actually less stress on the device than when it is absorbing all the vibration internally.

I owned a Techmount previously and it would never stay tightened up and in position (which is why I said "supposed to be" above). It was a total PITA. I sold it and never looked back. Have Ram mounting hardware on all of my bikes now, which makes swapping stuff around trivial.

Interesting, but I had the old style Stem Mount on my FJR for years and it never moved. It was a high quality piece and the manufacturer is on the top of my list for customer support. I have NEVER had a stem mount customer complaint that I can remember. Having said that, they say the new style is even better.

 

[Fred W]

Not to dis you Jeff. I'm a loyal customer of yours and greatly appreciate the discount that you offer to us Feejer Forum folks.

But the Techmount (at least by itself) is a poor solution, IMO. For one thing, it ain't cheap. Plus it is (supposed to be) a rigid mount, which means that the device being mounted gets no vibration isolation. Any sort of a RAM ball mounting gets the intrinsic rubber ball mounting that helps isolate vibes from the GPS or other device being suspended. Some people don't like that the RAM mounted stuff appears to "move" when the bike vibrates, but that is actually less stress on the device than when it is absorbing all the vibration internally.

I owned a Techmount previously and it would never stay tightened up and in position (which is why I said "supposed to be" above). It was a total PITA. I sold it and never looked back. Have Ram mounting hardware on all of my bikes now, which makes swapping stuff around trivial.

Interesting, but I had the old style Stem Mount on my FJR for years and it never moved. It was a high quality piece and the manufacturer is on the top of my list for customer support. I have NEVER had a stem mount customer complaint that I can remember. Having said that, they say the new style is even better.

You know, now that I think back about it... I did buy mine second hand (and it was of the original style). Maybe mine was messed up by the prior owner? I probably should not have condemned them based on that example for that very reason.

The part that would get loosened was the single screw that goes down into the steering stem cap nut, so that after a while the whole mount would pivot around loosely.

 

[SLK50]

Not to dis you Jeff. I'm a loyal customer of yours and greatly appreciate the discount that you offer to us Feejer Forum folks.

But the Techmount (at least by itself) is a poor solution, IMO. For one thing, it ain't cheap. Plus it is (supposed to be) a rigid mount, which means that the device being mounted gets no vibration isolation. Any sort of a RAM ball mounting gets the intrinsic rubber ball mounting that helps isolate vibes from the GPS or other device being suspended. Some people don't like that the RAM mounted stuff appears to "move" when the bike vibrates, but that is actually less stress on the device than when it is absorbing all the vibration internally.

I owned a Techmount previously and it would never stay tightened up and in position (which is why I said "supposed to be" above). It was a total PITA. I sold it and never looked back. Have Ram mounting hardware on all of my bikes now, which makes swapping stuff around trivial.

Interesting, but I had the old style Stem Mount on my FJR for years and it never moved. It was a high quality piece and the manufacturer is on the top of my list for customer support. I have NEVER had a stem mount customer complaint that I can remember. Having said that, they say the new style is even better.

I haven't touched mine in over 40,000 miles. It didn't even budge when I crashed. ( Ooops! )

I think it's the perfect blend of form and function.

 

[FJReady]

I'm from Fred's neck of the woods; IOW I'm a frugal guy.

Here's how I got my Ram Ball near the stem location. I mounted in via a hole I tapped in my Heli Riser.

Details:

Drill and tap a 3/8-16 UNC thread into your Heli riser. Don't worry, your metric bike won't stop running with SAE threads and fasteners. Screw in a 2/8-16 X 1" long set screw (I made one from a bolt). Then screw on a zinc plated threaded rod connecter. Essentially a long nut- buy at any hardware store. (About a buck) I bought a 1" Ram mount with the 3/8-16 thread on it from GPSCITY.COM (something like that) for about $10.

It took about 15 minutes to install including the drilling and tapping. Easy Cheesy.

Ram Mounts has a big variety of stuff to attach to the hard bubber ball mounts. As noted above, its a nice interface to isolate high frequency vibrations (not that our bikes aren't silky smooth)

Piccies:

 

[Lee-N-Reno]

All I did on mine was to pop the FJR sticker off between the Key switch and the Big nut on the triple tree. I drill& tapped a 3/8x16 and screwed in a ram stud ball mount with a clamp extension.

Nice and clean, easy on and off.

link to pictures

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.178459142214930.44887.100001525365645&type=1&l=b16b456baa