Month: July 2007

I finally finished mounting the GXM30 XM antenna/receeiver for my garmin 2730 gps. I wanted it to be out of sight, and yet in a position where I would get a minimum of signal dropouts.

I picked the trunk. For a trial run, I used blue painters tape to cover the center top of the trunk and then taped the antenna there. Rode around a bit to be sure that location was going to work and it worked fine. 3 full bars and no dropouts – that’s the place.

I got some industrial strength velcro and put the fuzzy part on the inner trunk lid. I cut a circle out of the sticky part and put it on top of the gxm30 “puck”. Pushed it together and twisted a bit, but decided the wire needed to exit to the side rather than the front. Pulling it loose was not easy – this won’t come loose any time soon. Now the wire exits towards the right side of the bike.

Drilled a hole through the trunk in the front center, about 3/4 inch down from the top. In that location the lip of the lid will cover the hole and should prevent water entering the trunk. Because of the lid’s proximity, I used the flutes of a drill bit to make an “angled” hole so the I could route the wire from right to left and by doing that prevent a sharp bend. Once in place I covered both sides of the hole with closed cell foam weatherstripping to seal it back up.

My garmin 2730 came with an extension for the antenna, so I wrapped the connection with vinyl tape to keep water out and ran it along the left side of the frame. because the plug is larger than the cable, I wound up running it down by the alternator under the left side cover. There is a cable tie I loosened to get the connector through and then retightened it. The wire then runs up, behind the wiring harness, up past the left glovebox, and out by the triple tree. I removed the top shelter to get this wire routed properly.

There are three wires to the gps – power in, xm antenna in, and audio out. The audio out is a special unit I had Electrical Connection make for me, it is a ground loop isolator with the 3.5mm plug on a 36″ wire and the other end plugs into the aux input under the left glovebox. The factory wire is only 12″ long and really only works inside the glovebox. With the longer wire I can reach the gps and not worry about pulling it too tight during full-lock turns. I could have used a headphone extension cable but since this will get wet if it rains I decided the fewer connections the better.

I need to cover the three wires with spiral loom to make it neater, but the install is clean.

I received a QD gps mount from Mounting Innovations and it works very well. One of the annoyances with the RAM mount system is that to remove the gps you must loosen the clamp. When you do that you lose the positioning that you so carefully adjusted last time. I’ve wired power and audio to be easily unhooked when I need to remove the gps, but I was still having to readjust the gps after remounting it each time.

I found the QD bracket and ordered one with a universal bracket. The bracket moves the RAM ball to the bottom which does allow for more flexibility in positioning and once it is set you’re ready to go. Now, when you remove the gps you simply flip the safety catch and open the lever. The gps comes off and the mount itself stays in position. When it’s time to go, just hook the back part of the mount and rotate down a bit, that releases the lever back to the “secured” position. Flip the safety catch and you’re ready to go. No more readjusting after every stop.

UPDATE 17 July: I’ve gone back to the center RAM mount after installing the QD bracket. Since it relocates the RAM ball to the bottom of the gps instead of the back, the short arm works well and seems to cut down on vibration. In my line of sight, the gps now pretty much covers up the lcd, which is OK, as you typically don’t really need it a lot. The gps has a clock and I don’t look too much at the odometer or tripmeters except when stopped. Now I have to work out the routing for the 3 wires (power, XM antenna, and stereo audio out) so it is neater.

On the 1000+ mile trip, the QD mount worked flawlessly, making it simple to put the gps away and out of sight. When saddling up again, there was no need to fiddle with the mount, just click, flip the safety, plug in, and go.