After considerable contemplation, I bought my very first motorcycle GPS. Installation was a breeze thanks to the wealth of information in this forum. I did some things I haven't seen or heard speak of though, which I wish to share.
Step 1) Wiring. I attached a couple very small bayonet connectors to the Tomtom wires and heat-shrunk them into an almost terminal-like configuration to link to the wired connector under the left side panel. Positive is yellow/red, ground is brown.
Then I wrapped things with electrical tape and stowed it neatly with a zip tie. If anyone is ever able to source the proper BMW connector, I'll swap to that, but, in the meantime, this worked well enough.
2) Routing the wire. I temporarily zip-tied the Tomtom wire in place at the handlebar tree then ran the wire retrograde under the left side of the tank; tucking it where it would go and using zip ties where needed, back to the left side cover area. I bundled the excess and tucked that away. Easy.
3) Attaching the Tomtom base. My first inclination was to go with an M8 Ram handlebar tree mount. I ordered one pre-emptively. When I received the Tomtom and looked at it's base, however, I knew that I wouldn't be satisfied with it's positioning. The ideal spot looked to be to use the 12mm steering head socket, but how? Cannibalizing the tree mount was the answer. Ok, first, the M8 mount was a titch too tall, so I ground off about a centimeter.
*This is the one, and the yellow shows roughly what I removed.
Next, I assembled a home-made bar end type expanding mount---like you'd use for bar end mirrors only more narrow---using a rubber cylinder, a couple washers, and a nut small enough to work. I had to ditch the M8 bolt and go with 1/4-20 because M8 nuts are too large. My FrankenRam looked like this:
*it’s alive!
I moved the handlebars off their perch to access the steering stem hole, planted the mount, and tightened it. To clean up the Ram arm, I swapped out the plastic wing nut with a shorted allen head bolt and lock nut. It's just better looking this way. Then I attached it to the base. So far, so good.
I put my bars back and made sure there was adequate clearance for steering, then fine-tuned the angles before tightening everything up. Here she is:
Loving it.
Step 1) Wiring. I attached a couple very small bayonet connectors to the Tomtom wires and heat-shrunk them into an almost terminal-like configuration to link to the wired connector under the left side panel. Positive is yellow/red, ground is brown.
Then I wrapped things with electrical tape and stowed it neatly with a zip tie. If anyone is ever able to source the proper BMW connector, I'll swap to that, but, in the meantime, this worked well enough.
2) Routing the wire. I temporarily zip-tied the Tomtom wire in place at the handlebar tree then ran the wire retrograde under the left side of the tank; tucking it where it would go and using zip ties where needed, back to the left side cover area. I bundled the excess and tucked that away. Easy.
3) Attaching the Tomtom base. My first inclination was to go with an M8 Ram handlebar tree mount. I ordered one pre-emptively. When I received the Tomtom and looked at it's base, however, I knew that I wouldn't be satisfied with it's positioning. The ideal spot looked to be to use the 12mm steering head socket, but how? Cannibalizing the tree mount was the answer. Ok, first, the M8 mount was a titch too tall, so I ground off about a centimeter.
*This is the one, and the yellow shows roughly what I removed.
Next, I assembled a home-made bar end type expanding mount---like you'd use for bar end mirrors only more narrow---using a rubber cylinder, a couple washers, and a nut small enough to work. I had to ditch the M8 bolt and go with 1/4-20 because M8 nuts are too large. My FrankenRam looked like this:
*it’s alive!
I moved the handlebars off their perch to access the steering stem hole, planted the mount, and tightened it. To clean up the Ram arm, I swapped out the plastic wing nut with a shorted allen head bolt and lock nut. It's just better looking this way. Then I attached it to the base. So far, so good.
I put my bars back and made sure there was adequate clearance for steering, then fine-tuned the angles before tightening everything up. Here she is:
Loving it.
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