Options for Mounting Zumo

[jfheath]

I'm taking the opportunity to attempt to fit my camera, electrics and satnav to my new-to-me vehicle.

For the satnav - I've always liked it to be located on the fairing dash behind the screen, over to the left hand side. Out of immediate eye-line but easy to read with a quick glance.

Here is my 3rd Pan European with the RAM ball mounted and again with my old Zumo 660 mounted on the Ram Ball.

Zumo 660 Fitting.jpg (177.87 KiB) Viewed 6112 times

The top half shows the ram ball mount - which is mounted on a rubber cushion cut from an old inner tube and bolted through to a circular metal plate on the underside of the dash - also sandwiching a piece of Inner tube. It works really well.

My new bike - well, at present I am not so sure about how to get under that bit of the fairing at the moment - but even if I was, the dash plastic seem to be much more brittle than that on the ST1300.

So I am wondering about these RAM Ball Mounts. My 1300 has the lozenge shaped base. I'm wondering about using the circular one (which is what I had on my last 1300)

Ram Ball Mounts.png (135.14 KiB) Viewed 6112 times

Rather than using my previous method, I am wondering about trying a different method

Eg:

• Using 3M Heavy Duty Foam adhesive Pads to stick the circular base onto the plastic. I had pretty good success with this on my camera recorder box. Rather like a mobile phone, but half the length. I stuck it down to a piece of hardboard and secure the wires to it so that the wires could not vibrate against the body of the recorder at the point where they emerge. That worked well, but I've just tried to release it from its grip. IT took about quarter of an hour, gently prying and getting a thin blade to cut the adhesive. Maybe this worul work for the ramball ?
• Well nuts. These are rubber top-hat shape with a captive nut at the top of the hat. You drill a (say) 5mm hole. The not is pushed through the hole first until the brim of the hat is resting on the plastic. When you insert the bolt (hopefully remembering to put it through the RAM ball mount first) and screw it into the nut, the tightening process compresses the rubber so that there is in effect a big rubber washer between the nut and the plastic.
• Combination of both of the above.

My concern is that there is a lot of leverage and some weight to the Zumo mounted an an arm, and it is vibrating all of the time.
Can these 3M strips take this behaviour, or is it likely to come unstuck.
Without a metal plate underneath - the weight is taken by the plastic around the well nuts.

Has anybody tried this method please.

And more to the point, if you did, did you lose your Zumo as a result, or did your fairing crack ?

[Oop North John]

Must admit I'm confused about what bike you're asking about but are there any brake cylinders / mirrors that you could use a RAM mount with?

[lkraus]

I could never bring myself to drill holes in the plastics. I doubted their strength and stability and did not wanted to be left with unused holes if I changed or removed the GPS. There were various other metal mounting brackets and bars available to fit my bike, but I balked at the price.
I tried a couple different RAM mounts before settling on the RAM-B-346U, which mounts on top of my clutch reservoir. I cannot quite capture my actual view with a camera, but in vertical mode the XT nicely fills the visual space between speedometer and mirror. (It does not look so tall in person.)

XT mount.jpg (63.87 KiB) Viewed 6100 times

A quick sweeping scan updates my awareness of speed, position, and surrounding traffic. Having the GPS closer to me makes the screen appear bigger. I don't need to reach to touch the screen, and my hand is always near the grip.

[jfheath]

Must admit I'm confused about what bike you're asking about but are there any brake cylinders / mirrors that you could use a RAM mount with?

The new bike is a trike. A Can-Am Spyder - Touring verison. Two wheels at the front. The picture is my bike taken by the dealer before I bought it.

Spyder RTL.jpg (228.68 KiB) Viewed 6088 times

The bars may be a possibility - but I really don't like the satnav in that position - although I may have to get used to it. The standard Ram ball mount with the U-bolt supplied with Zumos may work, although the bars are a larger diameter. The mirrors are an integral part of the fairing. There are no brake reservoirs - in fact there are no levers on the handlebars at all - that really does take some getting used to.

I can probably get a Ram ball mount on there if there is nothing else available, or when I can find out how to get to the inside of the dash part of the fairing. I'll make sure that I can put back what I have already taken off before I start taking more off.

On the side view of the photo - click on the image to see a better zoomable version - you can see the dash hood sheltering the instrument panel. I want to mount the satnav on top of that behind the screen. It is much further away and much higher up - so the amount of refocusing and head movement required is very much reduced.

The dash mount on my Pan Europeans has been a brilliant location and non of them have developed any cracks. The last two bikes have had over 70,000 miles each with the satnav mounted in that position. No problem when passing them on - the new owners are pleased to have one mounted already.

One possibility is a device that attaches to the centre of the handlebar bracket - but again, that requires the head to be moved down and that requires much longer to refocus and then refocus back to the road. A lot can happen in that time. On the dash, it is just a quick glance to the left.
On the side view of the photo above, you can see the dash hood sheltering the instrument panel - forward of the bars.. I want to mount the satnav on top of that behind the screen. It is much further away - so the amount of refocusing required is reduced.

[Oop North John]

Wow that looks a beast.

This might give some ideas: https://www.martinthevlogger.com/post/g ... ort-videos

[ZFtracker]

How about this:

2026-01-08 11_38_58-Can-Am Spyder RT Dashboard Mounted Accessory Docking Station (2010-2019) — Mozil.jpg (303 KiB) Viewed 6070 times

https://www.slingmods.com/canam-spyder- ... ?vehicle=1

[jfheath]

Thanks @ZFtracker - that would be a brilliant solution. Unfortunately mine is a 2021 - I've just been out to inspect - there are no bolt holes available to fit that device - and the dash has this weird, shiny raised part on it - it looks as though it allows air to blast through. Not sure what that is for.

I know that there is a device that goes onto the handlebar clamp in the centre - but that will be a last resort.

Thanks too @Oop North John - I had a good look through that set of videos. He pointed out something I'd not realised - the U clamp provided with the Zumos for handlebar mount is too narrow for the Spyder. That was going to be my temporary stand by solution - but I'll have to rethink that too !

I'll keep looking.

[jfheath]

I finally got sorted.

I managed to get the screen off - very easily. The fitting is much sturdier than the ST1300 - A chunky cast alloy carrier onto which the screen is bolted. Can-Am don’t do shoulder bolts to protect fairing and screen from cracking, which is poor, I think. But the bracket is raised by three pivoting arms, the central one is motorised. The screen has to come off to get to the pivot bushes - which were brass bushes seized inside a corroded alloy hole - so they took a bit of imagineering to extract. After that I could get the top grey plastic dash fairing off to see what was underneath it.

I was delighted to find that this plastic nose fairing was quite thick and resilient to movement - slightly flexible and very sturdy - slightly thicker than the screen itself. Lots of checking to make sure that the raising and lowering of the screen doesn’t catch on the top of the Zumo. Underneath the fairing/cowl there is plenty of space , so I was able to mount a ram ball base on the top left of the dash, just tucked behind the screen, in the position I wanted. I used strong double sided adhesive tape under the ram ball base and a metal plate under the fairing - also stuck with thick adhesive tape. Drilled through and gently bolted together with nyloc nuts that prevent the bolts from working loose. The tape provide the cushioning as well as the adhesion. The bolts make sure that it is never going to come off. The adhesive makes sure that it cannot vibrate against the plastic. Previous installations on my ST1300 I had used rubber strip cut from an old car tyre inner tube. This gel adhesive tape is better.

Riders View Zumo ZUF- 3.jpg (79.3 KiB) Viewed 5903 times

Ram Ball Mount ZUF.png (17.48 KiB) Viewed 5903 times

I got in touch with the firm in the USA about the cuff ram ball mount, they promised to get back to me, but never did. A friend who also has one of these Spyders and who took me to see the company from where I bought mine - was also trying to work out what to do with his satnav - he was struggling with the car fitting suction cup. Since his is a 2019 model I was able to point him to the slingmod bracket that @ZFtracker told me about. So he is very pleased about that.

So two very happy bunnies here. Thanks for the advice and pointers.