Mounting My GPS on the Dash

[HiggyB]

At long last I finally got off my ass today and had some fun upgrading my GPS set-up. I use a Garmin 276c GPS and have always had it in a Touratech bracket mounted to the top of my triple clamp. While that's worked well enough it kind of sucked as my tank bag couldn't expand up without blocking my view of the GPS and it was far down and out of my line of sight making it difficult to view while sitting, and all but impossible to view while standing. In addition I had been using it on battery power as I'd never hard-wired it to the bike, even though there was a lingering and un-used power cord for an older GPS unit the bike used to have when I bought it. Lazy s.o.b...

So off to my garage I went to get busy today. First, the "before" shot:

I then took off the crash bars, loosened the left/right side upper fairings, and removed the windscreen/headlight assembly, all to gain access to underside of the dash area:

I installed the dash mounting bracket, it bolts to existing holds in the dash itself. I only had to drill two holes in the plastic for the bracket to poke through. I then ran the new power cord to the same plugs used by the old cord as it goes through the fused dash to run off the battery:

Then I buttoned it all back together and rolled her outside for a peek:

You'll notice I took advantage of the free space on my handlebars to mount a bracket/holder for my SPOT unit. It now sits in the open for better signal performance and to free up space in my tank bag. Bonus. I know it's not the most complex work to have done but I'm proud of my results and think it turned out great. I'd like to tidy up the cables in my cockpit a bit, plus consider running the GPS power cord up through the dash, but for now the set-up is vastly improved over how it was before so it's all good! :ride

If you want to see more details via photos then go here: My KTM Gets Some GPS Upgrades.

 

[Map8]

Clean install. Nice upgrade.

 

[HiggyB]

Thanks! It wasn't perfectly clean, I managed to cut myself a few times (the area under the dash has some sharp edges!) and I got it almost buttoned back up and realized I'd not connected a vent crossover tube between the left/right sides and it all had to come off again. :laughing Oh well, at that point I was well practices and now I can get the nose off and disassembled in no time flat.

Which is a good thing as the next upgrades in line are:

1. Wire a power cord from the battery up to my tank bag where I can charge things on the road. The power cord is there just tucked away and hidden, time to run it up to the triple clamp and mount the powerlet adapter that arrived today in my tank bag.

2. Install a Euro-spec HID headlight set up. What's cool is that it's almost a 100% plug and play swap as the Euro light and wiring harness is all the same. If I go with the full spec HID set up I'll have to drill some holes for the second ballast (one for low-beam one for high-beam). But it all looks really straight forward.


I work at a software company and there's something all too pleasing about getting greasy and dirty doing my own work like this. All too often I'm crunched for time and the KTM goes off to Scuderia for the needed work, in this case I just couldn't and spent a very therapeutic Sunday in the garage.