Made some lollipops with eye bolts sandwiched between 2" washers bolted together. Removed rear most baffle screw and inserted right behind the 2.5" baffle exit. Quick ride and can feel the difference having had lost some low end touque. Of course it changed the sound down a bit but not much. Now I can play with angle to find best of both worlds! Not bad for few bucks of hardware!

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Any pics of this mod?

 

Painted lollis same high temperature black as I did tubes so wont be obvious

 

Nice!! Where did you pick up the line and plastic T and filter?

 

I just got an '11 FLHTK a week ago, and it came with the garmin mount already installed, but no garmin. As I'm not much of a fan of stand-alone GPS units anyway, and I already have an android phone that I use for GPS, it seemed silly to add another mount to the bike and leave one sitting unused.

Did some research and asked some questions here, and ultimately visited my local shop to take a look at the weather cover for the garmin mount (which was also not included with the bike). It snaps in securely to the physical anchors for the garmin device, so I figured it should be secure enough to hold another device there. Since the parts guy at my local dealer is awesome, and pulled apart an entire GPS w/mounting kit set to let me see the weather cover since he couldn't find the one he supposedly had in the back, I bought it at the premium HD price of $17 (with my MVP discount). They are available on amazon for $7 bucks. https://www.amazon.com/Garmin-weathe...+weather+cover

Next step was finding something to hold the device I wanted to use, that I could also attach to the garmin weather cover. I went with a $10 2 piece armor case, with a nice flat section on the back (with a convenient kickstand). The outer frame portion of the case is fairly solid plastic, with the inner portion being softer impact absorbing TPU. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

After taking a look at the configuration of the case, I wasn't sure if I could get enough small bolts though both pieces to make a solid mount, so my backup plan was to go with one or two bolts and epoxy. However, I don't think I'm going to need the epoxy, as I was able to squeeze in 4 #4-40 x 3/8" pan head machine screws, through both pieces, which are held on with nylock nuts. Total hardware cost at Lowes was $2.50. I didn't have enough room to use any washers, so if the plastic on either piece starts to fail due to vibrations, I'll pull it apart, glue it up, and bolt it back together. Seems damn solid in hand though.

I worked up a template from the dimensions of the flat surface on the case, and overlaid the 'no drill' areas from the case (the hinge lines for the kickstand) and the 'no drill' areas from the weather cover (the central portion that covers the contact pins - there wouldn't be clearance for the nuts in this area). Drilled the weather cover first, then used that as a template for the phone case drill holes. this case was easy as the mating surfaces were close to the same size, so I just eyeballed straight and level. Might be a little trickier if the case has a large flat surface to attach.

Once I got the two pieces drilled, I put them together with the machine screws. Then I just had to cut 4 holes in the back of the inner TPU portion of the phone case to provide clearance for the heads of the screws. This turned out to be the most irritating part of the project - TPU does not cut nicely.

Once I got that done, I put it all together and put it on the bike. I'm currently getting power for the phone from the cigarette lighter in the fairing, but am considering trying to find a way to pull power directly off the pins on the garmin mount. I had a single port flush mount 12v to USB converter, but it didn't fit well in the bike, so I ordered a dual 2.4A one for fast charge capabilty and it fits better than the one I had. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I also didn't like how close my standard USB cable's plug came to the tank at full left lock on the bars, so I got one with a shorter 90 degree plug. Plenty of clearance now. It also has a 90 degree plug at the phone, so it looks nicer there too. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The phone I'm using is a Motorola Moto E LTE (2nd gen), which I got brand new, with no contract, from Walmart for $40. It's branded US Cellular, but is carrier unlocked, and unlockable and rootable if that's your thing. With a little hacking, it works on my ATT account. The same device is available directly from ATT, Sprint, Verizon and a bunch of other carriers, for anywhere from $25-$50 bucks, no contract required. I use the CoPilot GPS app (among others) on it, which is $10, and has full US maps which are downloaded to the device, so no data plan or service connection is required to use it as a GPS. It performs VERY well for the price. It's not a Galaxy S7 or iPhone 6S, but it's way more user friendly than all the stand alone GPS units I've used.

Hope this helps someone out who's looking for an alternative to the Zumo, or just a nice way to mount a device to their fairing.

Total cost for mount setup: $30 (could have been $20 if I ordered the cover)
Total cost to buy device and software, and mount on the bike: $70








Inside of external (plastic) portion of phone case, with screw heads protruding




back side of phone case / garmin weather cover, with nylock nuts




back side of TPU inner portion of case, with holes cut out to clearance screw heads




Phone mounted on garmin cradle




power cable from fairing cigarette lighter, wrapped around bars. Needed a 2' cable, but could only get 1 or 3 feet with 90 degree plugs.


EDIT: Update - while poking around the internet to try to find a nice clean way to run power to my phone without having usb cables wound around the bars, I came across this:

http://www.shapeways.com/product/HPG...ionId=56791913

Apparently someone else smarter than me already thought to make a nice adapter to mount stuff where I did - this one appears to be 3D printed, and has AMPS hole pattern for mounting stuff. The hole pattern might be a little too wide for the case I used, but adds a bunch of off-the-shelf options here. I know RAM makes mounting ***** that have AMPS bases, and I think GoPro has (or someone makes them for a GoPro) Amps pattern bases as well. So far I've got something over 1000 miles with the phone mounted on my homemade mount with no issues (other than the power cord on the bars annoying me).

 

For my 01 FLHR, you had to take saddle bag off to add air to shocks. Drilled two holes and moved the lines up. Cheap and easy thing.

 

Nicely done! I think I might consider getting that phone just for use on the bike. Thank you for including the Amazon links for the stuff.

 

many of us draw power from the unused euro-spec position light wire attached to the headlight wires- black is ground, orn/wht is 12 VDC



Mike

 

Glad it was helpful to you. I tried riding with the setup yesterday, and it works pretty well. Tried a couple of different 'car home' apps to find one that works well. I have settled on inDrive for now, as it integrates with the PowerAmp music player I already use. Has a bunch of driving stuff like trip odometer, max speed, current altitude etc. too. I also wasn't thinking about it until riding with it, but I was tossing my daily driver phone in the tour pack when I was riding - gonna start plugging it in to the power port there, and use it's wifi hotspot feature to share data to the moto phone in the dock so I can have pandora (and other data needy apps) without having to swap my sim card back and forth.

Thanks - if I end up sticking with this setup, I may just do this. Initially I wanted to do this with zero modifications to the bike, in case I end up not liking it for whatever reason. I have been poking around the Zumo forums a bit to see if anyone worked out a way pull 12V directly off the spring pin contacts on the cradle. Haven't delved too deeply yet, but so far no joy.

 

Summer is really here and the heat is too. My '09 electra glide lower air shields (down by your feet, not the ones directly under the batwing) have a consistent proclivity to work themselves shut in short order once I get riding. The heat builds up and it's uncomfortable. I've tried several ways of keeping these open and have finally found the right technique using tiny bungee cords. I know this isn't rocket brain surgery, but figured I might save some of you the experimentation to find the right way to rig these up.

Here are the pictures that tell the story...



right front of bike, air shutter closed




Now with mini-bungee attached. With the bungee pulling the door open, from outside, it seems to stay open. This is about the only use I've ever found for these light weight bungees...LOL.




Attach the other end to the engine guard bar, paying attention to do it just like this. If you do it the other way around the bar, the metal on the bungee can contact the paint and scratch it.

Today here, it was about 91 degrees out. Riding with the lower shields open it didn't feel a degree over 150 down there! (sarcasm).