Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Musings on the sat nav bracket

Yesterday the bracket Nick W worked up arrived.
It fits the Garmin very well.
To be honest these days though I use more my phone and Waze or Google.
So today I removed the sucker arm from a cheap phone mount I bought at Tescos and it fits.
Maybe an extra 1/4 inch on the ball arm would allow better rotation but it is perfectly usable.

This mean now no nasty sucker marks to remove, plus normally it is stuck to the instrument glass so that instrument can't be read.

I have a run planned with Morgan the Freeman down to Harwich Wednesday where I will road test it.

Very neat, clever

I did a thorough road test today driving from Felistoee to Harwich and back today . The car had the side screens off. The roads included fast dual carrigeway , A roads and twisty pot holed b roads.

I used the mobile mount going out and the Garmin back. Both were fine.

The top mount arm didn't sit flat to the dash roll as the mount took the weight but it was solid.

Feedback for Nick W really!

I found much the same to be true as John V6. Looking at john's pic's I think his leather dash roll looks to be better padded than mine, yes it's rubber underneath so his leather must be better quality! The fit is good in that unloaded it clips on quite well and looks the part too! But weight loaded, not quite so great. It really does sag and the top lifts quite a distance away from the dash top. This coupled with the looseness of the square ball location into the body made for quite a rattle'y old ride for the sat nav.
So, on went the thinking cap and this is how I resolved the issue. I drilled an appropriate hole that would line up with the centre tonneau fastener and then sprang the clip which is most accommodating over the top of it when fitting it to the dash. Absolute resolution, it now fits snug, tight and without movement, result! Then I wanted to take the rattle out of the ball fixing so , wanting to keep the flexibility the mount offers I cut a strip of stiff neoprene to fill the horizontal slot of the body, behind the square locator. it runs from side to side of the main body. and sticks out about 1/16" into the profile which is formed by the circular front radius and when in place the deformed neoprene holds the peg ball more stable!

When ascertaining the position of the hole, fit the mount and slide it up to the tonneau fastener and mark it's centre point onto the side of the mount. Accuracy is paramount here! Transfer this across the mount body and then mark a centre point for drilling. You will need to finish with a 6.5 mm drill but step it up from a few smaller sizes as the plastic material is quite friable to drill although strong in use.
I figured that I couldn't give measurements for the hole centre as no doubt all the tonneau fixing studs will be positioned differently.

For me ,this has transformed the use and function of the mount from something that would have annoyed the hell out of me to something that feels totally designed for purpose. Another plus is that it makes demounting the device from the mount simple too!

That sounds brilliant. Great ideas.
Any chance of pictures?

Nick, I've managed to set up and view pictures posted but as yet I have not managed to post any. If you PM me an address or a mobile number I'll happily send you some over. It really is a fix for stability and I think it will aid sales and any dissatisfaction some may find.

Here are the photos. I also suffered from a loose pin but have a new one that is a much tighter fit & I glued it in. I also have the gap issue so good to see there is a fix.

"Morning John,
Here’s the pictures you asked for, some are obviously self explanatory but others showing marking method and neoprene foam etc.
I also thought for more security, that a 6mm stainless penny washer and an R clip were an option, this also requiring no vehicle modifications wouldn’t hurt especially if the drill hole wasn’t too accurate. I’m okay with that sort of thing as I’m an engineer and have a huge selection of tools but hand fettling might be slightly more challenging for some.
To clarify, the 6.5 mm final hole fits snugly over the hex nut element of the tonneau stud and the 6mm washer nicely on the top of the same.

Hope that helps, a picture and all that! If you need anything further or other pictures please feel free to ask.

Regards, Martin."

That looks totally brilliant to me. I've sent the pictures to Mark. That does look like the ultimate positioning.
Well done you.

Thanks Nick, I think I'm as happy as I could possibly be with the siting and position. If I'm out on my own I still tend to use the top right hand corner of the screen with the suction mount as its right in the line of sight without blocking my view and I can hear the voice commands better but that's obviously with the roof down, roof up it's now to the dash mount!

Martin.

I drilled mine and test drove it to near Brooklands so 90 miles of the crap A12 followed by the bouncy concrete M25. It worked fine. It can be seen at Mogfest on Saf