With all that is going on this holiday season it takes a bit more time to get a project done much less post about it on the blog. But I did not want to let anyone think that I was sluffing off so this week I wanted to show you what I have been up to.
With the arrival of the new dune buggy I have found several small projects that I wanted to get at that will improve either the look of the car, it's function or both. The first being a place to mount a GPS. First off a dune buggy does not have a dash like a normal car. There is no place to mount a GPS on top of the dash and I really did not want to stick a suction cup on the windshield and hope that the GPS did not fall off while I was using it. Also I did not like the idea of having to plug it into an accessory port and have a wire going to it either.
What I did find was that the steering column had a flat surface on the top of it large enough to mount a GPS right in front of the steering wheel. The speedometer is not in front of the steering wheel so it looked to be the right place for the GPS. The steering column is not cylindrical but rather rectangular in shape and it also had two well placed slots on the top of the column that ran through the entire column. So a plan of action was hatched to mount the GPS there and run it on it's internal rechargeable battery.
I started with this simple mount for the steering column. The upper mount has a stem and ball attached to it and bolts run down through this mount and the steering column and finally through another small mount on the bottom of the column. The ball on the top mount mates up to a connector that you will see in the following photos. One thing that I did not like was the look of the wiring that came from under the dash and went into the column. It was wrapped up ok but did not look as finished as I wanted it so changes needed to be made.
Using Fusion 360 CAD software I created a new design that I used to modify the lower mount so that there was a cover that could hide all of the wiring going into the column. I also removed one bolt for this mount as it interfered with the wiring. I did not remove the hole from the upper mount as I knew how to make the mount look right and still not actually have four bolts for mounting the assembly. I will explain what I did in a little bit.
Now with the new lower mount I had a nice clean installation which the cover now hides the wiring very easily. The upper mount with only three bolts holds everything securely. But to make it all look right it was just a simple matter of adding a fourth bolt but only much shorter. This bolt is only to make the assembly look good and is only hot glued in place. A dummy so to speak. It works so I am happy with it.
Next on the upper ball mount is added the connector and mounting bracket for the GPS. This connector and bracket can be added or removed from the column in just a minute or so. So it will be easily removed and locked away when I need to leave the dune buggy unattended.
The GPS locks into place quickly and now is ready to use. With it's internal rechargeable lithium battery it will run for seven hours until it needs to be recharged. More than enough for a day of driving.
The GPS is easily readable through the steering wheel and does not block my speedometer, tac, or other gauges.
I am still working on a small sun shade that will slip on to the GPS and should help when the top is off of the car on a sunny day. Once I get this completed I will put out another short post about it and how it looks on the GPS as well. All of the mounting hardware for the column and the sun shade were 3D printed after I designed then using Fusion 360 software so if anything needs to be repaired or replaced it is just a matter of making a new piece if I have to.
The GPS will be a nice addition to the dune buggy. The fact that I can easily remove it and not have ugly wires dangling down from it to a power port makes the installation perfect for the car. I really like the look of the mount too so it blends in very well with the finished interior.
One more project for the dune buggy and I think I will be done making upgrades to the car. I will post about the final project once I put the finishing touches on it. Until then I hope your projects are going as well as this one has for me.
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