New Cheaper, Holey-er, RAM Mount

I was doing fine without a phone mount in my truck, but my wife insisted I get one for some reason. Now that I have one I like it, so I thought I'd share what I did.

Since I have tons of RAM mounts and accessories that I use with my kayak already, I decided to utilize some of it, which would require a 1" ball mounted somewhere. The first thing I found that would work was the Hondo Un-Holey dash mount, but personally I don't like the looks of it. I opted to drill holes and bought 2 different 1" ball mounts, then decided which one and where after they arrived.

Initially I was going to mount one upside down near the Qi charger, but that was too low and interfered with the drink holders. Then I decided this spot would be best:



To pull off that specific panel is surprisingly easy, but there is a process to figure out which I finally did with some help from YouTube. First you pull off the two dash trim pieces (right then left), then loosen the one small piece with a vent on the left enough to pull out the entire 4x4 A/C unit. You may need to loosen the 10mm head unit screws enough to wiggle it out of there. After getting it all out I realized this spot wouldn't work, but good to know I can get back there for wiring in a charger.

My next spot was the final spot, sort of, which puts the unit very similar in location to the Hondo option. Here it is with an extra unintended hole I'll explain later.



The ole' measure twice cut once adage rang true. The first hole I drilled overlapped the other trim piece, so I had to drill twice. Don't do this, but not all was lost. I threw in a gromet and plan to use this mistake for a hardwire charger in the future.



Here is a picture of the first hole location installed. After figuring out this wouldn't work I had to take it all apart again and re-drill per the previous picture. Use a tapered bit here, you'll get a much nicer hole than I did too. I used a flanged nut with locktite, but a regular locking nut with washer would work fine too.







I'm not 100% satisfied with this setup yet since the steering wheel partially blocks the view, but a 1" extension piece should get me there. The mount is plenty sturdy, and I know after looking at the plastic around this area it should be good to go. The mount is currently pretty close to the wiper stick, but the extra 1" should fix that issue as well. Maybe some will like this as an alternate to the Hondo ($35) mount, this cost me ($8), but the extension will be another $10 probably.



Bonus pic of my kids iPad mount. This one is obviously no-drill.

 

nice, I'm not man enough to drill anything but i like that alot. I bought the unholy mount and rigged together a magnetic mount instead of those stupid claw arms.

 

I like it.

Nice work and ingenuity.

I got the Hondo mount last week. With a short arm, it is close to the stalk also. I haven't had any problems grabbing or using anything.

 

I may swap out for a magnetic mount in the future, but like I said in the original post, I already had all this stuff (minus the ball).