Coin holder cell phone / GPS mount mod (with pics)
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From: New Mexico
Coin holder cell phone / GPS mount mod (with pics)
I've been looking for a good way to mount my iPhone in my truck such that it doesn't move around or bounce too much when I'm driving. I've spent days on sites like Amazon reading reviews for mounts and looking for that 'perfect' mount without much success.
I knew the coin holder in 4x2 F-150s is pretty much useless, so I began to look for ways to use it for a mounting solution. What follows is what I came up with.
Sorry I don't have any pics pre-mod since I wasn't thinking about it, but I think most everyone knows what our electronic coin holders look like beforehand.
First of all I went here: http://www.gomobilenow.com/
They have a selection of mounting options by RAM, which I found to work very well for what I wanted. Here's what I ended up getting:
http://www.gomobilenow.com/RAM_B_260.../ram-b-260.htm
http://www.gomobilenow.com/RAM_B_101...am-b-101-c.htm
They have an incredible number of options, so you can end up making almost anything you want. I already had a wobbly mount for my phone, so I took the little holder off of that and used double sided tape to stick it to one of the ball/plates.
Anyway, I took the coin holder out, unplugged it, and used a pair of pliers to break off the front part of the holder. This allowed more room for the single ball to mount. I also took a set of clippers and a large file to the back of the holder to remove the clip for the wires, so that I could have room for the mounting screw. I drilled a hole through the plastic, went to the hardware store to get some 10-24 machine screws and washers, and here's the result:
Looking from the back:
Mounted in the dash:
Arm Attached:
Holder Attached:
So there you have it. It doesn't wobble nearly as much as my old mount, and while there's still some play where the coin holder sits in the dash, it's not bad at all. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to get rid of that too so it'll be solid as a rock. Eventually I'll get a aftermarket HU that has an iPhone interface and I'll just run the wires up the channel in the arm and into the dash through another hole in the coin holder, so I can plug it into the radio with no wires exposed.
The beauty of it is that the plate I mounted my phone cradle to can support just about any type of mount with either double sided tape or screws, so you could mount a phone, GPS, or just about anything this way. It's also cheap, simple, and doesn't mess with drilling holes in your dash.
I knew the coin holder in 4x2 F-150s is pretty much useless, so I began to look for ways to use it for a mounting solution. What follows is what I came up with.
Sorry I don't have any pics pre-mod since I wasn't thinking about it, but I think most everyone knows what our electronic coin holders look like beforehand.
First of all I went here: http://www.gomobilenow.com/
They have a selection of mounting options by RAM, which I found to work very well for what I wanted. Here's what I ended up getting:
http://www.gomobilenow.com/RAM_B_260.../ram-b-260.htm
http://www.gomobilenow.com/RAM_B_101...am-b-101-c.htm
They have an incredible number of options, so you can end up making almost anything you want. I already had a wobbly mount for my phone, so I took the little holder off of that and used double sided tape to stick it to one of the ball/plates.
Anyway, I took the coin holder out, unplugged it, and used a pair of pliers to break off the front part of the holder. This allowed more room for the single ball to mount. I also took a set of clippers and a large file to the back of the holder to remove the clip for the wires, so that I could have room for the mounting screw. I drilled a hole through the plastic, went to the hardware store to get some 10-24 machine screws and washers, and here's the result:
Looking from the back:
Mounted in the dash:
Arm Attached:
Holder Attached:
So there you have it. It doesn't wobble nearly as much as my old mount, and while there's still some play where the coin holder sits in the dash, it's not bad at all. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to get rid of that too so it'll be solid as a rock. Eventually I'll get a aftermarket HU that has an iPhone interface and I'll just run the wires up the channel in the arm and into the dash through another hole in the coin holder, so I can plug it into the radio with no wires exposed.
The beauty of it is that the plate I mounted my phone cradle to can support just about any type of mount with either double sided tape or screws, so you could mount a phone, GPS, or just about anything this way. It's also cheap, simple, and doesn't mess with drilling holes in your dash.
Last edited by Duskrider; Apr 24, 2010 at 12:25 AM.
