Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT Mid-Century Moto Mecca Makeover

[Ray Bell]

Wow!

Thanks Bob...

 

[hewey]

I'm really glad you're having fun, but I'm perplexed...
I don't understand what the picture above is all about.

Welcome Ray! The key thing to flag is that Gregor is a professional photographer, so sometimes the picture is just about something that looks striking, like a bright blue car in a tunnel, as opposed to being about the tunnel itself.

 

[Ray Bell]

Yes, I fully appreciate that...

But I still wanted to know where he found such a striking sight.

 

[Bob Heine]

I needed new tires either way so I went with Continentals and had them siped. That's the process, controversial as I've discovered, that makes tiny cuts across the blocks. Not sure if it's a mistake or not but it's supposed to aid in wet grip and snow grip.

Gregor, siping a tire is new to me. When we were competing in autocross the in thing was shaving tires. When you locked up the brakes or spun out and flat-spotted the tires, you could have the tires shaved to match the depth of the flat spot. Although tire shaving is less common now, it can save money if you damage one tire on your all-wheel-drive vehicle. As I understand it, AWD tries to keep all four wheels rotating at the same speed so it's best to replace all four tires at the same time. To maintain the same diameter, a single new tire can be shaved to match the diameter of the three worn tires.

 

[sakurama]

Dang, I'm always surprised when I miss new posts if I'm busy. Sorry about that.

I'm really glad you're having fun, but I'm perplexed...

I don't understand what the picture above is all about. A tunnel? If so, of what?

Love your pics, by the way.

Yeah, it's just a tunnel.

I found it one day on a drive to Colorado. It's the underpass on I-84 in Eastern Oregon called Deadman Pass Rest Area and I drove the van through it and thought all the scrapes and lines were really cool looking.

When I was a newspaper photographer one of our jobs was called "feature hunting" which was basically finding pretty or interesting photos that could be used to grab someones attention and to break up the columns of text. My specialty was finding graphic images - things that were striking visually and typically had large patterns. So the shots of the car with the wood piles is an example - repeating patterns that form an interesting, but not distracting, background. Our brains like patterns.

Same tunnel with the van.



and a series of tunnels in Colorado:



So it's a good trick you can use to make photos striking, attention grabbing and brain pleasing.

But it's just a tunnel.

That is one of my most favorite cars from when I was a kid. My mom had a 1976 Toyota lift back and thought the volvo was that car on steroids. They used to run slalom events in the parking lot at our local mall on Sundays back then and we used to ride down on our bikes to watch all the cool cars taking there turn on the course.

Gregor, siping a tire is new to me. When we were competing in autocross the in thing was shaving tires. When you locked up the brakes or spun out and flat-spotted the tires, you could have the tires shaved to match the depth of the flat spot. Although tire shaving is less common now, it can save money if you damage one tire on your all-wheel-drive vehicle. As I understand it, AWD tries to keep all four wheels rotating at the same speed so it's best to replace all four tires at the same time. To maintain the same diameter, a single new tire can be shaved to match the diameter of the three worn tires.

So that's very interesting and funny that you both mention autocross. I'm doing my first autocross tomorrow.

I'm hoping that it's not going to become a "thing" but what I've discovered but didn't anticipate is that this cars ability far surpasses my driving ability. The other day I was out for a run and noticed a neighbor had his garage door open and there was a full on 500whp race car inside.



It's hard to say if I was more intrigued by it being a Volvo or by being a full tilt race car. Probably both. I'd never met Alex but he had three BMW sedans so I always thought of him as the "BMW guy" in our neighborhood. I stopped to talk and learned he's been auto crossing with his wife for a while and just bought this car to try track racing. I had already signed up for a track school but Alex suggested that I try an autocross...

I've seen autocrosses and they never made any sense to me - it's a parking lot full of random cones and as a road racer it looked silly and nothing like "real" racing. But I also know that racing is racing - whether it's 250GP on a track or on bicycles with your kids to the coffee shop. Also, I want to really lean into doing things I want. There's a lot of things I've wanted to do and didn't and I regret that and I don't want to have regrets. Pulling the albums out and listening to music again was a big one. But I digress, this is a larger subject that is worth it's own post.

Anyway, if you're going to modify something it should be towards a purpose and racing is a good way to make sure you're doing things that make sense. Those slammed tuner cars with crazy camber look ridiculous because they don't make sense. Same with most custom bikes. That Volvo above is beautiful because every single thing on it is for a purpose.

So here we are, falling into another rabbit hole...

The front disks on my car were pulsing and I knew they'd need to be replaced so I started to look at options.



And found someone was selling some Polestar brakes which are basically badged Brembo 6-pot calipers and massive rotors. And for not much more than new replacements.



I don't notice much difference right now on the street - it's a bit more feel and a bit more control, less grabby. I suppose tomorrow I'll actually get to make use of them.

Next thing was lights. Stock headlights are pretty good but I was told that bulb upgrades were the best option.





Low beam before/after:



High beam before/after:



I didn't want to put rally lights on the car (well maybe) so these bulbs were a good upgrade for the very complicated stock headlights.

Next up I finally get back into the shop for a small project.

Gregor

 

[TiFJ]

*orders new headlight bulbs for wife's car*... I love where this is going!

 

[Ray Bell]

Gregor, I looked up that tunnel on Street View...

I can see that it is really pretty ordinary, but imagination and lighting can do things to the ordinary as we all know. It's not of the usual type of construction, I feel, looking like formwork was thrown up with boards on the inside and undoubtedly the outside as well, except, of course, for the top. The tunnel was then cast in situ.

 

[dr_clyde]

Well ****.

I’ve been a Subaru guy for a while, but damn if that Volvo doesn’t give me the fizz. I want one.

I love my Forester, but it’s got 220k on the clock, time to start looking at Volvos I guess.

Damn you Gregor. Lol.

 

[Ray Bell]

One of my Foresters has 455,000kms on the clock...

 

[dr_clyde]

One of my Foresters has 455,000kms on the clock...

Part of it is I would like to have a vehicle with some modern creature comforts. Car technology has come a long way since 06 lol.

 

[Ray Bell]

Yes, it's been so dramatic that I've now bought myself a Peugeot 404 to augment my fleet. Very comfortable, easier to drive than most more modern cars.

 

[sakurama]

Since the separation I've been on an up and down journey trying to find some balance and for a lot of reasons, mostly work related but also social, I've not had much time in the shop. By much time I mean basically any time.

I never wanted a car as a hobby mostly because of the expense but also the space constraints. But last week I found a way to bridge that with a small project that got me back into the shop. In fact I probably could have figured out a way to do this without the shop but I wanted a small, get back on the horse, sort of project.



I love the dash and layout of the Volvo, and as was mentioned above, cars have come a long with with technology and that was a big part of what I wanted with this car - to enter the 21st century. The trouble that I found on my trip with the car was that there's not much space in the cockpit so to speak.



I tried mounting my phone via the Quadlock suction mount in at least a dozen places on the windshield during the trip from Boston. It was either visible and in the way of seeing the road or distracting. I tried the side windows, the sunroof, in the cup holder. The dash doesn't have many blank areas and I didn't like the idea of blocking a vent, screen or buttons.

Around this time I discovered that the Valentine radar detector that I've owned for maybe 20 years had an update that included bluetooth and that there were a world of apps that combined detectors, crowd sourced warnings, traffic camera maps and even police airplane warnings. Technology really went all in on trying to avoid tickets and the very best app, by a long way, is JBV1 which is, sadly, only available on Android. Then I remembered I have an Android tablet on the KTM 890.



This mount was given to me by Tripltek to test out after I'd asked them to make a better mounting solution. I never got the chance to use it because my mount was already built on the KTM and I didn't have the time or energy to remake that. But now it has a second life as it's designed to work with Ram mounts.



And I have a lot of those in my collection. The trouble was that there was no dash space to fix a mount. I wanted to keep the tablet low and near the rest of the controls - it's too big to put up in the windscreen area.



The only place that made any sense was to utilize a seat rail bolt and build something that tucked in near the center console.



I worked up a sketch of a simple mount that would use the rail and an arm.



It needed to bend a tiny amount and it seemed like overkill to use the bender but since I had 1/2" tube it made sense to do that.



and just a tiny kink in the tube and then a piece of bar stock...






And then all that was needed was to prep and weld after fitting the parts. I added a small brace to try to give the arm a bit less flex.



Painted and mounted the height can be varied by choosing different Ram arms and positions. I had to extend the bottom forward to make sure I could run the seat all the way forward but it all clears.



Around the same time I found the OBD2 dongle that I bought for the KTM but never got to work...



But it works fine with the tablet and the Volvo and it also communicates with JBV1 to calculate fuel ranges, speeds, milages and the like.



I'm sure there's more options with it but the tablet is starting to replace the phone for a lot of things and having two devices would seem to be complicated but the phone connects via Bluetooth to the car and soon I'll install an audio unit that will add CarPlay to the Volvo computer and then the phone can handle music and mapping and the tablet can take car of overall mapping, radar integration and more car type functions with the OBD.

I'm sure I'll figure that out as I find which one does what best but right now the size of the tablet and the location seem pretty ideal and it's easy to touch and input with your hand resting naturally where it would for the shifter and it doesn't interfere with my passenger.

So, one small step back to the shop. I'm spring cleaning, both the house, the shop and my life right now.

Gregor

 

[iron block]

Next thing was lights. Stock headlights are pretty good but I was told that bulb upgrades were the best option.

Gregor

Those blue-tint bulbs look cool, but are they really the best choice? Dan Stern seems to think the French were on to something with their "Selective Yellow" headlights of yesteryear. One can even roll your own yellow bulbs by coating clear bulbs with Dupli-Color Metalcast Yellow according to him. See Selective Yellow Light for details.

Seems like a perfect Gregor project, somehow.

 

[wasfast]

Partly your fault; I bought a 2020 Volvo V60 T5 with 18K miles. I LOVE IT. I had a Porsche Macan S before this and love the Volvo more.

 

[Rubberdown]

Hey Gregor. Just read all 138 pages. You do some neat stuff and I really enjoyed following your journey thus far. Your hugely talented and I applaud your efforts.

 

[Kasal]

This last photo is really incredible, you could see it upside down and you would be seeing it exactly the same as the right side.

 

[Ray Bell]

You are so right...

Except for a bit of extra brightness in the sky an the car's colour compared to the reflection, and the reversed number plate... I cropped it a little to help:

 

[sakurama]

Those blue-tint bulbs look cool, but are they really the best choice? Dan Stern seems to think the French were on to something with their "Selective Yellow" headlights of yesteryear. One can even roll your own yellow bulbs by coating clear bulbs with Dupli-Color Metalcast Yellow according to him. See Selective Yellow Light for details.

Seems like a perfect Gregor project, somehow.

I'm really against "colored" bulbs for several reasons; the blue bulbs look dumb as people try to make halogens look like HID's and secondly, for the same or similar reason, dyeing or tinting a bulb cuts the output. So yeah, I get that.

But! The other side of this is that the bulb is 80w instead of 55 so the extra power offsets the coloring. If I could have found one that wasn't blue I might have considered it. And secondly these really just correct the halogen to the same color temp as the HID's which means there's not a color temperature difference which can be distracting if you have "white" (5000K) low beams and "yellow" (3600K) high beams which operate at the same time.

So I did really think about it and decided to take a chance because I was hoping they'd end up the same temp and give more output - which is how it worked out.

G

 

[TiFJ]

Gregor, did you look into LED H7 bulbs? Similar or more output at same wattage? Would they flicker?

 

[sakurama]

This last photo is really incredible, you could see it upside down and you would be seeing it exactly the same as the right side.

I have another one for you today...

____________________________________________

​

So, my first autocross.

I have seen these events over the years when I would be at the track as they often take place in the parking lots of race tracks. As a road racer I would see the sea of cones and cars screeching around them in a completely non sensical way and think to myself, "What is the point? That's not racing. They're just driving around cones" and I was very wrong.

The overall premise was correct. You are just driving around cones in a parking lot. But racing is racing. Some of the most fun I've ever had racing is on mini bikes around a set of cones in a parking lot. Autocross, it turns out, is very much the same. Except that you're not racing wheel to wheel which is good because that would be a disaster.



Show up early and get into the tech line. Here they check your lug nuts torque, that your battery is tied down and that you don't have anything loose in your car - no cups, trash, random tools or left over passengers. You can see there's still some snow on my car from the night. I wasn't sure if they'd cancel but they run rain or shine.



I did get a new tool for the day. I've been thinking about one of these battery operated air pumps and since the options were bicycle pump, air tank or new tool... I chose new tool. Obviously. Since I'm already invested in the M18 battery system this was the natural choice but it's actually quite nice - set the pressure and it over fills and then bleeds to the correct number.

The day is divided into three groups and three sessions: work, rest and race. Everyone is assigned a job during their work session and that typically means you report to a particular corner and watch for cars hitting cones and then you reset them in their chalk box and radio in the 2 second penalty.

Your "rest" session is free and if you're a newbie it's suggested that you wander around the grid and ask people if you can ride along in their car on a run. I was nervous about this at first but everyone is very welcoming and took the time to explain what was going on.



There was no way I wasn't going to get a ride in this hillclimb Porsche. Someone told me this car has been in some Hoonigan videos but I didn't ask. It was everything you might expect a grass roots race car to be: ratty, raw, loud, hard and very fast.



You need a helmet but luckily a Snell 2010 or later motorcycle helmet works.

Between the track walk, corner working and the ride alongs I was able to memorize the track layout. The cones have a language to them and once you know that it starts to make sense. Certain cones lay on their side and "point" to help you know which way to go. Each driver has a style and each car has a way it needs to be driven.

Obviously the Porsche was a hoot but at one point I got in a Miata with a woman of about 65 or so, gray hair, glasses. She was a retired teacher and was very sweet about welcoming me and teaching me about gridding telling me about how slow she was. We were waved off the line, she lit the tires up, slammed the rev limiter and hit the first turn so hard I almost hit my head on the side pillar as she whipped the car around the cones.

School teacher my ***.



The only real "prep" you need to do is to put some numbers on your car with tape. Sixty as in V60.

Your "race" session is when you finally get on track. Cars line up in a grid of rows and there's a line for people who share a car so they can have double laps alternating who's driving. Instruction is free and if you want an instructor you turn on your hazards and someone will come over and hop in your car and ride with you.



Part of the fun is this is part car show and part racing. There are some very cool cars, like the Ferrari 488 GTB that was owned by a friend of my neighbors, and plenty of very "normal" cars. There are a lot of Miata's which are known for their autocross prowess due to their light weight and great chassis.

Having watched and ridden in a lot of cars during my rest session I had a feel for lap times. My fastest ride along was 50.2 second lap with a person in an Audi who is known for being fast. Most laps were in the 53-58 range for people with prepped cars on sticky tires and so I decided that my goal for the day was to try to get under 60 seconds since I was on all season tires and driving a heavy car. The Ferrari did a 58.1.



My first lap out I wanted to just take my time and slowly make my way through the gates and be sure I didn't make any mistakes. I planned on a 70-80 second lap to sight the course and then work down. Things did not go as planned because when I got the signal to go I just took off, hit the boost and got tunnel vision clouded with red mist.

On the street I've not been able to get the tires to break loose so I figured they'd be fine for the day. From my first corner to the last I was sliding the car and really pushing the front a lot. My first lap out was a 57.7 second lap. Right in the middle and faster than the Ferrari!

What struck me about autocross compared to all the racing I've ever done is that it is not smooth, at all. My whole racing career has been built around being smooth with inputs, direction changes, braking and gas. This was wildly different and completely violent. I'm sure I just don't get it yet but braking is hard, quick and turning is very sharp. Inputs are sudden and the whole experience feels like some sort cage match.



My biggest issue was over driving the car, coming in too hot and not braking enough and then just plowing through the corner instead of getting the car slowed down and turned and then back on the gas. I eventually got the hang of it and my times came down; 56.5, 56.0, 55.6 and finally a 55.03 which was a decent time for my first time and the tires. I should have put more pressure in my tires but I was at 38 and thought I'd heard someone say don't go over 40. Later I found a thread from a Volvo owner who took his sedan to 3rd nationally and he was running up to 50psi up front and 55psi in back. So clearly there's a lot to learn. The low pressure had me scrubbing halfway down the sidewall.



Overall the car did amazing, I did well learning the course and I'm very interested in getting some better (smaller) wheels and tires that will let me push a bit more. The next thing that my mechanic said I should plan for was new front struts so that will be my excuse to move to some coilovers. I certainly don't need any more power - the car is very fast but heavy so to get faster I need to work on my skills and do some suspension work.

All told my entire day, working, watching, riding in a dozen cars and getting five sessions with instructors cost me a grand total of $36. I can't think of a better bargain. I learned how my car handles at the limit and I had a great time and learned a lot.

And I beat a Ferrari.

Gregor

 

[sakurama]

Gregor, did you look into LED H7 bulbs? Similar or more output at same wattage? Would they flicker?

I did and the consensus was that they don't work with the reflectors that are designed for halogen. I'd still consider trying them if I found a decent set.

Gregor

 

[Manx16]

$36 , faster than a ferrari and got schooled by a schoolteacher . Sounds like a blast . Autocross is a great way to learn the limits of your car , have fun with it. Pretty sure the front end of your car will tighten up when you go to a summer tire , your siped tires would have created a lot of understeer.

 

[kaymccampbell]

I did and the consensus was that they don't work with the reflectors that are designed for halogen. I'd still consider trying them if I found a decent set.

Gregor

I've got Morimoto H-7 LEDs on my Burgman, which takes conventional H-7 bulbs. They were pricey, but kick *** compared to high end halogens. Everything lines up correctly on the road.

 

[dr_clyde]

Gets a reliable daily because he spends a lot fixing his truck and his van and doesn’t want to be nickel and dimed by his vehicles. Immediately takes it racing.

Checks out lol.

 

[Madc]

Don't forget to add the cost of new tires, coil-overs and the wheels you'll buy to the $36 ! Autocross is blast and a bargain, but a slippery slope if ever there was one. Countdown to a Saku AutoX-dedicated Miata starts....... now. I know you've thought about it! Great to see you finding your groove again. Love the thread since the beginning. Thank you for sharing.

MADC

 

[TiFJ]

I'll just leave this here... V60 Ohlins

 

[sakurama]

There’s a guy racing his wagon in California and he took off the Ohlins and replaced it with a set of KW V3’s because they had ride height adjustment. I just missed buying them for next to nothing.

 

[Manx16]

There’s a guy racing his wagon in California and he took off the Ohlins and replaced it with a set of KW V3’s because they had ride height adjustment. I just missed buying them for next to nothing.

Soon you will be spending time studying the SCCA rule book. Adding any parts may bump you up classes where the car will not be competitive with full blown autocross cars.

 

[Ray Bell]

That's definitely what rule books are for...

Spoiling your day.

 

[fj_kuz]

Gregor, I looked up that tunnel on Street View...

I can see that it is really pretty ordinary, but imagination and lighting can do things to the ordinary as we all know. It's not of the usual type of construction, I feel, looking like formwork was thrown up with boards on the inside and undoubtedly the outside as well, except, of course, for the top. The tunnel was then cast in situ.

Wow. This goes to show how effective a good photographer can really be. I wouldn't think twice about this tunnel, but Gregor makes it look like something from another planet.

 

[Nolift911]

Great pics and story - good photography is like good welding (at least for me) hard.

 

[LaCorski]

I miss PIR. I guess its been almost 3 years since I've been there. Man!... time flies! When did they get an ATM?? :-D My first motorcycle track day was there, usually go 1 to 2 times a year. I like that you have access to go around the whole track, rather than just viewing from the straightaway.. boring! Congrats on the new car and all the journeys it will take you on. You know PIR puts on a rally as well... Food for thought!

 

[sakurama]

I miss PIR. I guess its been almost 3 years since I've been there. Man!... time flies!

Tomorrow I'm going back to PIR but for an actual driving school on the track. I honestly didn't expect fall down the car rabbit hole but boy is it a lot of fun. Each year I get older I have this feeling that there's about a thousand things I want to do and time is running out. So I'm trying to do as many as I can. Learning to drive better is just like everything else - improving a skill. The car is a tool and I want to understand my tools and use them well.

Some of what I'm doing is reconnecting to parts of my life that got lost in the depression of the relationship. Depression is a sneaky thing - you often don't even know you're depressed and it's like a blanket that covers you and stops light, sound and joy from getting in.



So many people in my life play guitar. I love music, obviously, but never played an instrument. I had a short stint with the violin as a kid and hated it and then nothing. I think that I thought I'd missed my chance but this fall, when a friend was playing I realized that in the last 10-20 years I've learned a lot of things that I knew nothing about; welding, machining, carpentry.

I find joy not in being good although that eventually happens but in getting better. Learning.

So I bought a guitar back in November. My friend Saul Koll (you've seen him on the thread here) makes amazing electric guitars and has a two year wait list and **** it. In two years I may not be good but I'll be better. And I'll enjoy that process. Well, not the first month or so - my fingers hurt like hell. I still **** but that's okay. I'm getting better.



I'm also dating someone now. I've known her for a long time, we've been friends and it turned out the attraction is mutual. It's only been a few months but it's going very well. That's her above. Pretty cute right? She's mad fit so that's an incentive.

I was planning on building the Triumph for this years 1 Show because I've had a bike in every show since I moved here. I wasn't excited about it and kept putting it off. Finally I decided that I'd let myself off the hook and not have a bike in the show. I went on an extended date to Mt Hood instead. It was a great decision.



She's in the car I promise. We hiked, cooked and skied and we also didn't ski... It's an amazing feeling to be appreciated by someone in ways both large and small. Such a basic thing...



I bought a set of the super soft wide skis that didn't exist when I was a kid. They're like cheating - they carve, they float and turn unlike anything I've ever tried. I got a season pass for next year for myself and the kids.



I've gone skiing by myself. First tracks in powder. I spent that day remembering my father and how we spent so many weekends skiing together. That was such a gift to get from him and I'm beyond grateful. I'm trying to figure out where I'm at and what my priorities are right now but remembering him and the memories of our days skiing together is quite the benchmark.

I'm exploring the things that give me joy but might not make me money, advance my career or have any real purpose. I've found a partner that has the time and resources to explore with me. Not sure where things will lead but it's nice to explore.



I'll let you know how tomorrow goes at the track.

Gregor

 

[Finallygotit]

Gregor, all I can say is that I am very happy for you.

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

So I bought a guitar back in November. My friend Saul Koll (you've seen him on the thread here) makes amazing electric guitars and has a two year wait list and **** it. In two years I may not be good but I'll be better. And I'll enjoy that process. Well, not the first month or so - my fingers hurt like hell. I still **** but that's okay. I'm getting better.


Gregor

Hey everyone. I just returned from visiting Gregor in June of 2025. I thought I'd share this video of him playing guitar with you all

 

[LeonardY]

Depression is a sneaky thing - you often don't even know you're depressed and it's like a blanket that covers you and stops light, sound and joy from getting in.

Gregor,

I'm glad your in a better place. I wish you joy and happiness for you and yours.

 

[Finallygotit]

Hey everyone. I just returned from visiting Gregor in June of 2025. I thought I'd share this video of him playing guitar with you all

That's it! I'm selling my Strat. At this stage, who am I kidding.

 

[56vette461]

Great news on all fronts. As I've grown older I find that all those things I thought were important when I was younger really did not bring me the joy that I find in spending time with my bride of 53 years, my kids and grand kids, friends and volunteer work in my community. And all my projects and hobbies still seem to get done without the stresses

 

[Boosted1]

Since the separation I've been on an up and down journey trying to find some balance and for a lot of reasons, mostly work related but also social, I've not had much time in the shop. By much time I mean basically any time.

I never wanted a car as a hobby mostly because of the expense but also the space constraints. But last week I found a way to bridge that with a small project that got me back into the shop. In fact I probably could have figured out a way to do this without the shop but I wanted a small, get back on the horse, sort of project.



I love the dash and layout of the Volvo, and as was mentioned above, cars have come a long with with technology and that was a big part of what I wanted with this car - to enter the 21st century. The trouble that I found on my trip with the car was that there's not much space in the cockpit so to speak.



I tried mounting my phone via the Quadlock suction mount in at least a dozen places on the windshield during the trip from Boston. It was either visible and in the way of seeing the road or distracting. I tried the side windows, the sunroof, in the cup holder. The dash doesn't have many blank areas and I didn't like the idea of blocking a vent, screen or buttons.

Around this time I discovered that the Valentine radar detector that I've owned for maybe 20 years had an update that included bluetooth and that there were a world of apps that combined detectors, crowd sourced warnings, traffic camera maps and even police airplane warnings. Technology really went all in on trying to avoid tickets and the very best app, by a long way, is JBV1 which is, sadly, only available on Android. Then I remembered I have an Android tablet on the KTM 890.



This mount was given to me by Tripltek to test out after I'd asked them to make a better mounting solution. I never got the chance to use it because my mount was already built on the KTM and I didn't have the time or energy to remake that. But now it has a second life as it's designed to work with Ram mounts.



And I have a lot of those in my collection. The trouble was that there was no dash space to fix a mount. I wanted to keep the tablet low and near the rest of the controls - it's too big to put up in the windscreen area.



The only place that made any sense was to utilize a seat rail bolt and build something that tucked in near the center console.



I worked up a sketch of a simple mount that would use the rail and an arm.



It needed to bend a tiny amount and it seemed like overkill to use the bender but since I had 1/2" tube it made sense to do that.



and just a tiny kink in the tube and then a piece of bar stock...






And then all that was needed was to prep and weld after fitting the parts. I added a small brace to try to give the arm a bit less flex.



Painted and mounted the height can be varied by choosing different Ram arms and positions. I had to extend the bottom forward to make sure I could run the seat all the way forward but it all clears.



Around the same time I found the OBD2 dongle that I bought for the KTM but never got to work...



But it works fine with the tablet and the Volvo and it also communicates with JBV1 to calculate fuel ranges, speeds, milages and the like.



I'm sure there's more options with it but the tablet is starting to replace the phone for a lot of things and having two devices would seem to be complicated but the phone connects via Bluetooth to the car and soon I'll install an audio unit that will add CarPlay to the Volvo computer and then the phone can handle music and mapping and the tablet can take car of overall mapping, radar integration and more car type functions with the OBD.

I'm sure I'll figure that out as I find which one does what best but right now the size of the tablet and the location seem pretty ideal and it's easy to touch and input with your hand resting naturally where it would for the shifter and it doesn't interfere with my passenger.

So, one small step back to the shop. I'm spring cleaning, both the house, the shop and my life right now.

Gregor

Man I was just thinking of the exact same idea a few days ago! My 3rd gen 4Runner has the same challenge of lack of space on dash to mount a phone for navigation. I also have tried the windshield mount and for a phone it works but doesn't look very good. I was thinking same thing, use the passenger seat inner mount point as a location for something like this. Fabulous execution! I like it.

 

[WoodsTruck]

I had skid car training at PIR this week in the rain. Pretty fun, but nothing too earth shattering since I grew up in northern Idaho and enjoyed the challenges of driving in the winter. Right or wrong, I enjoy skinny pedal induced oversteer. Or hydraulic steering brake induced oversteer in my Baja since abundant Hp was not on tap.
Glad to hear you have someone to explore and adventure with.