Titanium Radar Detector Mount

I needed a place to mount my Passport 8500 on my new R1200GS, and decided that right above the speedometer would be a good spot. Mounted there it doesn't obscure anything, and is the same focal distance as the instruments. Plus, the power and audio cables can be routed neatly under the silver frame loop surrounding the instruments.

For material, I chose a piece of scrap titanium I had left over from another project. It was 0.068" thick. I'd been told you can't work titanium in your garage with hand tools, but I discovered otherwise. It's harder to cut with a hacksaw (and very noisy) but it's doable, and drilling with a drill press isn't much harder than drilling hard steel.

Titanium doesn't bend well -- as a test, I tried to bend a small scrap piece of the 0.068" material into a 90 degree angle and it snapped. But a shallow bend (roughly 30 degrees in this case), though hard to make, seems to work fine.

I worked out a design by cutting various templates out of heavy paper. For attaching to the bike, I used 3 small stainless steel bolts running through the holes in the frame mount, with a small titanium backing plate I made of the same material.

I put an appropriate bend in it using a vice with a 1" wooden dowel to shape the bend. I'd guess it was about a 30 degree bend or so. I finished the piece by buffing it with a polishing wheel. Titanium doesn't really "weather" much (unlike steel or aluminum) and I like the finish, so I didn't paint it.

To attach the detector, I used stick-on Velcro™. Not the industrial grade, it's too hard to detach (which I do often when leaving the bike unattended). The stiff "hook" side I stuck to the bottom of the detector, and the softer "latch" side I stuck to the mount -- that way when I wash the bike lint and stuff won't stick to the mount. I cut a 1/2" piece out of an old bicycle innertube and use it as a large rubberband to keep the detector from vibrating.

Originally, I thought I'd have to brace it somehow, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The titanium is so stiff that it doesn't vibrate at all and the detector is solidly mounted. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and how simple the design is.

It probably isn't worth trying to track down some titanium to duplicate this project, but a piece of slightly thicker stainless steel would probably work as well. Might vibrate a bit more, or not...

If you want to try making this mount yourself, click on the above photo (it will take you to a much larger version) and save a copy on your computer. Then resize it so that the drawn image is 7 5/8" along the long axis, and cut it out. Use it as a starting point to make your own mount. Bend along the dotted line...