What do I do?

Jonathan Weber has a solution for us.

I am writing to suggest a potentially useful tip for mounting the Garmin GPS mount  in a car.  The Garmin system uses a demountable cradle on a base that can be glued to a dashboard.  They provide a removable and a "permanent" double sided adhesive.  This is Ok as far as it goes but many cars and perhaps boats and aircraft have curved dash boards and these do not provide enough flat area for the adhesive to grip securely.  What I did was to use epoxy putty in a layer about 1/8 " thick on bottom of the plastic base.  Then I put a piece of saran wrap between the base and the apart of the dash where I intended to mount it to cast the base to a more conformal shape.  After it set up, I used the mounting adhesive with good success.  This technique probably is useful for other mounts also.

Be SURE to clean the dash with alcohol or similar before attaching the double side adhesive to the dash.  Be sure to thoroughly clean off any wax from the dash.

When I did it, I used too much epoxy.  I filed and painted the edges to improve its appearance and this helped a bit.

Jonathan Weber
BAE Systems
NCA 01 4264
Box 868
Nashua, NH 03051-0868
603 885-2708
jonathan.l.weber@baesystems.com