another sturdy metal cell phone holder solution

[John Young]

Hi all, I really love the Owl Expedition Media Mount in my LX470, but I did not need that in Dhanno, my 1998 LC as I had replaced the head unit with a JVC Android Auto unit. This still left me with a need to mount my cell phone somewhere securely. I hate those rubber suction cup things. And because the JVC head unit provides the display I did not need the phone to be up in normal eyesight. I thought I would try to use the same type of Smallrig hardware that worked for me on the Owl Expedition Media Mount.

Up and to the left of the gearshift is a little insert that in some LC's is a little coin cup and others, like mine, it is just a blank panel. If you remove the little panel it is a straight shot down to the transmission tunnel metal below if you scoot some insulation out of the way. I decided to try to create a mount point there, and then brace it with a close-fit hole with a grommet in the little blank plate. The other thing was that I did want it to be removable and have at least a little give. I decided to try to use a panel of aluminum foil / neoprene sound insulation as the method of attachment for a M14 screw as seen here:

Crusty, my ebay mistake, happens to be taken apart right now so I could figure out the right angle for the screw:

It is almost exactly 10 degrees slope at the point directly under the little removable panel. So here is the resulting necessary angle with the Smallrig post screwed on:

And here's a dryfit of the Smallrig post in the little panel:

That sand, BTW, is actually sand from Dubai that is still drifting down from the overhead of the truck even after we completely removed the interior.

 

[John Young]

Installing the mount point is easy. The neoprene sound insulation epoxied to the M14 screw can fold up to insert in the panel hole so you can use a bigger surface attachment area:

Here it is in place.

Here's a detail showing how it looks with the panel on:

I've posted here previously about using the ash tray as a good place to put in USB ports--out of the way and easy to find with your fingers.
Here's a shot of the phone holder on the Smallrig rod:

The phone holder and smallrig components are listed here for those that are interested. There are several variations of the aluminum phone holder (meant for motorcycles mostly). All available on Amazon.

Then my son and I went out for Korean Hotpot at Eden Center here in Arlington:

I asked for a pint of beer. They brought me a pitcher. Somehow I coped. My son drove.

 

[John Young]

So here's the end of this little story. The next day we neatened things up a bit. The little insert panel was a little loose so I wrapped it in self-vulcanizing rubber electricians tape for a snugger, non-rattling fit:

We also plugged the top of the now-shorter Smallrig rod and added a grommet around the post:

And here is the finished product:

I will live with it a while and see if the rods are the right length and maybe shorten the horizontal rod a bit and then plug the end. But that's about it. I hope you enjoyed this. I certainly did, working with my younger son throughout. Really nice little project for the two of us with a very tangible result. Now he is talking about wanting something similar for his new (old) Honda CRV AWD.

 

[MongooseGA]

Very nice mod. If I didn't use that pocket for specific item storage, this would be a perfect upgrade for what I need. Currently, my magnetic mount does fine around town but can't quite hold up on trails.