Installed the Garmin Zumo 660

Took advantage of some me time today to install the Garmin Zumo 660 on my motorcycle. I always like to have a second set of eyes on projects like this to act as my conscience and help with the decision making process. You know, where should this be installed? What do you think of this? Can you put those two wires together and tell me if there is any power? So I asked my friend Chris to assist.

Let me begin by saying that before I installed the 660 on the bike, I used it on a family drive vacation in August to Virginia Beach and it was flawless. Not only did the 660 provide accurate turn-by-turn instructions, but it also displayed pictures of lane divisions whenever there were lane splits or exists, which were plenty. I also put to good use the food and lodging options it provided.

The only complaint I have is that it doesn’t have a deer detector.

Yes, that wasn’t a typo, I could have used a deer detector. An hour from the Fort Erie bridge, we hit a small deer in Salamanca NY. It stepped over the concrete median right in front of my car while I was in the left lane traveling at 60 MPH. I had no choice but to brace for impact. Fortunately, the deer in this part of NY are small. In northern Ontario, the deer are much larger and typically the hood of the car takes out the legs while the torso heads for your windshield. You can see in the photo the impression of the deers body and how small it was. We were very lucky! Everyone else in the car was distracted by the video player and/or reading, so nobody tensed up and therefore, no injuries occurred. I am sad to report that the deer didn’t make it.

Anyway, when I bought my bike it was gently used and came prewired for the Garmin Zumo 550. So I used to borrow my friends 550 all the time and it was great. But I was beginning to feel like a mooch and so I thought it might be nice to have my own at my disposal. I also wanted to have a unit that can easily be used in the car. I really like the Garmin interface and because I am a technophile, I had to have the latest version. So I bought the 660 not realizing that I would have to rewire the bike because the wire scheme was changed for the 660.

Before running the new cables, we disconnected the battery. Then we followed the existing 550 cable through the handle bars, removed the left side fairing, and ferreted the wires along the frame to the battery compartment below the seat. We used small plastic ties to secure the wires to existing wires and/or the frame where possible. We soldered battery connecters on to the exposed wires from the Garmin. Then we removed the old 550 wire and connected everything to the battery again. The Garmin 660 comes with additional wired connections, like two different size audio jacks, and a mini USB connection. I don’t have a headset in my helmet yet, so I just stored the cables under the tool kit below the seat for now. I will no doubt get a wireless headset at some point so not sure if I will ever use these connections. Very simple installation, took maybe an hour in total.

Installed the Garmin Zumo 660