wrangler07

My wife and I recently bought a Flip HD Camcorder at a charity dinner and after playing with it and realising how simple it was to use I thought it may may the perfect trip companion to record holidays, off-roading etc...and thought it would be pretty cool to have a proper stable mount inside the JK.

So after sitting inside her and trying to work out a good place to mount the camera I had a moment of inspiration!!

To either far side of the sound bar you'll find two bolts holding it in place. Hmm...I thought and quickly extracted one. Turns out that those bolts are pretty much the same size as the tripod mount which is standard on most cameras and camcorders.

So back into the garage I find a similar bolt that's about 3" long. Cut the head off, grind down the sharp edge and we're good to go. Now when you extract the original bolt you'll find it has a large washer around the head to help hold that plastic in place, so find one of a similar size. Next, find two nuts that will work with that bolt and another slightly smaller washer that will fit up against the camcorder.

On one end of your bolt add first a nut and then the large washer. Wind them about half way down the bolt and then insert the bolt exactly where you took it from. I used some grips to wind it in there as now you have no head to utilise. Careful not to kill the thread on the rest of the bolt!

Once it's roughly in place try attaching your camcorder/camera (BTW you can put this on either driver's side or the passenger side, choice is your's). When it looks like it's gonna sit at full lock as snug as is possible (there's a slight angle on the sound bar so it can't be completely snug) remove it again and add first a nut and then the smaller washer. Make sure you now tighten the nut that's holding the washer firmly against the sound bar plastic so that's all in place. Once you've got the camcorder screwed on as far as it will go and as close to the sound bar as poss then slip a small spanner into the nut which is now above the washer pressing down on the camcorder and carefully tighten it. Keep in mind that in a battle of steel versus plastic the steel will win so don't over tighten.

You now have your camcorder/camera in place and solidly (as solid as it gets) mounted in your JK and a quick flip of the button records exactly what you're up to. You can even swivel the camcorder to record what's happening in the back seat..(children playing, I mean!)

Total cost...well I had the bolt and nuts in my garage so nothing but if I had to buy the bits...less that a buck?

And when you want to take the camera out of the Jeep just wind her anti-clockwise and out she comes! Simples!

Here's a couple of pics of the finished article. Sorry for any typos but am posting this in my garage and the wife is calling..

Matti

Sweet ! Im gonna give this a try !

PainKiller

won't the video be upside down

Midgear

what an interesting discovery-

vans

I took the plastic shoud off the a piller and put a nutsert in the lower hole then attached a ram mount ball. I had to make up an extension for it to stick out a bit more.

wrangler07

Don't think that's too difficult to rectify.

wrangler07

That's a cool mount, too. Today I actually tested the camera and the only problem was there was too much of my head in the shot, so if you're going to use this mount then put it over the passenger side.

I decided to come up with a mount for the centre of the sound bar so I put a metal strip along the top of the camera and a powerful Krussell magnet was glued to the soundbar. Works a treat and the video doesn't have to be flipped 180 either..

wrangler07

Well, finally solved this problem. The only problem with the magnet mount was the fact that it only worked in that one spot and that the vehicle vibration would alter the orientation slightly. Today I had a quick look round Maplins and found this:



The clamp jaws are seriously strong and open far wider than initially thought. It allows me to securely mount the camera in various different places around the Jeep including the roll bar, even with the padding in place. Works on the plastic side pillars either side of the windscreen and on the soundbar. Darn useful and less than a tenner to boot!!