I got a Garmin Zumo 220 GPS for Christmas and I wanted to mount and hard wire it to my 2007 VFR. The Zumo comes with its own rechargable battery but only lasts about 4 hours. I wanted to wire it into the VFR system but wanted the power to turn off when the key was turned off. I heard a lot of people like to use the license plate light circuit because it goes off with the ignition and is easy to find. The Zumo comes with the wiring for a motorcycle and the set up comes with a one amp fuse. 12v x 1 amp = 12 watts maximum before the fuse blows. I decided that the license plate light circuit would be fine due to it's low power requirements. In tracing the wires from the license plate light you run into a white 2 wire connector that attaches to the main harness under the seat just forward of the tailight. I decided to tap in there. Not wanting to do any damage to my main harness I needed a plan. In my parts bin I had an old license plate light with the exact same style 2 wire plug as the VFR. I only had the male side and needed the female side. I went to the used parts / bike junk yard near my house and asked if they had the female side to match my male side. To my surprise they did! The next surprise was the price! Thay absolutely ripped me off for 10 bucks! This was the perfect solution to my problem so I bit the bullet and paid the price. I decided to make a jumper / patch to add the GPS wires. This is what I did. With the white male connector I had, and the orange female connector I bought, I spliced the wires together from each and added a set of wires for the GPS. With this set-up I can seperate the original connector on my bike, plug this jumper in between and use my additional wires for the GPS. This way if I decide I don't want the GPS anymore all I have to do is unplug this patch / jumper and put my original connector back together. When I made this jumper I spliced in two wires to use. One positive and one negative. I decided not to use the negative and instead wired the GPS negative directly to the frame of the bike. I know of no issues of bad grounding on the 6th. gens. but why add this load to the wireing harness. The GPS came with a Ram mount to go on the left hand switch bracket. You pull out your screws and add the bracket with the longer screws provided. I did not like the GPS hanging out in the breeze and it looked like it would hit the windshield in a full right turn of the handlebars. I elected to buy the additional Ram "Stem Mount". This was $16.00 and came with all the washers and screws to mount on almost any size steering stem. (A bargain compared to my junkyard connector!) Running the wire from the tailight to the steering stem was easy. With the seat off just pull the two screws on the gas tank and lift it. Snake the wires past the battery, under the tank and up to the stem. Use a couple of wire tie wraps (Zip Ties) and that's it. Here is how it looks on the bike!
