Zumo 660 Electrical Connection

I prefer the GPS to be powered continuously. The older units required a considerable time to acquire satellites, so any time the bike is turned off (e.g. filling the tank), the GPS is then useless for a period. The Zumo 660 is much faster to acquire satellites, and its battery could mean that it would just continue with the ignition off. However, when the power is removed, it pops up a dialog saying that it will switch off in 30 seconds unless you tell it otherwise. I'm not likely to remember to do that, so I want its power to be constantly on.

The instrument panel contains a clock, so there is an always on source of power available there.

Next step is to remove the instrument panel. Perhaps not strictly necessary, but it does make life easier.

Access to the instrument panel is obtained by removing the panel in the middle of the above photo. There are 4 bolts holding it in place, and there is a tongue which slips into a slot in the panel below. Remove the bolts and lift the black panel out of the way.

Instrument panel retaining items highlighted

There are 4 pins retaining the instrument panel. Two metal ones, shown in the white circles, which have a clip to retain the panel in place. The yellow circles are the other two pins, which are plastic and protrude through rubber bushings. Finally, the green circle is the cable connection to the instrument panle. Note that this photo is out of sequence, as it shows the cable from the GPS already connected.

Remove the two clips (in white circles) and then work the instrument panel back towards the rear of the bike. It is a bit stiff! When it is free, remove the cable. Pull the rubber boot away from the panel, the unclip the connector. NOTE: there is a retaining clip on the plug, located on one of the long sides. Pressing the long sides of the plug together will release the clip allowing the plug to be pulled off the socket in the instrument panel.

There are 2 conductors in this cable to which connections are made. Start by unwinding the electrical tape from the connector end. I went to the junction with other cables. You will see a purple wire and a black wire on the left hand side (looking from the front, with the connector in the same position as when plugged in.)

The purple wire is positive, and the black wire is negative. The purple wire is always energised. Note that the Sprint GT and ST share many components, but the wiring harness is not one of them. These colours may be different on an ST; and I believe the ST has a socket for a GPS to be connected.

The items on the left are what I used to tap into the wiring. They are contact connectors and I bought them from Jaycar in Australia, an electronic component retailer. They may also be available from automotive stores. They should be readily available. The main benefit is that no cutting or soldering is required. Place the existing purple (black) wire into one side of the metal piece, and red (black) wire from the cable made up at the beginning in the other side. Fold over, and squeeze the connector with pliers and the connection is done.

The right hand side is a pictorial wiring diagram. The Additional Connector may be any standard automotive type. The current rating is not too important. The Garmin cable is fused (left in) at 1 or 2 amps, and there is a 10 or 20 amp fuse for the instrument panel supply. The additional connector is to make it easy to disconnect and/or remove and/or change the GPS wiring in future. The cable from the GPS mount could be fed directly into the contact connectors but they are a one time use item.

The steps in this operation are as follows:

Unplug harness from instrument panel
Unwrap electrical tape from that part of the harness
Add one contact connector to the black wire in the harness together with the black wire from the above connector/cable.
Repeat with the purple harness wire and red connector/cable wire. Place this connector such that it will be clear of the black wire connector, as shown in the diagram. Both of them will be wrapped with electrical tape at the end.
Verify that the red GPS wire connects to the red additional harness wire. Which should then connect to the purple wire in the Triumph harness. Otherwise, the polarity will be reversed, and your GPS will likely be destroyed!

At this stage, I used a multimeter to verify that the red wire was positive. This requires temporarily reconnecting the battery. If you do this test, ensure the GPS is NOT installed.

The modified harness shown here after covering in electrical tape and reconnected to the instrument panel. The bulges in the cable leading to the instrument panel are due to the contact connectors. The really blurred cable and connector is the additional part to supply the GPS. You will see that I used red and brown wires for the additional cable, not the red and black as described. It's what I had on hand, and as long as one of the colours is correct, the function will be clear.

The cable from the Garmin mount needs to be routed from the triple clamp to in front of the instrument panel. There's an obvious route to follow. Run the cable over to the left side (rider's perspective) and cable tie to the cables from the left clip on. There's a clip around the left fork tube; remove it, feed the Garmin cable underneath and replace it on the fork tube. Follow the existing wires to the left fairing, secure with cable ties, and continue up towards the instrument panel.

Finally, all the unused cable sections were cable tied to the main cable, to ensure they did not work their way around.

The final positioning of the additional cables. Note that Triumph use black cable ties; I used white so as to distinguish mine from theirs, in case of future modifications. The white connector in front is the one added here.

Assembly, being the reverse of disassembly, can now be done. But first connect the battery and make sure the GPS is receiving power.

The above photos show how the finished installation looks. The lower photo was taken while sitting on the seat in standard riding position. It's an approximation to how it appears in normal use. The instruments are not blocked, and although not visible, there is no difficulty reaching the key in the ignition lock. My eyes have better depth of field than the lower photo - sorry for the blurry image, but it does show that the Zumo does not block the rider's view of the instrument panel.

And after a couple of hundred kilometres, I have no issues with the arrangement. But note that I do not like tank bags; with one of these you may want to consider the additional Extension Joint Assembly.

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Zumo 660 Electrical Connection

Instrument Panel

Garmin Cable Routing

Rider's View