By Greg Illes
Awhile back we ran a story of mine on a fold-down TV bracket that I put into my Class A motorhome. We immediately were hit with cries of, “Where can we get one?” from our readers. Here’s a follow-up.
The bracket is full-custom, not store-bought. In order to get the TV nearly flush to the windshield, and also up tight against the overhead when stored, I needed a bent bracket design.
First, I used a piece of wire to mock up the angle and length I needed. Then I had a local plastics shop put a bend in a piece of 3/8″ ABS textured sheet.
The sheet is attached at the front with two standard three-inch steel hinges, fastened to a metal portion of the overhead structure.
At the back edge, I used two strap retainers to hold one-inch black nylon straps. These use standard strap snap-catches to hold the TV up in stored position. I used two for stability and fail-safe design (don’t want that puppy coming down while I’m driving), plus I needed the finished affair to be rattle-free. These worked out very nice.
I punched a one-inch hole in the overhead to accept all the cabling, and I put a split-sleeve cable cover over it all to dress it up a little.
The TV didn’t hang down quite vertically (bent bracket center-of-gravity offset), so I mounted a small wooden knob into the windshield vertical post (not shown in photos). The bottom of the bent bracket slips over the edge of the knob to hold the TV vertical, and also to keep it from swinging.
Greg Illes is a retired systems engineer who loves thinking up RV upgrades and modifications. When he’s not working on his motorhome, he’s traveling in it. You can follow his blog at www.divver-city.com/blog.
