This video provides a detailed walkthrough of a RAM® No-Drill™ vehicle laptop mounting system. It explains how the laptop tray, swing arms, telescoping poles and no-drill vehicle base work together to create a complete in-vehicle laptop mount.
The installation covers assembling the Tough-Tray™, fitting the swing arms, using the telescoping pole, installing the seat-bolt base, adding stabilisation where required and finally attaching the laptop tray. It also explains that the modular RAM® system can be adapted later, such as swapping a laptop tray for a compatible tablet holder.
This is useful for work vehicles, fleet vehicles and other applications where a laptop needs to be mounted securely without drilling into the vehicle.
Use the related products and collections below to find compatible RAM® Mounts parts available from Modest Mounts in Australia.
hi everyone this is Rick with RAM® Mounts and today we're going to provide a complete walkthrough and assembly of a ram no drill vehicle laptop mounting system starting with the Ram tough tray universal laptop holder followed by the double articulating swing arms which then go to the upper telescoping Pole with Hardware provided that drops into the lower telescoping Pole and is attached to the ram no drill vehicle base which attaches to the seat bolt in your vehicle without having to drill into the floor of your vehicle now the design of the Bas can be custom depending on the vehicle that you have but in this install will be putting this in a 2015 Ford Focus the concept is pretty identical as far as simply removing the bolts putting the base on and putting the bolts back on for most part there are a couple of exceptions but the concept is pretty similar and consistent across all Ram mounting bases so first we're going to start by assembling the Ram tough tray universal laptop holder the first thing you want to do when putting this together is make sure you have all the hardware that comes with the kit and you can cross reference with the instructions provided with this kit so the first thing you're going to do is attach to these four sidek Keepers to the sides of the tray so you'll start with the slide portion you're going to take two of these sidek Keepers you're going to position them along the ridges on the slide as you can see you have the same ridges on the sidek keeper where you can position up and down and slide side to side you're going to be positioning this along the side you're going to take one of your number 10 screws you're going to insert through the side and protrude on the inside of the slide then you take one of your thin number 10 nuts and you're going to thread by hand on the inside of the slide onto the screw it's not going to be tight yet but it's going to be held in place for now and you're going to do the same with the second sidek keeper you put this along the side of the slide you insert another number 10 screw insert another thin number 10 nut thread by hand and now you have two assembled to the side portion next you're going to take your laptop and while having the laptop opened up you're going to rest it on top of the slide portion as shown here and you're going to take the sidek keeper and you're going to position it over the laptop in a position where it's gently resting on top but it's not putting too much pressure on as you can see here and as that's rested you'll want to pay close attention to the number of ridges shown that are protruding from above the tray and this is the consistent height that you'll want to keep when putting the rest of the sidek keepers on so once you know exactly how many ridges are protruding from the top you can then remove the laptop and attach the sidek keepers in place so now you remember where you put the sidek keepers at and now while holding this in place you're going to take your adjustable wrench you grip onto the nut that's underneath the slide and while holding the sidek keeper in place and the nut in place you'll take a screwdriver and tighten the screw down next you'll repeat with the second sidek keeper you put it at the same height to stay consistent with the rest of the laptop and you can position it along the slotted holes as well to avoid any ports or buttons on the laptop that you might need access to so again you grip on the nut underneath the slide with the adjustable wrench and then you hold this along with the sidek keeper in place then you take your screwdriver and tighten you'll then take the housing portion of the Ram tough tray and you'll take the opposite side of the tray and you're going to take the other two sidek keepers and repeat the same process attach a sidee keepers at the same height as the opposite side insert one of the number 10 screws Cruise insert a nut underneath number 10 thin nut thread by hand hold in place the adjustable wrench hold the sidek keeper in place and tighten and finally take the last sidek keeper position it just like the others at the same height number 10 screw number 10 thin nut thread by hand grip with wrench hold in place and tighten now we have the sidek keepers assembled and next we put these two pieces together and they'll Connect using the provided spring the two number eight screws the two number eight nuts and the two washers first you're going to take one of these screws and insert into the washer and then you're going to insert into one of the loops at the end of the spring and then you're going to set it down and first you're going to take the slide portion you're going to take the number eight nut you're going to insert it into the nut pocket and while holding this in place you're going to drop the screw washer and spring into the opposite end and you're going to thread the screw onto the nut that you're holding in place by hand once you have this by hand you can take your screwdriver and fully tighten and with tightening you want the spring to be evenly placed so it's facing the direct opposite position you want it parallel to these two sides of the slide next you're going to take the second screw you're going to insert through the washer again and then you insert onto the opposite Loop of the spring and and then you flip the housing upside down you're going to insert the slide upside down as well you're going to insert all these together you're going to bring the spring inside as shown and while holding on to the screw and washer that's attached to the spring you're going to pull on the spring outward but first while holding this in place you're going to flip upside down on this opposite nut pocket you're going to drop the second number eight nut inside and you're going to hold that down while holding that down you then stretch the screw over and then you just press it into the hole now the tension of the spring should keep this in place even though the screw is not tighten yet you can just drop that in there and while holding the nut in place you can tighten this down as you can see the Ram tough tray is now fully assembled so the Ram tough tray still has a set of four number 10 screws and number 10 nuts and this Hardware is going to be used to attach the ram ball plate to the bottom of the tray and this is part of the swing arm assembly that comes with any standard no drill vehicle laptop mounting system so you take the ball place off and you set the swing arms aside now the first thing you're going to do it's suggested to take a pen and take one of these nuts and you're going to take the Nylock side facing towards the pen you're going to insert the pen into the nut and then you're going to take one of these four nut pockets on the front of the tray you're going to insert with the tray upside down insert the pen up and then Mark keep track of which hole you're lining up with and then once the nut is inside you take the pen out and flip the pen upside down so the flat side is now holding the nut in place and now while holding the pen in place you flip this upside down and you have that same hole marked you're going to take one of these number 10 screws and you're going to thread into the nut by hand but first you line up the ball plate and you want to make sure all four holes are lined up with the holes on the plate and then by tightening down by hand this will hold hold the screw in place without having to keep the pen inside and once you feel the tension and the threads engaging you can repeat the process for the remaining three nuts once all four screws are tightened down by hand you can then fully tighten with the screwdriver and now your Ram tough tray assembly is complete next we're going to assemble the upper telescoping Pole to the double articulating swing arm assembly first thing you're going to do is you're going to take the threaded rod and you're going to take the nut that's included and you're going to thread this onto the rod and you're going to get the rod to protrude by 38 of an inch and the way to do this is by using a set of pliers you want to grip onto somewhere in the middle of the threaded Rod so you want to grip onto it tight and then you take a socket wrench and then you tighten the nut down once you've gotten this down to about 38 of an inch along the rod you then take the high strength composite wedge and you drop this into the rod and as you can see the wedge has a nut pocket that rests the nut inside you then take the spring insert the spring down the rod onto the wedge and then you take the aluminum wedge and insert facing the opposite direction down on the rod so these two wedges will be surrounding the center spring you then take the upper pole and insert onto the rod you'll get the rod to protrude from the top of the telepole once that's out you then rest the pole on top of the wedges you then take the rubber washer place on the threads you then take your double swing arm assembly and position onto the threads onto the rubber washer then you're going to take steel washer ball bearing washer and steel washer to sandwich over the bearing washer and then you take the tightening knob and tighten over the threads to complete this assembly next we're going to take the no drill vehicle base the design may vary depending on your vehicle and we're going to take the lower telescoping pole we're going to assemble this to the base but the first one we want to look at is some bases come with a stabilizer foot now this foot is positioned along this corner hole here imagine between these two bolt Replacements this is on the driver's side and this is along the passenger door you want the stabilizer foot to be positioned on the furthest away closest to the center Corner in this case it would be this hole here so the first thing we'll do now is we'll take the lower pole and we're going to line up these bolts here the lower pole comes with a set of carriage bolts nuts and washers so you're going to take carriage Bolt you're going to insert into one of the holes again you're going to leave this last hole empty until we put the stabilizer on on the opposite side you're going to insert fairing washer lock washer nut thread by hand and then repeat for these two more holes here once these three are tightened down you can then take the socket wrench and you can tighten down fully and then you take the rubber caps and replace over the nuts to protect the user from the sharp edges of the hardware now as you can see the lower pole comes with another set of carriage bolts and nuts and washers for putting on this extra hole here but since this base comes with the stabilizer we're going to put the stabilizer on this hole instead so we're going to take this foot stabilizer hardware for first thing you're going to do is figure out how much of a gap you need there's two different sizes of bolts to choose from depending on how much of Gap in the floor you can eyeball looking on the floor in your vehicle take the bolt that's needed in this case the long bolt insert upside down into the bottom of the stabilizer then you're going to drop a lock washer over the threads and then a nut you tighten this all the way down thread it all the way down to the lock washer and tighten it to keep the foot St stabilizer in place next you take another nut in the setup three sprad onto the foot stabilizer approximately halfway down take a lock washer insert over that nut take a fairing washer insert over the lock washer and then this is going to be inserted upside down into the base and then you take the same Hardware from the original setup that came with the lower pole and then you insert the fairing washer lock washer thread by hand and this will be adjusted it as you're inserting the base into the vehicle now we're going to install the ram base in the vehicle but the first thing you do is take the passenger seat and shift it to the rear most position and some vehicles are going to have trim that's covering the seat bolt you're going to want to remove the trim and expose these two bolts and then you're going to take socket wrench and you're going to remove these seat bolts so once you get these bolts removed You're simply going to attach the ram base and then retighten the bolts but depending on the vehicle as in this case you'll see in this vehicle the seat bolts are counter sunk into these holes it's not completely flush so what Ram offers depending on the vehicle some of these vehicle laptop bases will come with some standoffs as well as some longer bolts that will be replacing the regular seat bolts so you'll be storing your factory seat Bolt and using the seat bolts provided by RAM and when doing this depending on the vehicle some bases are meant to fit multiple Vehicles you want to take the factory bolt that was in the seat originally you're going to figure out which of these bolts have the correct thread pattern sometimes the threads are different some are standard some are metric in this case you would use these standard bolts to replace the factory bolts and you're going to take the provided standoffs that come with the vehicle and you're going to place these over these counter sunk holes and what this is going to do is it's going to offset this counter sunk area and allows you to mount the base flat onto the holes so then you take the base and you position it over the holes as shown and when you have this properly positioned you then take your seat bolts the new bolts that came with this Hardware pack and you're going to drop these into the holes and you're going to tighten these down and these also come with a set of washers to protect the base coating as well so here's a better overhead view of the base layout as you can see the two empty holes are lined up with the base and the standoffs are underneath the base so now you take the two longer bolts provided with the standoffs if you did receive standoffs and with the washer inside of the bolt first you thread by hand inside of the hole once it's in there a few turns you then insert the second bolt into the opposite Hole by hand once it's in there you can start tightening down with the same socket wrench so now you want to double check make sure all the bolts are fully secured and the mount is now stable in place so as you can see we still have this this loose foot stabilizer that's at the end of this flange on the base and now to stabilize this you want to spin the nut on top you'll loosen this and this will lower the stabilizer downward and once you have this down all the way to where this is actually stabilized on the floor you would then take the nut that's in the middle of the stabilizer and you're going to loosen this back upward so that it braces onto the base and this will keep the foot stabilizer completely steady and you'll adjust this as needed this will vary from vehicle to vehicle depending on how much extra stabilization is needed once you have that in place you can then even use the spare rubber cap that came with the lower telescoping pole that replaced the original Carriage B in this setup and you can position this over the cap so now as you can see we have a stable mounting platform of the vehicle base inside of the vehicle so now you'll take your upper telescoping pole that was assembled earlier with the swing arms and this is going to drop into the lower pole by simply dropping inside you can then position the direction of the swing arms coming off of the pole and then tighten the knob in place to secure you can then take the Ram tough tray that was assembled originally and you're going to take the ball component that was assembled underneath it and this is going to drop into the open socket that's in theend at the end of the swing arms so by dropping into the socket you then tighten down on that knob and that will secure all the components in place and you going to have a complete rugged laptop mounting system in your vehicle whether in motion or when parked in this example with the gtac laptop you have the laptop opened up you insert on one side of the laptop and then expand the spring-loaded tray outward and then drop the laptop in place and now you have a rugged mounting platform for your laptop in your vehicle one of the great things about Ram mounts other than that they're made in the USA and backed at a lifetime warranty is that the components are interchangeable with each other so if you ever switch from a laptop to a tablet you can always remove the laptop tray portion and replace it with a tablet holder such as in this case with the ram xgrip universal tablet holder that's also spring loaded you can take the same ball component and drop the xgrip into the swing arm setup instead of the laptop tray and this allows you to easily convert your laptop holder to a tablet holder in your vehicle in this example we can see this holding the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1 series as shown here so you have modular system you can interchange components to get any system you want in your vehicle for any rugged application whether it be a tablet laptop or any other electronic device
