I wanted to find someplace good to put my brake controller. Unfortunately as anyone who has looked at the Ford dash realizes, there really is no good place.
Of course the first thing was to find the factory harness for the brake controller.
The panel pulls off with clips and yields a nice metal support, a favorite grounding location for all things added.
I cut the metal with a dremel for easy bending, flattened this part, and then drilled some holes in the expected mounting location- drilling before bending was easier. After drilling I cut more- the goal was to get the holes flat.
Cut down further and folded flat with the expected bracket location.
Cutting the dash cover to match- I really don't like the SMB switches or placement so I was glad to lose the "High Idle" control hole. The dash received more attention in a side project, restoring the high idle switch in a new location. In this pic it is pretty square, later I ovaled out the sides to accomidate more space for the side dials.
The brake controller in place. After fitting I moved it all the way to the right thinking the left knob was for adjustment.
It turns out the right know is adjustment, the left knob the leveler- so I'm going to be able to move it back left and the gap with even out.
As it is, I can adjust both sides easily. It wound up further out than I expected and since the left knob on the only needs to be adjusted once it should look better once I reposition it.
Sorry about the bad pic, but this is another shot of the location.
It winds up being a great spot, away from my knees and easy to reach in any situation. Even though I used only two screws out of four to mount to the bracket, it is stiff enough for daily use (I usually squeeze with my thumb on the opposite side when applying the brake lever). It's quite likely the mount will become mangled in an emergency stop or trailer breakaway, but at that point alignment won't matter, just me monkeyfisting the brake lever, so I think the mounting is going to work just fine.