So I got around to installing the CB radio this weekend. The goal going into it was to mount it in a place that did not impact comfort, visibility, or safety, and still allowed the radio to be easily viewed by the driver. I evaluated mounting it a few places, inside the center console, on the dash, separating the face plate from the body of the radio to do a remote mount, but in the end, mounting it in the little cubby forward of the cup holders. Mock up mounting had it like so
20150131-P1010320 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Now of course this leads to a particular problem of you know, the dash being in the way. Although a bit intimidating to start hacking up pieces of the center console, it made for a seamless install that I ended up being happy with, so in the end it worked out well.
Anyway, step one was to disassemble the center console stack. There are two bolts in the center console hidden under the rug that need to be removed.
20150131-P1010325 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Remove the rubber part of the cup holders then pry up the plastic try. It is held on by a couple of spring clips that should release with a good tug.
20150131-P1010326 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Now you can remove the shifter bezel. There is not enough clearance to maneuver it off with the shifter in Park, so I put on the e-brake to shift it into Neutral and that gave me enough roam to coax it off.
20150131-P1010327 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Lastly, remove the four screws holding the two pieces of the center console together, and the shifter to the center console. You should be able to remove it as an assembly, or, disconnect the front half from the back half and remove just that part by itself. The front section will disengage from the center cluster by tugging backwards to disengage the snap clips.
After laying out the position of the radio in the dash I transferred the profile of the back of the radio to the back wall of the cubby and went to town with a Dremel, a cut off wheel, and a file.
The CB mounting bracket was attached to the vehicle using a couple of self drilling sheet metal screws into the plastic. The radio and it's wires were threaded through the space I made and I reversed the steps to re-install all of the trim pieces. All wires were tucked up behind the center console and run across to the main firewall grommet and through to the fuse block. The final install looks like so.
20150131-P1010328 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
The final thing I got accomplished was to hook up the Hellas on the front bumper. Despite having owned these for about a year, I have never had them wired up at all. The wiring was pretty straight forward, connect to the protruding wires from the back of the lights, run them to the fuse block and relay then wire to the in-cab switch.
I had to do several wire merges to get everything into a single cable for ease.
20150131-P1010321 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
I got a Carling style switch similar to what comes stock with the ARB stuffs. Once again I had to trim away some of the dash to fit the switch in there. I mounted in the upper holes this time to get all of the light related stuff on a single row. In order to get everything wired up right I had to make my own wiring harness. Using some marine quick disconnects and wire that I had laying around I came up with the following.
20150131-P1010322 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
And the switch in the dash. Nice and clean. Although it looks like it would be close to interfering with the top lip of the dash (it is) when activated, it does clear.
20150131-P1010323 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
I spent probably 6 or so hours out there getting everything wired, connected, tucked away, and yada yada. Seems like a long time for what I accomplished, but everything is together again. The final payoff was hitting that light switch and seeing that I had indeed done everything correctly.
20150131-P1010329 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
I still have to get them aimed properly and tuck the rest of the wires into looms for neatness sake, but I'm pretty pleased.