CB HAM Radio Install

I've seen a lot of folks get pretty.....um......creative when it comes to installing a radio in a G2 Tundra. There's just not a lot of options there to work with if you don't like a lot of crap in the way. Ideally I'd like to keep the truck as stock-looking as possible, and anything I do I'd like to keep reverseable should I ever go to sell the truck. So I didn't want to screw a radio to the top of my dash and install a NMO antenna mount in my roof. But the G2 Tundra just does not give you a lot of options, IMO.

So here's what I did. I'm posting this only because I haven't seen photos of anyone else doing it this way and perhaps it would help someone who's trying to do the same thing.

I ended up snagging an older Kenwood radio off eBay. It's a TM-732a; 50 watts, dual band, yada yada, but most importantly it has the detachable face. I knew I wanted at least a dual band radio but I'm not the kind of guy who has to have the latest and greatest. There are better radios out there with a detachable face but this one worked for me.

I could not envision a radio screwed to the console or under the dash anywhere. This was my main reason for wanting a detachable face. I ended up mounting the body of the radio inside the center console and it fit nicely under the Tundra file holder box thingy. I mounted the face plate as seen below. The mount is attached inside that shitty coin tray, or whatever it's supposed to be. It's not good for change as the change slides out when you're stoplight-to-stoplight racing a Dodge Demon, or when you're driving like normal. That little pocket is just not good for much that I've found so losing it was not of concern.

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Since the body of the radio was inside the center console and the audio speaker was built into the radio body, I had to install an external speaker. I had this speaker buried in my stash. No idea where it came from, probably Radio Shack from back in the day. Who knows. I'm not real excited about the speaker and where it's at, but it works and it's out of the way. This is something I may change later if I find a better option.

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Probably the single biggest challenge I had was finding an antenna mount I liked. Normally I would mount the antenna on the bed of the truck. Or on top of the truck with a magnet mount. But for the life of me I could not find a suitable way to route the antenna coax to the top of the truck. I like for the coax to be hidden and if I wanted to hide the coax that meant drilling a hole in my roof to install a NMO mount and hiding the coax inside the headliner. And I could not mount the antenna on the bed because I have one of those hard bed covers and did not want to drill a hole in that, either.

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Finally I found an antenna mount from a company called CBI Offroad. It's very similar to a ditch-light mount, but it is different. The antenna mount sicks up and out a little further than a ditch-light mount so your antenna connector does not hit the fender and so you can open your hood without the antenna smacking the windshield. The mount bolts to your factory hood bolts. I ended up adding a bonding strap to the mount because I was getting a little noise when modulating (fuel pump, injectors, alternator, who knows...???).

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The mount itself is thick. I didn't measure the thickness, but I'd guess it's 3/16". It's very sturdy and perhaps over built. But it does not flex in the wind with even a 34" tall antenna. Do to the mounts thickness I had to use a deep-style NMO mount. These are the style mounts found on fire engines and ambulances because the roof material is so much thicker than a police cruiser, Tahoe, etc... The standard NMO mount is meant to sandwich a thinner gauge roof, and since this mount is at least 3/16" I had to use a deep-mount. That also required me to drill out the hole of the antenna mount a bit. I just used a Unibit until I got the hole size I needed.

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I tucked the antenna coax inside the weather stripping along the bottom side of the hood. It fit nice and didn't even need to use zip ties to hold it into place.

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I love these rubber grouments Toyota uses with the nipples. Just snip the nipple and feed your wiring through. Genuineness!

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Thank for sharing. Best option I have seen yet for mounting 2m ham rig in my 2019 Tundra.