ERICMYERS
Member
Just completed the install in my truck - these trucks with the flow through consoles are a challenge, and I took an approach that is quite different than any other ones I've seen. There's not much info out there to help with installing radios in these trucks, so I hope this may inspire/help other radio/scanner junkies out there!
Years ago I had a 1994 F150 with a similar overhead shelf - loved that setup, but unfortunately, nothing is made for this truck/model year. I used a Shelf-It from VDP, which is supposed to be for an F250 and definitely did NOT fit my truck out of the box. Fabbed up some custom brackets out of some aluminum barstock and solved that. Color match is quite nice.
I park this truck in my garage, so overhead clearance is important - this is why I went with the toolbox solution. I picked a steel toolbox with gullwings - bought it at Tractor Supply with their logos (debadged it), but it's made by Delta. Gullwings so that the antennas don't bang the cab when the lids are opened, and steel so that I could mount NMO's easily vs the difficulty with Diamond Plate. Also, since this truck is painted in the White Platinum Metallic Tri-coat, I thought it would be nice if the toolbox were painted to match (better than contractor white), so the white base on the toolbox saved me some time. Painted it using 3 coats of Duplicolor Paintshop metallic clear midcoat, and then 4 coats of clear. Put bedliner on the bottom to make the toolbox look less huge.
Radios are an Icom 2200H 2 meter, a BCD996T scanner, Cobra 29WXNWST, all powered via Powerpoles. Coax is all run through the headliner, down the back corners, through the vents, and up into the box grommets through the big oval grommet on the front wall of the bed. You can't see a single wire inside unless you REALLY try to. Power goes to the battery through the grommet behind the glovebox.
Antennas are a Maxrad for the scanner, a short 2/70 for the 2 meter - Opek brand I think, and a Firestik 2 for the CB. The CB antenna is on a mount I fabricated out of Aluminum, connected using a taillight bolt, and then the stud is on a store bought bracket. I don't like the way I had to do the coax on the CB, and the ground plane sucks, so I may rework that later - clearance overhead challenge is making this tradeoff.
Scanner and CB audio is routed via a hand built 1/8 mini stereo wire that has been split to 2 mono's at the radio end, which then terminates at the Sync Aux input, sending Scanner audio to the Right and CB audio to the Left. 2 Meter Audio is through the Icom for now - being right by my head, I think it's fine. Scanner needs more audio clarity than 2 Meter, and I listen to scanner more than I'm on 2 Meter - it's easy to reconfigure by just swapping wires. One nice thing about using the Aux input is that if a call comes in, the audio mutes automatically.
I also have done the power mod for my radar detector taking power off the rear view mirror camera. I hate unnecessary cords dangling - the mic cords aren't bad, but may get reworked if I can find a better solution.
Enjoy the pix - feel free to ask questions.
Years ago I had a 1994 F150 with a similar overhead shelf - loved that setup, but unfortunately, nothing is made for this truck/model year. I used a Shelf-It from VDP, which is supposed to be for an F250 and definitely did NOT fit my truck out of the box. Fabbed up some custom brackets out of some aluminum barstock and solved that. Color match is quite nice.
I park this truck in my garage, so overhead clearance is important - this is why I went with the toolbox solution. I picked a steel toolbox with gullwings - bought it at Tractor Supply with their logos (debadged it), but it's made by Delta. Gullwings so that the antennas don't bang the cab when the lids are opened, and steel so that I could mount NMO's easily vs the difficulty with Diamond Plate. Also, since this truck is painted in the White Platinum Metallic Tri-coat, I thought it would be nice if the toolbox were painted to match (better than contractor white), so the white base on the toolbox saved me some time. Painted it using 3 coats of Duplicolor Paintshop metallic clear midcoat, and then 4 coats of clear. Put bedliner on the bottom to make the toolbox look less huge.
Radios are an Icom 2200H 2 meter, a BCD996T scanner, Cobra 29WXNWST, all powered via Powerpoles. Coax is all run through the headliner, down the back corners, through the vents, and up into the box grommets through the big oval grommet on the front wall of the bed. You can't see a single wire inside unless you REALLY try to. Power goes to the battery through the grommet behind the glovebox.
Antennas are a Maxrad for the scanner, a short 2/70 for the 2 meter - Opek brand I think, and a Firestik 2 for the CB. The CB antenna is on a mount I fabricated out of Aluminum, connected using a taillight bolt, and then the stud is on a store bought bracket. I don't like the way I had to do the coax on the CB, and the ground plane sucks, so I may rework that later - clearance overhead challenge is making this tradeoff.
Scanner and CB audio is routed via a hand built 1/8 mini stereo wire that has been split to 2 mono's at the radio end, which then terminates at the Sync Aux input, sending Scanner audio to the Right and CB audio to the Left. 2 Meter Audio is through the Icom for now - being right by my head, I think it's fine. Scanner needs more audio clarity than 2 Meter, and I listen to scanner more than I'm on 2 Meter - it's easy to reconfigure by just swapping wires. One nice thing about using the Aux input is that if a call comes in, the audio mutes automatically.
I also have done the power mod for my radar detector taking power off the rear view mirror camera. I hate unnecessary cords dangling - the mic cords aren't bad, but may get reworked if I can find a better solution.
Enjoy the pix - feel free to ask questions.