GSGALLANT

Well, I've got my new Yaesu FT-7800R radio installed in my 2002 4Runner (my Larsen NMO 2/70B antenna only arrives this friday, so that will not be installed until the weekend).

The FT-7800R is dual band (2m and 70cm) ham radio with a detachable head that can be remote mounted. Here's a bit of a writeup showing how I installed the radio.

I started off by test fitting the base of the radio to see where I wanted to mount it. Under the passenger seat seemed like the most logical choice, since the space under the driver seat is already taken up by my 1000W inverter.



I then removed the passenger seat and drilled some holes in the floor to mount the radio bracket.



Next, I installed the radio onto the mounting bracket...



And re-installed the passenger seat. This is the final installation of the base of the radio.



Next was the wiring. I don't have any pictures of the power wire and antenna wire routing. I ran both of these into the engine compartment through the grommet in the firewall that is just behind the blower fan. I got power directly from my aux battery (mounted above the front passenger wheelwell), and I ran the antenna wire to my front TJM T15 bumper, where I will mount the antenna when I receive it.

I removed a couple of headliner trim pieces on the passenger side. They are just held on with a few clips. I pushed a piece of coax cable above the headliner until I got it through this opening above the rearview mirror (see the short piece of black coax sticking out?) I used that to pull the flimsey extension wire (looks like telephone wire) for the radio's remote head unit through, which I will be mounting in this location.



I ran the wire down behind the trim piece covering the passenger side B-pillar. In the passenger side B-pillar, I found this small cubby to be the perfect location to store the excess coiled up extension wire.



Here's how it looked right before I put the trim piece back on.



For the remote head unit, I made a bracket out of part of an L-bracket and some 22 gauge steel. I forgot to take a picture of the bracket prior to mounting everything on it, but this is a shot of the rear of the bracket after installation.



And this picture shows the detail of how the bracket is mounted. It is held on with one bolt only, but is really solid. There was a shorter bolt here before that held the grey headliner trim piece on, but I just replaced it with a longer bolt to hold my bracket on.



Finally, This is what the remote head unit and microphone look like after the installation. I used my dremel to notch out the plastic trim piece that covers the top part of the bracket so that I could re-insall it. The microphone can easily be removed if needed for normal driving when I don't need the radio.



I haven't been able to try the radio out yet, because my antenna is not due in until the end of the week.