Laubage
New member
Just installed my CB this last weekend with the help of Reata. Huge thanks to him for showing me how to rip apart my car. This was my first mod and it went relatively smooth.
PARTS LIST:
- Cobra 75WXST CB radio
- 12' of RG-8x coax cable
- SO-259 female/female barrel connector
- Diamond K400 3/8C lip antenna mount
- Firestik stainless steel antenna spring
- 3' Firestick II antenna Tunable Tip
- coat hanger for fishing the wire through panels/carpet
- zip ties
- liquid electrical tape
- Automobile fuse jumper (to plug your CB into the fuse box)
- Round wire terminal (for grounding the control box to a bolt)
STEP 1: Attaching the antenna mount
To do this, all you do is follow the instructions provided with the Diamond K400 mount. There are 4 set screws that hold the antenna mount to your car. Originally, we put a spacer between the set screws and the vehicle to protect the vehicle, but I later figured out that the set screws HAVE to drill into the paint in order to ground your antenna to the vehicle chassis. You can see how we attached the mount here:
STEP 2: Routing the antenna mount cable into your vehicle
We chose to route the Diamond K400's 6' attached cable through the wire shafts that are underneath the top of the liftgate. To do so, we started by squeezing the wire under the spoiler lip until it circled around underneath the liftgate.
From here, we used the wire holders that came with the K400 mount, along with zip ties, to hold the wire in place. Once we got to the wire shaft, we cut into it using wire cutters and squeezed the mount cable through it. Routing the wire through here makes it come out of the roof lining. After we routed it into the roof, we sealed up the hole we cut in the wire shaft with liquid electrical tape. Use your coat hanger to fish it through the ceiling.
Once it's in the ceiling of the car, you can squeeze the rest of the wire into the edges of the lining to get it down to where your jack compartment is. It is in this compartment where we attached the 12' coax extension cable.
NOTE: If your extension cable is a male/male extension cable, you will need to attach the female/female SO-259 barrel connector between the wire coming from the antenna mount and the extension cable.
STEP 3: Routing the extension cable
Once the extension cable is attached to the antenna mount wire, you can start routing it along the drivers side of the car. To facilitate in this, I suggest you do the Antman storage compartment mod. This will help you see where the wire is going as you route it.
The first place you will route it through is the rear passenger door panel. To open this, all you do is pull on the panel and fish the cable through. Once you do this, you will want to pull off the door step in order to route the cable away from view.
Note: To do this, you simply have to pull/pry the door step off. There are some white plastic clips that hold the part to the car and if those get detached from the door step, you just simply have to put them back on under the door step before replacing it.
Keep routing the cable up to the drivers seat by pulling the driver's door step off as well. We left the side panel between the from and rear seats there and simply stuffed the wire underneath it to get it behind that panel. The panels aren't pulled off in this picture because we forgot to take another picture, but this is what you're dealing with.
Once you get it up to the driver's seat, you will be able to run the extension cable straight from the drivers door step to under the carpet. It looks like this...
From here, you will have to route the cable under the carpet to where the other seat anchor is, next to the center console. To do this, you gotta do some more fishing with that magical coat hanger.
Once you get to the second seat anchor, you have to wait for it.... fish it again, but this time up to the center console. You will have to pull your center console apart to do this first.
STEP 4: Pulling your dash/center console apart
There are probably a lot of other threads discussing this topic, but I will explain it here. You start by pulling on the side panels that surround your air conditioning control panel and your cubby holes. Start by pulling the panels in the direction of their respective seats (driver/passenger) working your way from the bottom on up to the top, as the clips come loose.
Note: You will have to pull harder than what seems natural for these parts to come off. There are also little yellow clips that hold these in. If one falls off in the process, don't worry, you can reattach it to the panel.
OPTIONAL STEP
Next, we removed the bolts that hold the A/C control panel in place, but I'm not sure this is necessary. Once the bolts are removed, there will be a plug and plastic clip that holds the plug in place behind the unit. Just unplug it and unclip the unit.
OPTIONAL STEP
Now there are two screw that hold the liner that runs along the side of the center area (where you shift). We removed both of these to facilitate our routing of the coax extension cable into the center console. Once again, I'm not sure if you NEED to do this. There's one on each side and this picture is me removing one of them
Once this is done, you can remove the center console by unscrewing the knobs for your shifter and your 4wd knob. Just unscrew counter-clockwise. Once this is done, pull on the framework of the center console to remove it. Once again, it is attached by clips, so you might have to pull to the point you feel like you're breaking it. Do this, and pull the center console open. There will be a plug attached to it that you will have to unplug. It is just the wire that goes to your rear window switch. After it's all done, your center console will look like this:
STEP 5: Installing the CB radio
Now that the dash and center console are apart, you can begin looking for places to mount the control box for the Cobra 75WXST. Keep in mind that wherever you chose to mount it, the wire that the handset attaches to is only 6" long. This is why Okki ran into trouble trying to get his handset plug to where he wanted it (Thanks for the lesson learned Okki! :hatsoff
. He ended up getting an extension cable, and you can too if you can't find a place that works for you.
We chose to mount it forward of the 4wd shifter, under the cubby hole. And we attached it to this position using zip ties, with the 6" cable running to the front of the car and the power cables running to the rear of the car. Here is a picture of it installed. The black cable you see running to the control box here is the coax extension cable.
Eventually I would like to mount the handset connector to the side of the dash under the glove compartment (as it's shown here). But I will have to wait for someone smarter than me to figure out how to mount that plug to this panel.
Until I figure out how to mount it, I just connected the handset to it and ran it out of the right side of the center console. Just like Phillyd2 did.
STEP 6: Routing power to the control box
I don't have any pictures of this part, because we forgot to take any :dammit: but we routed the power line down the left side of the center console, under the carpet, and up around the foot pedal area. This is real easy, as the carpet is attached under the foot pedal via velcro.
Connect your fuse jumper to the red power wire coming from the control box.
Once done, there is a fuse box just above your parking brake. We used our automobile fuse jumper to attach the red (power cable) to an unused fuse port (identified by an empty box with a slash through it on the fuse box cover). This will provide it power, when the key is turn to the "ON" position, but not the "ACC" position.
Next, we crimped a round wire terminal to the black wire (ground). This allowed us to bolt it down using one of the many bolts that screw into the metal chassis of the vehicle.
STEP 7: Test run
Attach your Firestik antenna to the Firestik SS attachment, and then to the antenna mount. Now power up your car by either starting it or turning the key to "ON". Turn on power to the CB using the handset, and see if you can hear/talk to anyone! In neighborhoods you might not be close enough to many people, but once you hit an interstate, your radio will jump to life.
STEP 8: Close everything up!
Before you close everything up, you can/should attach an SWR meter to the setup, to verify that it is working correctly.
Once all this is accomplished, YOU'RE DONE! :reddance::drummer:
PARTS LIST:
- Cobra 75WXST CB radio
- 12' of RG-8x coax cable
- SO-259 female/female barrel connector
- Diamond K400 3/8C lip antenna mount
- Firestik stainless steel antenna spring
- 3' Firestick II antenna Tunable Tip
- coat hanger for fishing the wire through panels/carpet
- zip ties
- liquid electrical tape
- Automobile fuse jumper (to plug your CB into the fuse box)
- Round wire terminal (for grounding the control box to a bolt)
STEP 1: Attaching the antenna mount
To do this, all you do is follow the instructions provided with the Diamond K400 mount. There are 4 set screws that hold the antenna mount to your car. Originally, we put a spacer between the set screws and the vehicle to protect the vehicle, but I later figured out that the set screws HAVE to drill into the paint in order to ground your antenna to the vehicle chassis. You can see how we attached the mount here:
STEP 2: Routing the antenna mount cable into your vehicle
We chose to route the Diamond K400's 6' attached cable through the wire shafts that are underneath the top of the liftgate. To do so, we started by squeezing the wire under the spoiler lip until it circled around underneath the liftgate.
From here, we used the wire holders that came with the K400 mount, along with zip ties, to hold the wire in place. Once we got to the wire shaft, we cut into it using wire cutters and squeezed the mount cable through it. Routing the wire through here makes it come out of the roof lining. After we routed it into the roof, we sealed up the hole we cut in the wire shaft with liquid electrical tape. Use your coat hanger to fish it through the ceiling.
Once it's in the ceiling of the car, you can squeeze the rest of the wire into the edges of the lining to get it down to where your jack compartment is. It is in this compartment where we attached the 12' coax extension cable.
NOTE: If your extension cable is a male/male extension cable, you will need to attach the female/female SO-259 barrel connector between the wire coming from the antenna mount and the extension cable.
STEP 3: Routing the extension cable
Once the extension cable is attached to the antenna mount wire, you can start routing it along the drivers side of the car. To facilitate in this, I suggest you do the Antman storage compartment mod. This will help you see where the wire is going as you route it.
The first place you will route it through is the rear passenger door panel. To open this, all you do is pull on the panel and fish the cable through. Once you do this, you will want to pull off the door step in order to route the cable away from view.
Note: To do this, you simply have to pull/pry the door step off. There are some white plastic clips that hold the part to the car and if those get detached from the door step, you just simply have to put them back on under the door step before replacing it.
Keep routing the cable up to the drivers seat by pulling the driver's door step off as well. We left the side panel between the from and rear seats there and simply stuffed the wire underneath it to get it behind that panel. The panels aren't pulled off in this picture because we forgot to take another picture, but this is what you're dealing with.
Once you get it up to the driver's seat, you will be able to run the extension cable straight from the drivers door step to under the carpet. It looks like this...
From here, you will have to route the cable under the carpet to where the other seat anchor is, next to the center console. To do this, you gotta do some more fishing with that magical coat hanger.
Once you get to the second seat anchor, you have to wait for it.... fish it again, but this time up to the center console. You will have to pull your center console apart to do this first.
STEP 4: Pulling your dash/center console apart
There are probably a lot of other threads discussing this topic, but I will explain it here. You start by pulling on the side panels that surround your air conditioning control panel and your cubby holes. Start by pulling the panels in the direction of their respective seats (driver/passenger) working your way from the bottom on up to the top, as the clips come loose.
Note: You will have to pull harder than what seems natural for these parts to come off. There are also little yellow clips that hold these in. If one falls off in the process, don't worry, you can reattach it to the panel.
OPTIONAL STEP
Next, we removed the bolts that hold the A/C control panel in place, but I'm not sure this is necessary. Once the bolts are removed, there will be a plug and plastic clip that holds the plug in place behind the unit. Just unplug it and unclip the unit.
OPTIONAL STEP
Now there are two screw that hold the liner that runs along the side of the center area (where you shift). We removed both of these to facilitate our routing of the coax extension cable into the center console. Once again, I'm not sure if you NEED to do this. There's one on each side and this picture is me removing one of them
Once this is done, you can remove the center console by unscrewing the knobs for your shifter and your 4wd knob. Just unscrew counter-clockwise. Once this is done, pull on the framework of the center console to remove it. Once again, it is attached by clips, so you might have to pull to the point you feel like you're breaking it. Do this, and pull the center console open. There will be a plug attached to it that you will have to unplug. It is just the wire that goes to your rear window switch. After it's all done, your center console will look like this:
STEP 5: Installing the CB radio
Now that the dash and center console are apart, you can begin looking for places to mount the control box for the Cobra 75WXST. Keep in mind that wherever you chose to mount it, the wire that the handset attaches to is only 6" long. This is why Okki ran into trouble trying to get his handset plug to where he wanted it (Thanks for the lesson learned Okki! :hatsoff
. He ended up getting an extension cable, and you can too if you can't find a place that works for you.We chose to mount it forward of the 4wd shifter, under the cubby hole. And we attached it to this position using zip ties, with the 6" cable running to the front of the car and the power cables running to the rear of the car. Here is a picture of it installed. The black cable you see running to the control box here is the coax extension cable.
Eventually I would like to mount the handset connector to the side of the dash under the glove compartment (as it's shown here). But I will have to wait for someone smarter than me to figure out how to mount that plug to this panel.
Until I figure out how to mount it, I just connected the handset to it and ran it out of the right side of the center console. Just like Phillyd2 did.
STEP 6: Routing power to the control box
I don't have any pictures of this part, because we forgot to take any :dammit: but we routed the power line down the left side of the center console, under the carpet, and up around the foot pedal area. This is real easy, as the carpet is attached under the foot pedal via velcro.
Connect your fuse jumper to the red power wire coming from the control box.
Once done, there is a fuse box just above your parking brake. We used our automobile fuse jumper to attach the red (power cable) to an unused fuse port (identified by an empty box with a slash through it on the fuse box cover). This will provide it power, when the key is turn to the "ON" position, but not the "ACC" position.
Next, we crimped a round wire terminal to the black wire (ground). This allowed us to bolt it down using one of the many bolts that screw into the metal chassis of the vehicle.
STEP 7: Test run
Attach your Firestik antenna to the Firestik SS attachment, and then to the antenna mount. Now power up your car by either starting it or turning the key to "ON". Turn on power to the CB using the handset, and see if you can hear/talk to anyone! In neighborhoods you might not be close enough to many people, but once you hit an interstate, your radio will jump to life.
STEP 8: Close everything up!
Before you close everything up, you can/should attach an SWR meter to the setup, to verify that it is working correctly.
Once all this is accomplished, YOU'RE DONE! :reddance::drummer:
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