Yea that picture was a classic in it's day...
I had the same conflict when I bought my Silverado, were to put the remote head for my Kenwood TM742.
I opend the ashtray and the head unit fit perfectly. Off came the door to the ashtray and I machined up a mount to hold the remote head. The end result looks factory and tucked neatly into the dash instead of just plastered on like some installations I've seen.
Getting the power to the battery (directly
) wasn't to dificult. By using velcro on the bottom of the transceiver it fit nicely under the rear seat and still gets enough ventilation. I pulled the thresh hold runners up and followed the factory wiring harness through the fire-wall. Pushing the "that was easy button" I moved on to the antenna.
I must admit I'm not a fan of Mag-mounts but couldn't bring myself to getting out the uni-bit and drill motor to punch a hole in the roof of my new truck still with paper plates. If you must go with a mag-maount I suggest buying a good one such as a Diamond. The upper end mag-mounts will come with quality coax and an end connector that can be taken apart to ease getting the coax through a smaller hole. The trick to getting a mag-mount to work at it's best is to run a braided ground wire from the base of the antenna 259 connector to a suitable ground location. Why braided ground wire? well think about it, a wire is basically an antenna and will radiate usually by 1/4 wavelengths. I also use braided ground wire to ground the chassis of the radio to the body. If this may sound like a permanent installation, well it is. If you need to remove the antenna for a parking structure you simply unscrew it which you would do any way drilling the hole
Diamond, Comet, and Larson make a ton of roof rack mounts, fender / rear decklid mounts that work very well to secure the antenna. There's plenty of antenna mount options available but should still ground those mounts as well.
I personally like NMO mounts drilled directly into the vehicle body such as I did on the roof of my Dodge Ramcharger.
Bob, when Kerin had her Toyota we were able to get through the fire wall for power via a factory installed rubber plug that wasn't in use. Several vehicles have plugs meant for other uses / options that weren't installed on that particular model.
There's allways a way to get a radio installed, it just takes carefull planning.... now were's my drill
