Small update. Cb installed for a small off road/camping trip in the UP mid September. I started with a radio shack cb but threw in a Uniden pro 520xl I had sitting in the bench. Antenna mount was made by me and the coax runs around the outer edge of the roof inside the cab. This was the only way I could keep fuel pump noise to a minimum without cutting wires.
Old Radio Shack trc-483. Modulation was ok at best and good mics are hard to find. I may wire in a 4 pin receptacle to run a nicer mic. I like this radio quite a bit but it could use some upgrades to be a good radio.
The little Uniden. Great radio but very sensitive to interference. Takes a little squelch and dialing back the rf gain to quiet it down.
Fabbed up a mount at work to fit between the third brake light and the cab
My antenna is an older fiberglass k40 with the tuning sleeve on it. I have the spring out now to get my swr down. Only managed to get it to 1.5 on channel 1 & 40. 19 is at 1.1. I also have a 3 foot fire stik with the tunable tip but the swr on that one was in the 1.6 to 1.7 range. I’m not trying to talk miles out, just want to communicate with my buddies when we’re out playing.
Also did a poor mans leveling kit which consisted of cutting an inch out of the bottom of the spring buckets and welding them back together. I drilled the mounting holes up one inch and bolted them back on. Got about an inch and a half out of it so it’s not perfectly level but I do haul crap and occasionally pull a trailer so I’d rather have a little rake.
I think those are the only pic’s I took during that process. Had a buddy on the way to install his new cb.
After that, I realized I had absolutely no form of a recovery point. Originally being a 4 cyl. 2wd truck, it’s no surprise it never had a receiver. I had an old class 2 receiver laying around from my wife’s uncles Saturn Vue so that was donated.
Similar to this except the tubes are bent to be mostly hidden behind the bumper.
I narrowed it down to 30 inches and made new brackets at work. Bought a 2” receiver tube from Fleet farm.
Didn’t snap any pics during all the modifying or before I bolted it up but this is what I ended up with.
If it gets bent or breaks, I don’t care. Hitch’s are relatively cheap for these trucks but I had this one laying around.
Should come in handy!
That’s all for now. Progress is slow on the truck. Wife wants a closet built downstairs in the lower level of the house and I want to remodel the whole room plus the bathroom down there so that’s taking priority. I have all the pucks (cut down body lift spacers, not hockey pucks!) for a 1” body lift but that won’t go on until I’m ready to build bumpers for the truck. Still have the templates for the bumper I built for my old ‘02 so I’ll probably follow this design.
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