The last time I did any serious jeeping was long enough ago that I’d never heard of a cell phone. Instead, we communicated wirelessly through a really hot technology called a Citizens Band (CB) Radio. It was long enough ago, that CBs were still cool. It was amazing. We could all communicate, sort of, in between static, wirelessly. It was so cool!
So, of course, Biscuit’s an old school jeep, so it has to have a CB. Fortunately, among the parts jeeps I purchased a couple years ago, I managed to recover 2 CBs, one of which still works. I figured that there still aren’t any cell towers on the Naches Trail (please don’t tell me if there is … I’m turning off my cell phone … turning on my CB, so I can listen to it crackle), so I’ll still get to use a CB, even if it is less frequently than before.
Now that I’ve decided to install a CB, where do I put it? I considered a couple options (hang off the front roll bar loop/ off the dash board / off the windshield), but decided I would piggy back it onto my center console (documented here). I used some flat steel from a different part of the same chunk of hood that I used to make the console.
Here’s the basic pattern I cutout.
After cutting the piece out of the hood, I sanded it and bent it. Then, I drilled some holes between the old piece and the new piece and used poprivets to connect them.
Below the console is installed, though not painted yet, showing how the CB will sit. The power wire and antenna wire will feed from the console. You can see how scratched up the console is already. I’m saving the repainting for the next, inevitable, rebuild.