2016 Willys Mods

[Firemom]

Going to go slow and steady on modifications to my 2016 Willys. The Willys edition is fairly trail ready, not a Rubicon but comes with Rock sliders, upgraded suspension, rear lockers and slightly larger wheels/tires, so while he will eventually get a lift etc, I decided to add Comms and Nav first.

First up a Yaesu FTM-400 XDR mounted on the factory footman loop via a Rugged Ridge CB Radio Mount and the faceplate on mounted in the goodie tray on the dash via a homemade mounting bracket held down by double-sided tape and the OEM screw already there. A little trimming of the rubber tray and it slipped right over the new bracket so I can still use it. Paired the Radio with a Diamond antenna and a CP-5M antenna mount on the drivers'side of the hood.
Thought this was going to be an easy install until I realized running wires through the firewall of a manual transmission JK must be done through very very tiny little holes. One on the passenger side and one on the driver's side, accessed via removal of the side panels of the dash. These little pass-throughs are quarter sized on the interior but are not large enough to pass anything larger than about ¼” or less on the exterior, this includes coax fittings and wiring with in-line fuses. So a little bit of drilling to make the drivers side hole a tad bit larger and the cutting and splicing of the power leads and the wiring was done. After all that I realized the coax I had was way longer then I needed so I’ll be needing to un-solder cut and re-solder the coax to the right length and could have avoided the bit of drilling. Oh well, live and learn.

Body of the Yaesu mounted to the cool little bracket that uses the footman loop


The hole looks big from this side, but is narrowed by various metal folds and protrusions on the other side :-(

The hole looks big from this side, but is narrowed by various metal folds and protrusions on the other side :-(


Finished install all nice and sturdy and out of the way but will stay dry during a water crossing :-) and still easy to take the roof off.


The little dash screw that's under the rubber mat, is holding down a home made bracket. used some 2 sided tape for a little extra grip and bought the screw knob at ACE.


My little bracket.


Finished mount. Passed my HAM Tech on Dec 1. can't wait to get my call sign.


Finished comms and Nav Center. the phone is mounted via velcro and has been that way for the last 2 years. The iPad mount will be featured in another post.

 

[Firemom]

Second Mod was adding the Navigation which is an iPad running Gaia. Used a Ram Mount long double socket with a flat circular base 1" ball mounted to the iPad case with super strong double-sided tape and a screw mounted 1" ball on the jeep side screwed into the passenger side grab bar. This was a fun little engineering project. I did not realize those nice chrome bolts were totally cosmetic and offer no stability what so ever. So Plan A was scrapped and Plan B was developed. Plan B is presented in the below pictures.

all the stuff I used, plus a drill and some 100mph tape and the 1" ball ram mount on the iPad


The silver faceplate just pops out because what looks like sturdy bolts are just for looks. The grab bar is actually held on by smaller screws way back in there on each side. A lot of you probably already knew this. I did not and found it quite entertaining. Was all set to unscrew a long substantial screw and POP it just came off leaving the still very firmly attached grab bar. some flashlight time later and I was able to get what I needed to remove the grab bar.


Made the hole small enough that the bolt had to be screwed all the way in and is quite stable





Wanted it at an angle so I could give the bolt more stability with JB Weld and maintain access to the screw that holds the grab bar in place. Plus the angle of where the hole in the faceplate is vs the channel for the grab bar mounting screw lend to the angle placement of the Ram mount.



Good old JB. Had to be careful not to build it up too much on the sides or the grab bar won't fit back in its space.


100mph tape because, well it can't hurt and just makes sure the JB weld doesn't decide to pop off the plastic when I back the bolt out to mount the grab bar back on Willy. Would have preferred to wrap the JB weld all the way around, but there were spacing issues so 100mph tape to the rescue.



After mounting the Grab bar and decorative silver plate back on Willy, attached the 1" Ram Mount ball. Ended up taking it off and adding more JB weld to the bolt hole and around the silver part of the Ram Mount so everything would be super strong and not rotate with the weight of the iPad. Will still be able to unscrew it if need be, it will just take a bit of leverage.



All finished. Very happy with how this turned out. It doesn't get in the way of a passenger or my view out of the windshield. Think I'm going to play a bit with the Radio faceplate mount. I would like to get it down in front of the dash just above the factory radio, but for now, this is working just fine. Can not express just how much fun it is to tinker with all of this. But everyone here knows what I'm talking about :-)