BigKidsToyCo
New Member
Picture Post 9 - CB Radio Install / Bumper Clean-Up
In this post we will show the steps we took in designing a very basic antenna bracket, and the cleaning up and installation of the CB radio and antenna's as well as some fresh undercoating paint to change the rear bumper appearance.
Pretty picture heavy:
First step was making some basic antenna mounts. The XJ is not CB-Radio equipped as far as making installation easy. Some people simply run those magnetic antennas or a single fire stick off the front. We wanted our build to look more military/rugged, so we decided on running dual 4 foot black antennas. I designed some basic mounts using Photoshop and had the R&D team help me cut them and break the bracket edge. Material is 3/16" steel. Design is a simple 6" hook shape that relocate the antennas to the sides of the hatch, providing hatch clearance.
Once I made sure my mounting would work, we marked locations on the rear bumper and drilled them for the mounts.
Not the best picture in the world, but this shows the mount locations drilled on both sides of the bumper. You will also notice in this picture how worn the bumper looks as far as having seen it's time and use. I didn't like this look of this at all, so we address this as well.
The next two pictures show my spraying the raw brackets with etching primer and Duplicolor undercoating material. Etching primer is designed for coating and treating raw steel.
The next step was cleaning up the bumper. I prepped the bumper with 180 grit and cleaned and used degreaser to finish prepping it for under coating.
Once I prepped the bumper I taped off the lighting area and gap between the bumper and rear hatch interior.
Here is the finished look of the sprayed rear bumper. You can notice the CB Antenna mount holes easier in this picture.
This next photo shows the Antenna mount bolted up. This was during the final fitment process. Picture does not show very well that once fully tightened, both the brackets were horizontal and in-line with the shape and level of the rear bumper. Picture also doesn't show that this
Prior to finalizing the antenna install, we took a picture with the hatch shut showing the new look of the rear bumper.
With the antennas ready to install, we went ahead and installed the CB radio and ran the antenna wire.
There weren't very many pictures worth taking during this process. So... here's the basic steps I took.
Antenna: The antenna wiring was quite simple to run. We ran the cable through the tail light housing bucket located near the hatch. It drops it below the bumper, in front of it, and is completely hidden with hatch open or shut. We then tucked the wiring into the plastics along the body until it got towards the front and slid it through the carpet under the seat.
For power: We tapped an open fuse spot location on the passenger side below the dash. I then grounded it to the unibody on the metal framing of the dash nearby, ran the wiring, and cut a small hole in the carpet so the power wiring would come out directly behind the mounted CB.
Total install time to run the power, antenna wiring, and mount the bracket and CB radio was about 1.5 hours. Total time installing antenna mounts and antennas for fully functioning system was about 3-4 hours.
Here is a picture of the mounted CB radio.
As mentioned above, radio is the black Cobra 29 with digital face and black controls and microphone.
And here is the finished picture of the installed antennas and painted rear bumper. Due to the cb antenna mounts, the already modified and broken factory lower quarter plastic would no longer fit. We are currently in the process of either purchasing the JCR panel replacement armor, factory plastics, and/or may create our own simple replacement panel.
Ta-Da!
Next post - Hopefully later this morning/this afternoon, will show all the new parts we've just purchased. I'm pretty damn excited...and I think that's the first time I've used language in this entire build thread haha....but we have some Awesome parts coming that will tie everything together for how we want this Jeep to look within the next couple weeks...and then we start the vinyl process!
-Will & Family
In this post we will show the steps we took in designing a very basic antenna bracket, and the cleaning up and installation of the CB radio and antenna's as well as some fresh undercoating paint to change the rear bumper appearance.
Pretty picture heavy:
First step was making some basic antenna mounts. The XJ is not CB-Radio equipped as far as making installation easy. Some people simply run those magnetic antennas or a single fire stick off the front. We wanted our build to look more military/rugged, so we decided on running dual 4 foot black antennas. I designed some basic mounts using Photoshop and had the R&D team help me cut them and break the bracket edge. Material is 3/16" steel. Design is a simple 6" hook shape that relocate the antennas to the sides of the hatch, providing hatch clearance.
Once I made sure my mounting would work, we marked locations on the rear bumper and drilled them for the mounts.
Not the best picture in the world, but this shows the mount locations drilled on both sides of the bumper. You will also notice in this picture how worn the bumper looks as far as having seen it's time and use. I didn't like this look of this at all, so we address this as well.
The next two pictures show my spraying the raw brackets with etching primer and Duplicolor undercoating material. Etching primer is designed for coating and treating raw steel.
The next step was cleaning up the bumper. I prepped the bumper with 180 grit and cleaned and used degreaser to finish prepping it for under coating.
Once I prepped the bumper I taped off the lighting area and gap between the bumper and rear hatch interior.
Here is the finished look of the sprayed rear bumper. You can notice the CB Antenna mount holes easier in this picture.
This next photo shows the Antenna mount bolted up. This was during the final fitment process. Picture does not show very well that once fully tightened, both the brackets were horizontal and in-line with the shape and level of the rear bumper. Picture also doesn't show that this
Prior to finalizing the antenna install, we took a picture with the hatch shut showing the new look of the rear bumper.
With the antennas ready to install, we went ahead and installed the CB radio and ran the antenna wire.
There weren't very many pictures worth taking during this process. So... here's the basic steps I took.
Antenna: The antenna wiring was quite simple to run. We ran the cable through the tail light housing bucket located near the hatch. It drops it below the bumper, in front of it, and is completely hidden with hatch open or shut. We then tucked the wiring into the plastics along the body until it got towards the front and slid it through the carpet under the seat.
For power: We tapped an open fuse spot location on the passenger side below the dash. I then grounded it to the unibody on the metal framing of the dash nearby, ran the wiring, and cut a small hole in the carpet so the power wiring would come out directly behind the mounted CB.
Total install time to run the power, antenna wiring, and mount the bracket and CB radio was about 1.5 hours. Total time installing antenna mounts and antennas for fully functioning system was about 3-4 hours.
Here is a picture of the mounted CB radio.
As mentioned above, radio is the black Cobra 29 with digital face and black controls and microphone.
And here is the finished picture of the installed antennas and painted rear bumper. Due to the cb antenna mounts, the already modified and broken factory lower quarter plastic would no longer fit. We are currently in the process of either purchasing the JCR panel replacement armor, factory plastics, and/or may create our own simple replacement panel.
Ta-Da!
Next post - Hopefully later this morning/this afternoon, will show all the new parts we've just purchased. I'm pretty damn excited...and I think that's the first time I've used language in this entire build thread haha....but we have some Awesome parts coming that will tie everything together for how we want this Jeep to look within the next couple weeks...and then we start the vinyl process!
-Will & Family
I really like that this is a family project, we have a vehicle conversion on the horizon as well so this is inspiring. Keep up the awesome work! 
