Radio Location.

Probably not cut into the dash, but rather mounted to the bottom of it. Just hanging there or possibly inside a metal can of sorts.

If I were going to put one in, that's what I'd do...build a metal can to attach to the bottom lip of the dash.

Removable if I screw it up.

 

On my CJ-6 I mounted the radio on the left of the steering column, in the dash, above the VIN/GVW sticker.

 

i mounted mine inside a center console,to keep it away from the water and mud as much as possible

 

I have a 55' CJ-5 and I took out the glove box and mounted the radio behind the glovebox door. It keep me from having to cutup the dash.

 

I'm going to mount mine in a console also.

 

PO had installed old am/fm in the area of the dash below the grab bar. As I hate cutting holes in precious Jeep metal, I expanded that wound to accommodate a single din head unit. I will take a pic if you wish.

 

I was contemplating the same thing with mine. Actually considered mounting one vertically, only because of the limited space in mine for horizontal mounting.

 

I am working on a 66 (I think it is). Factory AM radio (says jeep on it), is mounted in a hole to the right of the ign switch. Sort of to the left of the glovebox. Speaker is bolted to the firewall under the dash. I have no idea if it even works. current owner isn't too worried about it. I tend to agree. The only tunes one really needs is the rumble of the dual exhaust!
-Hill

 

Sounds about right. There should be nothing on the backside of the dash that will interfere. The only problem that I ran into was the case of the head unit runs close to the defroster duct. I have one of the AE Miller plastic jobies. You should be able to avoid this problem with some planning. The approximate location for my dash was established by the PO. By the way, I fabricated a bracket to support the radio behind the dash as I have yet to find an adequate universal mounting kit.

 

My 2 cents: Previous owner had hacked an ugly hole in the dash for a radio, also a plethora of toggle switches for who knows what. When I did my bodywork/paint, several hours were spent patching those holes with sheet metal, epoxy and body filler. I LOVE my (now) stock dash with no extra holes. I will NEVER cut extra holes. Everything will either get hung from the bottom of the dash or mounted somewhere else. I like the glovebox idea, although not very convenient to operate I guess. It is out of the elements though. Also I have the huge rear diamond plate JEEPBOX in the rear so plentiful storage is not a problem. Seems like I saw on ebay one time a alleged factory radio mount kit that consisted of a metal box that mounted to the bottom lip of the dash, think it even had a built in speaker.

 

I put a Tuffy locking security console with the stereo mount option in my M715 since I had the room. If you have the room it's a great solution.

However, so far in the 65 CJ5 I haven't put anything in there. I won't be cutting the original, unmolested dash. Options would be under the dash, but it would get in the way. In the glovebox itself (maybe using one of those large over sized boxes) is a possibility but would make the radio hard to use. At one time I did have a portable radio rigged up in an ammo box that fit between the seats but it was hard to hear it in there! So I used that radio in the Tuffy console in the M.

I think maybe a custom console would work best for me, or maybe something as simple as an MP3 player and headphones would be the ticket. Of course only one person could hear it then.

I don't know. The Cj is so noisy you need a farily big system to hear it, but it's so tight on space that if you want to preserve that dash there's not a lot you can do...

Stan

 

Stan, I'm kinda going with your idea of an MP3 player. My PDA can hold up to a GB of music. And since I never listen to local radio I'm simply going to hook up a small marine amp and a pair of marine speakers and some type of bracket that'll mount my PDA onto my dash. I was going to enclose the speakers in ammo boxes and mount them on my wheel wells or immediately beside the seats, if there's room there. My dash right now only has holes for guages and switches, nothing else and I'd like to keep it that way.