Wouxon GMRS Radio Install - 3D Printed Solution (1 Viewer)

[glinskonian]

A while ago I bought a 50W GMRS radio (Wouxun KG-1000g) which I recently got around to installing. It’s an awesome radio and should give me all the range I need when on the trails or camping.

The radio body is quite big, but the benefit of this one is that the faceplate that contains all of the controls and buttons is detachable from the body. That allowed me to put it in a nice convenient location where I could easily remove the PTT mic and face plate if needed.

I decided to put it overhead by the dome light, in a very similar way JDM 80’s have the overhead console for the Aux fuel tank, compass etc. This led me down a path of designing and 3D printing an overhead console specifically for my radio faceplate. I actually mocked this up quite a while ago, but other priorities hit me and so i'm just getting around to installing it. More on that later.

The radio body itself is fairly beefy, so the best home I could think of was under the passenger seat. After removing the rear heater, there’s plenty of space and it's very accessible should I need to take it out or change something in the future.

Anyways, there are a few things you need to do if you want to go the route I did:

1. Printing the overhead console - I will most likely be selling these soon if people are interested, but you could always attach it somewhere else such as on the side of the transmission tunnel
2. Routing the wire from the radio computer to the faceplate - I had to run mine from the headliner where the dome light is, down the A-pillar, to underneath the passenger seat (pretty tricky to feed it through the headliner and down the A-pillar, but doable)
3. Remove the rear heater blower - this requires bypassing the rear heater coolant lines that start in the engine bay
4. Something to plug up the coolant lines no longer being used (2 in the engine bay, and the 2 lines that go to the rear heater blower)
5. You need to make a plate to cover the small hole left behind by the heater blower
6. A home for the radio’s antenna. A lot of people use a bracket that sits somewhere under the hood which has a plate for the antenna to mount to. I ended up buying this kit from SolveFunction: NMO mount replaces antenna - https://solvefunction.com/shop/ols/products/nmo-mount-replaces-antenna. It gives a more OEM+ look to the setup imo and is pretty easy to install

1. If you use Lee’s mount above, It’s a good idea to also buy or fab up a ground plane for the antenna (not required if your antenna doesn't require a ground plane but will improve your signal greatly)
2. Running power, ground, and the antenna wire from the engine bay into the cab

 

[glinskonian]

Printing the overhead console for the faceplate

This was a fun project, but man did it take a long time to get everything perfect. My design tries to mimic the OEM console out of the JDM 80’s. It loosely follows its curves and overall look, although I didn’t have one on hand to reference so it's not going to be 100% identical. There is one other overhead console on the market to my knowledge, but I wanted something a bit sleeker looking.
I also added a slot for an AirTag, so you can keep your vehicle safe knowing a thief won't think to look there (unless they’re reading this).

It bolts right up using the 2 screws that holds on the original cover, and also uses the metal retaining clips from the original cover. I can also easily slide out the radio face plate should I need to. It sits on a plastic bracket that locks it into place.

I had to connect the faceplate to the radio body using their supplied ethernet cable, so I ended up fishing that cable from the headliner around where the dome light is down the passenger A-pillar, and eventually to under the passenger seat. It was pretty difficult to get it through in some spots and I had to be careful not to damage the headliner, but it turned out fine. I found the best way to do this was to start at the base of the A-pillar by fishing some rigid wire through, then pulling the cable with the fish wire back out (from the headliner towards the base of the A-pillar).

 

[glinskonian]

Removing the rear heater and bypassing the coolant lines
If you want a good home for your radio body and also simplify your coolant system, this is the route I would take. I’m in California so I rarely if ever use the rear heater. The coolant lines that run to the rear heater are hard lines and known for corrosion. Mine looked in pretty bad shape and one of them was actually starting to leak in one spot. So time to go.

You need 2 parts to do this: first is an OEM hose (I think from foreign 80’s?) that bypasses one side of the cooling system on the right side of the engine bay. The part number is 87245-60420. It will also replace a bunch of hard and soft lines and overall greatly simplifies the number of coolant hoses, minimizing potential sources for future leaks.
The 2nd hose you need is about 10 inches of 5/8 Gates Green hose. This will replace the brass T-line on the left side of the engine firewall. I wasn’t able to re-use the old clamps on this side, as the Gates hose is a good bit thicker than what was there before, but I had some constant tension clamps laying around from a kit I ordered that worked. I believe I used 22mm clamps.

I didn’t drain any coolant to do this, I simply removed each hose and had a jar ready to catch whatever coolant came out

To actually remove the rear heater it was pretty simple. Passenger seat came out of course, then I just started unscrewing any screw or bolt I saw that was associated with the heater. First I removed the metal shield that goes around the heater, then I removed 3 or 4 bolts that actually hold the heater down itself. At that point all you have to do is cut or disconnect the 2 hoses underneath the vehicle that are connected to the rear heater. You kind of have to wiggle it out at an angle due to how the brass lines on the heater are situated, but it will come eventually.

Finally, I plugged up the 4 lines that are no longer being used. 2 on the firewall (one each side), and the lines that went into the rear heater.

I 3D printed some plugs out of TPU that fit nicely and then secured them with some old clamps I had. It’s a good idea to do this in case you or someone in the future ever wanted to reconnect the rear heater. I’m sure they would get full of gunk in no time. You can see one of the plugs I printed in the pic below.
I have also seen people using wheel lugs to do the same thing.

Addressing the hole in the floor
After you take out the rear heater, there’s going to be a hole in your floor pan where the 2 coolant hoses were attached to the heater. I plugged this up by making a steel plate to cover it. I drilled 4 holes in the floor to bolt it down and then doubled up with some gasket maker to seal out dust/debris/water etc.

 

[glinskonian]

The Antenna
I went with a midland ghost antenna. It’s small and supposed to be good for dense areas, forests, and things like that.

To mount this, I bought an NMO mount kit from SolveFunction. This allows me to remove the factory antenna, and use the OEM antenna hole for this new mount. In normal circumstances you would use the top and bottom piece together, and basically sandwich the mount in place. I however decided to add a ground plane under the fender for a cleaner signal to the radio.

Because my antenna requires a ground plane, when I tested the radio just with the NMO mount from Lee, I was getting an SWR reading of 6! (SWR is basically a measurement of the quality of the radiowaves your radio is transmitting. Higher number is worse). Ideally, this number should be under 2, 1 being ideal. A reading of 6 would probably damage the radio eventually so I needed a way of giving the antenna a better ground (plane).

I did this by cutting and bending a piece of copper into the rough shape of the fender, and then stuffed it under the fender. The threaded NMO mount was then fed through a hole in the plate that I drilled out, and then screwed down on the top side. I couldn’t use Lee’s bottom piece of his bracket because the ground plane was in the way, but so far it’s holding up fine. This took my SWR reading from 6 down to 3. I then experimented by adding a ground wire from the copper ground plane to the body of the vehicle, and that brought the reading down to 1-1.4 depending on the channel. So I was happy with that.

In terms of getting the antenna wire inside the cabin, I ended up feeding it through the firewall grommet on the left side of the vehicle. I did the same for the radio’s power and ground wire.
The antenna is connected to the radio with a coaxial cable, and seeing as it would have been difficult to feed the head of the connector through the firewall grommet, I ended up feeding just the cable itself with no connectors through first, then crimped on the coax connectors later.
I used LMR-240 wire. It’s a lot thinner and more flexible than some of the more traditional cables so it worked out well.

Finished everything up with silicon tape to make the connections and vulnerable spots watertight (that stuff is pure magic)

 

[glinskonian]

That’s it! It was quite involved, but I’m really happy with it in the end.

I'm wrapping up a few small things with this, so will post more pics tomorrow.

The overhead console is the perfect application for this radio imo (or any radio or piece of electronics!). I also printed a console to fit an Auxbeam for another MUD member. I will be sharing this in a separate thread in the near future if anyone is interested in ordering one.

 

[glinskonian]

Here's a few more pics of the setup. So far so good.

 

[Outsane]

Great work on the install!