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Ammo Can Radio |
I'm not really the sort to cut sheet metal and drill holes in my Jeeps, if there wasn't a hole originally I've got to have a fairly darn good excuse to put one in. Especially if its a big hole in a place that shows, like the dashboard. But when it comes to being able to tolerate the daily commute, for me having a radio ranks right up there in importance with having wheels. So what do you do? I needed a radio but didn't want to cut a hole in the dash to install one and didn't really want to ruin the military look of my M38A1 by permanently mounting one underneath the dash in plane view (not to mention the fact it'd be easy to steal). What I decided on was to mount an AM/FM cassette inside a military surplus ammo can and lock the can down between the seats. This gives me the best of both worlds, modern radio technology completely hidden from view but still in plane sight, not to mention waterproof and removable.
My original plan was to take a standard size military
ammunition can and mount both an AM/FM radioand a small CB radio inside
it, and rig similar perminantly mounted wiring in both my M38A1 and CJ-2A
so that I could move the ammo can radios back and forth between the two
vehicles. The ammo can would mount on the floor between the driver's
and passenger seats and each vehicle would have it's own set of permenantly
mounted speakers. The first problem I ran into was that the larger
fuel tank in the M38A1 prevented me from using a standard six inch wide
ammo can, which is what I needed to be able to fit both the radio and CB
into the can. Because of this I had to give up on having both radios
in the can, but was able to use a three and a half inch wide can to hold
the AM/FM radio alone. The CB will be mounted under the dash with
a quick disconnect bracket. The second problem was the height of
the can and the size of the radio, the can just wasn't tall enough.
To solve this problem I actually cut the bottom of the can out and welded
in two inches of extra sheet metal, increasing the height of the can from
seven to nine inches tall.
Since
the can is a good bit longer than is needed for a radio alone, I took advantage
of the extra space in the can and also mounted a cigarette lighter/power
outlet. The layout inside the ammo can turned out fairly good with
just these two things in the narrower sized can. To mount the radio
itself inside the can I cut 4 pieces of half inch angle iron about 7 inches
long and welded a small piece of 18g sheet metal to the end of each piece.
This gave me a flat surface to screw the top sheet metal plate onto.
The 4 angle iron pieces were bolted to the inside corners of the can, and
I cut a piece of sheet metal for the face plate that screwed into
the end of these four pieces of angle iron stock.
With
the radio and lighter mounts inside the box taken care of, the next thing
was to rig a plug for the radio wiring that would allow me to take the
ammo box in and out of the Jeep as needed. This turned out to be
the most difficult part of the whole thing...not so much difficult as tedious
I suppose. It turned out that if I used the same ground for the lighter
and radio I could use a generic male/female twelve connector automotive
style plug available at Radio Shack. To make the installation of
the radio inside the box easier I decided to go with two sets of these
plugs. I snipped the radio wires at about two inches and installed
the male end of the twelve wire plug. I took the radio wiring that
I'd cut off and put a female plug on each end. I cut two holes in
the side of the box, a square one for the female plug of the short wire
set and a round one for a short antena wire that I installed in the box.
I used quick-dry two part epoxy to glue one end of the short wire set into
the square hole and the same glue to set the female end of the short antena
wire through it's smaller hole. While I had the glue out I loaded
up the back of each of the generic plugs in order to both hold the wires
in place and waterproof the box. While messing with the plugs I also
wired the lighter's hot and ground. With the wiring inside the box
complete, I was able to plug the short two foot antena wire into the radio,
plug the lighter and radio to the box's plug, and install the whole assembly
inside the box.
With
the box all set up it was a fairly simple matter to instal an antena and
run wiring inside the Jeep. I used the other male side of the plug
to terminate the Jeep's perminantly installed wiring, running the plug
and the antena wire up through the hole that the fuel line goes through
in the vertical panel at the rear of the passenger compartment. With
everything wired up its a simple matter to plug/unplug the radio wiring
and antena making for an easily removable system.
A
set of fairly inexpensive (but decent sound quality) six by nine inch speakers
fit rather nicely inside two standard sized ammunition boxes and mounted
under the Jeep's rear seat. This makes the storage space under the
back seat very limited since the M38A1 has no tailgate, but it was one
of the few places that I could put the speakers that would be out of the
way and would still deliver sound hearable from the driver's seat.
I had to drill a couple of holes through the floor and boxes in order to
run the speaker wires and bolt the boxes to the floor. One thing
that I should have done before bolting the boxes down is secure the top
and side handles of the ammo boxes. At the volume levels needed to
hear the radio when the Jeep is at speed, the speakers vibrate the handles
and they rattle. I'll probably put some clear silicone on the handles
to secure them to the boxes and keep them from rattling.
Overall
the system turned out really well. The only thing that I've got left
to do is to come up with a system to secure the ammo box to the floor of
the Jeep when its installed, but do it in such a way that I can take it
out without having to crawl under the Jeep with a wrench. What I've
got in mind for this is a rotating window sash lock (Stanley). Using
this I should be able to tighten the box down and actually lock it, but
as long as I've got the key I can easily remove the radio box. I
realize that this won't be the ultimate in security, but at least it will
prevent a "passer by" from just reaching in and walking away with all my
hard work. I'm planning on updating this page with my lock setup
when I have it installed.