Mitsubishi Delica Owners Club UK™

[Yojimbo]

So anyway, I decided to try and fit my 857 properly in the deli and I looked at the alternatives for remote mounting it, but wasnt really happy, it seemed the best place was under the rear seat, which was going to be a cabling nightmare, and meant things could hit it if they got under the seat, and since i regularly stuff things under the seats myself, this looked pretty likely.  I'd also want to swap the japanese double din for a single din that would recieve radio.  Thats when the light went on, could I combine the installs? So I measured up, and it looked feasible.

I started off with this, 12mm pine strip in between the frame, the radio is 1" narrower than a din unit, so it needed packing out:





Initially I was going to mount it using the front hole on the rig in line with front hole on the bracket, they seem to almost line up in the correct spot, here's a pic with it there:



But it was no good there, sits too high, and too far back, the rear of the radio fouls stuff a bit and you have to crush it in, and I couldn't access the head unit speaker/phone socket, which i wanted to.  So it was mounted lower and 18mm forward.  I had to remove the bail and feet to do all this of course. The cable ties on the stereo are intentional, the stereo has to go below as the radio would fould heater gubbins.  The mount holes in the stero are pressed steel threads in the sheet steel, and as such useless for actually tightening down, plus, they only matched holes in the plates in the upper position, so I drilled the plates a bit and fed cable ties through, I've done this before, it's a lot more solid than trying to get bolts to stay in, and gives a bit of wiggle room for this weird install.


The end result mounts the radio nice and solidly, the stereo is a bit fiddly to get to but who cares, I know where the buttons are.  For driving it's fine, it's hard to 'operate' a menu driven radio on the go anyway, so all i need is memories stored and to be able to get to the mic and volume.  For stationary operating, you can reach it easier from the passenger seat anyway, plus I have the remote kit I can always use to sit elsewhere.  The 3.5mm plug you can see feeds the aux of the stereo, and a dongle makes the stereo think it's a cd changer, so on the move I have full 40w surround sound, stationary, I can unplug and use the extension speaker mounted beneath it, or mix and match.





The power cables come out from under the gear lever casing and across the floor, under the black mat, I intend to break out at that point and fit a cigarette lighter style plug, which when used will disconnect it from the main batteries, and let me plug into a battery booster style pack, for some stationary QRP work that wont drain the batteries.  The blue wire is a future mod by the way, +ve from the ashtray light, to run the backlight on a turbo boost gauge yet to be fitted.

Anywa, just thought I'd post, this forum is a bit quiet, and it was a fun little project!

[LITTLEKENGRIFF]

snap!!!

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MOTOGUZZI V11 LEMANS TENNI AND A MOTOGUZZI CALI 1100i
plus my DELI SUPER EXCEED SWB GREEN OVER GRAY CRYSTAL ROOF ETC AND MORE LIGHTS THAN BLACKPOOL!!

[radio_van_man]

It’s good to see another Ham on here.
How’s the cooling or do you run it at a lower power setting. Also what antenna do you use?
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Jes

[Yojimbo]

[Nathan]

Are you happy that someone won't try and rip out that 857?!

Thats the only reason I went for a removable setup for the face of my 706Mk2 G. At £400 secondhand I didn't fancy losing it!

You say you use a single band HF antenna, what band is it for? I don't really do any mobile HF work, antennas are always such a compromise although I have used my ATX Walkabout whilst static in the 11m magmount on 5w which worked surprisingly well. I usually use it on my little 817 when portable.
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1995 Royal Exceed LWB. Every conceivable extra apart from curtains. Which we wanted. Great.

[Yojimbo]

Well it crossed my mind about thieving scrotes, but it's just not the same as it was during the cb craze, I'd expect a quality car phone setup is more stealable these days. Or if I'd fitted a double din dvd player, or satnav.  Plus, it's effectively a face off, like a stereo, so I just remove it when I'm not in the vehicle, then it's just a blank end, most people wont know what it is.  People that are in the know could recognise an empty backing plate and know that the body is in the car somewhere, just follow the wires. It's also why I fitted an old cassette stereo, its a decent amp, but in cassette player housing, with a decent amp I can make noise, cheaply, but who is going to go to the trouble of stealing an old cassette stereo, with no face?


The whip is 20M, when I had it on my landy with my old Kenwood 120V, a 10 watt radio, I worked europe and even the US while /M, here's some pics of that effort




Lovely recieve, really low noise floor, but not very good /M as the VFO didnt lock one slip going for the mic and your halfway across the band!  

[LITTLEKENGRIFF]

mines a cb but i "adapted" the fitting kit to make it fit smoothly
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MOTOGUZZI V11 LEMANS TENNI AND A MOTOGUZZI CALI 1100i
plus my DELI SUPER EXCEED SWB GREEN OVER GRAY CRYSTAL ROOF ETC AND MORE LIGHTS THAN BLACKPOOL!!