4th Gen NMO and Ham Radio Install with sunroof

Hey all - I'm looking to install an NMO antenna mount on the roof of my 4th gen - but I have a sunroof, and was curious if anyone has dropped their headliner/plans to and could provide pics?

I'm looking to see if there are any viable placements along the centerline, just forward of the sharkfin. I may need to accept placing it aft and off-center - or living with a magnet mount...

I know it's a long shot of an ask given how new they are. If I'm forced to drop mine to get eyes on the roof, I'll post pics here for others haha.

Thanks!

 

If you pull back the headliner per these instructions from another forum, should be able to fish the NMO mount from the A-pillar to between the dome light and OEM shark fin antenna. May not be exactly what you are looking for, but it is a start.

 

This is great, thanks so much! That 6th pic leads me to believe there's likely enough clearance forward of the sharkfin to a least be worth trying.

Appreciate the help!

 

For sure, I kinda cringed at your last two options so my response was a bit hasty. There is definitely room enough immediately forward of the shark fin, the only edit would be to run coax parallel to OEM coax and follow it down the C-pillar. I forgot there are curtain airbags over the A and B-pillars.

 

If you don’t want to go through all the trouble of dropping your headliner, get a magnet mount for the roof and get some KC wire hider and stick it to the back glass on the edge. Feed the wire through the hider, down between the cab and bed, and feed the wire through one of the vent holes in the back of the cab. From there you can feed it wherever you like in the truck.
Most important to remember is leave some slack hanging in between the cab and the vent that makes the excess wire sag lower than the vent. That way you can utilize gravity to take any rain/snow/water that falls on the wire to drip off outside the truck as opposed to creating a “highway” for the water to enter the truck via the vent.

this is essentially how I did my CB and GMRS (no magnet mount, installed on roof rack)

 

Or use a floor plug (lots to chose from) instead of the vents.

 

Love both of those ideas, thanks! I didn't know there was a vent in the back - I'll definitely consider that. Shortly before getting this truck I put an NMO mount in previous car in the roof and found it shockingly easy and clean to do. I'm motivated to do it again if there's space to make it work but if not I'll give those alternatives a try.

I'm new to pickups and forums and can't tell you how much I appreciate the help!

 

Quick update - I was able to get an NMO install done this evening. For anyone else looking to do this here are some pics! I'm sorry I didn't take more - but here are the key ones.

If you remove the dome light, you'll find a hole in the small assembly that holds the dome light. This hole is centered with the roof line, is a few inches forward of the shark fin, and doesn't interfere with the sun roof:



When viewed from the side with the headliner partially dropped, you'll see the assembly has a perfect channel to route a cable towards the C pillar. Here's view of this same assembly taken looking into the partially dropped headliner from behind the drivers seat:




I opted to drill a pilot hole up from the cabin, through the hole to ensure the right positioning (at the down side of the the burrs from the pilot hole being on the exterior of the roof...), then I used a 3/4in hole cutter bit to punch a hole in the roof.

I didn't need to drop the headliner fully. Not knowing how far I'd need to go when I started, I happened to remove the interior panels on both C pillars, which also required removing two large panels behind the back seat. Removal and reinstall was remarkably easy, though.



I routed the antenna wire down the driver-side C pillar and fished it into the back seat box where the radio lives. Here's a picture of where I ran it down (taken before the run, so the wire isn't visible.



Here's the finished product on the roof - again, bad photo taken before thorough cleanup.



The one mistake I made is the burrs on the roof created by the pilot hole cause my drill bit to jump when I started, resulting in the paint scratch you see above :\ I'll need to get that sealed, but luckily the roof is fairly 'out of sight, out of mind'

If I had to do this again, I would probably still take the same approach given how hard it might otherwise be to hit the mark for the wire entering that assembly - I would just be more careful drilling the second hole.

Overall it worked out really well. It's a little closer to the fin than I'd prefer, but I'm not terribly worried about radio performance hit, and still prefer this to the alternatives haha.

So for anyone else interested in a HAM install in the 4th gens - the following install is pretty clean.

- Radio in the back seat box
- Power run from the kick-panel aux power jack (Aux 2) to the seat box through the channel underneath the door step (required one hole drilled on the inside of the box)
- Running the antenna to an NMO mount up through the C pillar
- At the moment, I have a remote head unit that I'm fabricating a simple mounting sheet for that I plan to mount against the crevasse just in front of the shifter (where the Qi charger is) - so the head unit will be just in front of/above the parking brake lever

 

What size NMO mount did you use? 3/4 or 3/8? Also why hole saw instead of unibit (stepdrill)? No painters tape before drilling?

 

Looks great! Agree with you that the placement is a bit too close to the shark fin, but unfortunately it is hard to tell exactly how close it will be until after the hole has been made. I presume you HAD to mount behind the dome light to prevent interference from the sunroof, so sans sunroof I might mount mine in front of the dome light. In past installations I have been able to mount directly above the dome light, but the roof on this generation isn’t conducive for that. Thanks for posting, I am just a little bit jealous!

 

Ah sorry - 3/4in. And I used a hole saw simply because I had done an NMO install once before with a hole saw, and the last time I did an install, my research online led me to believe that a hole saw worked marginally better than a step bit.

Yup, exactly - I was trying to work around the sunroof. I would definitely go more forward / center if I didn't have a sun roof.

Thanks to everyone who shared alternative ideas here as well! I'm sure those will be useful for anyone that doesn't want to drop a hole in their roof haha