I wanted to mount my new(ish) Kenwood 2 Meter Ham mobile in my truck but those who have the Super Duty Fords with the dash layout like mine know that there just are not tons of options for a clean mounting location due to the curvy nature of the surfaces. Drilling holes in this dash is not an option anyway, I have what is probably the lowest mileage SD 7.3 PSD in the country at 40K and I cannot just drill all willy nilly in the plastic. I do not however mind a couple of screws in the bottom of the little pocket to the right of the steering wheel.I had made a similar mount in my old white SD a few years ago and modeled this one after it. The difference is this one is not as long or supported at the bottom.I used 1/8" aluminum, steel rivets and gray felt from the fabric center put on with 3M contact spray.All bends were made by my Snapon and Wilton vises with plenty of cursing and hammer/dolly use.Once in the pocket, I simply ran 2 screws into the bottom plastic through the pre-drilled holes in the bracket.I wired it with a nice 12G fused power wire straight to one of the batteries.So, I will let the pics finish the description. Use of your factory mount bracket on a similar plate in the pocket should work too and would simplify the fabbing.

That looks wonderful

Great innovative thinking!

Mobile rigs without a detachable face are very hard to mount in vehicles. Your's is probably the neatest installation of them all.

BTW, after a lot of trial and error with mobile radios, I chose all of my mobile rigs to be with a detachable face interface. Currently I got a Kenwood TM-V71a in my 2016 4Runner. The main radio body is under the driver's seat and the control head is mounted on the overhead console. I found this locations to be the best. The control head is easy to see and to operate but it's not highly visible from outside of the vehicle.

Slick! Love the grey felt!

Nice

After reading the first few paragraphs, I thought to myself "Man, this will probably look like crap"
But, it looks really EXCELLENT!

looks cool man!  my 7.3L is knocking on 333K

Thank you gents for the kind words. After driving around with it for a few days I am totally happy with it. No vibrations or movement and looks pretty slick. 

I have a Larsen NMO150 middle of the roof. Great combo with the TM281A. 

Looks great - good job!!!!

Its getting harder and harder to find vehicles that are radio friendly.  A detachable head radio is almost a given these days....

Very nice setup. I had good luck with Proclip when it came to no-holes mounting stuff in my Tahoe. They clip on to panel edges, vents, etc. You get a baseplate and then a mount for whatever your application is, but I found just the base worked great for anything I needed to mount. 

Proclip USA

Great job!
I'll have to take a fresh look at my Ram dashboard tonight when i get home.
Well done.

Got a Kenwood V71A in my 7.3 which is on 214k miles and I'm hoping to keep it another 250k.  40k miles I'd say your odometer is busted!
Mounted the radio under the driver's seat and remote mounted the face on top of the dash.

One thing I found out about the V71A is if you use a Cat-5 cable as the mike extension cord you can wind up getting a helicopter type popping noise in the background that supposedly isn't there if you use the actual Kenwood cable. Still torn on if I want to spend the money on that cable, it's not like I have to listen to the noise...  

Also, you fused your negative lead too, right?

I used a 25' shielded cat7 cable for both of my tm-710ga installs and they work great without any popping.  Give it a shot!

LOL, no my female neighbor I bought it from just never drove it. She wanted a truck back in the day and came home with a F'n TRUCK 

No, negative leads in equipment with a common grounded negative buss bar inside should not be fused. If the negative fuse were to blow then the current (if a fault were to occur) will seek ground through whatever means it can like the antenna lead shield. Fused negative leads are for equipment with a floating buss ground that have the negative leads attached directly to the battery.

The best ground for simple mobile radios is a direct connection to chassis ground. 

Tried a shielded cat6 cable with no dice.  Even tried tearing the cable apart to connect the shield to ground with no luck.  With the mic plugged straight into the radio there's no noise so it is certainly cable related.

I've always been taught to ground radios straight to the battery on their own.  And run a fuse on that negative lead should something try to seek a ground through the rig.

If the negative lead in the radio is floating (not connected to the chassis of the radio or the shield of the coax) then that is fine.

Most modern ham mobile units have the negative lead electrically connected to the radio's chassis and coax shield. With a direct to battery connection for the negative lead, this allows other currents to flow through the radio seeking battery negative. Electricity seeks the path of least resistance and your direct to battery connection is mighty tempting. Also with a corroded or loose engine/chassis connection to battery negative/ground, this would be significantly worse. During starting many hundreds of amps could seek a path through the radio and cause the negative fuse to blow. Although this would prevent a fire, the momentary high current could damage the radio before the fuse could blow. Small traces on a PC board could be damaged before the fuse could do its job. Smaller currents from other electrical devices/accessories in the car seeking a better ground could cause noise. 

Note* never run an unfused negative lead directly to battery in any accessory you add to your car because there is nothing to prevent lots of amps seeking negative from burning that wire up. Starters pulling hundreds of amps could easily start a fire in the case of a poor engine ground to battery.

It is much better to ground the radio, with no fuse, to the nearest chassis ground so there is no direct negative path through the radio for high current starter loads in the case of a poor battery to engine connection. Any other smaller currents that would seek a ground through the radio would not see a better path than they have already since there is no direct to the battery connection. 

The best answer is do not connect to the battery negative post unless the device has a floating ground buss in it and a negative fuse. Even then there is no reason to go to battery but it is ok if that is what is desired. If it is a more modern device with common negative/ground to radio chassis then the ground lead should be connected to the nearest vehicle chassis ground possible and there is no reason to be fused.

The reason people say that going to the battery negative prevents noise is due to poor bonding from the veh body to chassis. A ground strap or two added to the vehicle would alleviate that.