So after about three weekends of messing around I finally got my FT-857D mounted in my truck in a way I'm actually happy with. For anyone who hasn't done a serious mobile install before, it is way more work than the youtube videos make it look.

I ended up running the power cable directly to the battery with a fuse right at the battery end, which I know is the right way to do it but man crawling under the dash and finding a grommet to run it through took forever. The negative went to a chassis bolt near the firewall and so far no noise issues at all which I was honestly a little worried about with a diesel engine.

The head unit is on a RAM mount on the dash and the main body is under the seat. The antenna is a Tram 1185 on a lip mount on the hatch which probably isnt the ideal ground plane situation but its working decent on 2m and 440. SWR was like 1.3 on 2m and a little higher on 70cm but nothing crazy.

Anyway just wanted to share because I remember how lost I was when I started planning this out. Happy to answer questions if anyone's doing something similar. It feels great to finally be able to hit the local repeaters while driving to work.

Nice work getting it sorted out. The power run is always the part people underestimate — I've seen guys spend 10 minutes on the radio and 6 hours just chasing a good path for the cable. Totally worth doing it right though, you really dont want to be dealing with alternator whine or ground loops after the fact.

On the antenna situation, lip mounts are a bit of a compromise but honestly for hitting local repeaters on 2m and 70cm you'll barely notice. If you ever start doing weak signal work or SSB stuff on 2m it might matter more but for everyday FM use you're fine. What feedline did you use?

this is really helpful to read, im about to do something similar in my jeep with a 2820 and ive been dreading the wiring part. did you have any trouble with the fuse holder right at the battery or did it just bolt on easy? also curious how hot the main body gets under the seat, i wasnt sure if that would be an issue with airflow