NOT NECESSARILY TRUE!! If you have an older hard top, it has nothing to do with the hardtop. I have an '08. JEEP made a hardtop change in '09 or '10 that does use this loop. But for (at least '07-'08's) older jeeps, it's only used to tie down the windshield to the hood when the windshield is down.

 

Cool .. did not know that ... mines an 09.

 

I mounted my 4 band right to the plastic, howeve I backed the plastic with aluminum to brace the plastic. It's a much smaller radio than the ones in the pics I see here. It tucks right above the mirror and close to the wind shield.

 

I wanted to mount mine above the mirror, but I didn't want it bouncing around and didn't want to drill into the jeep or make any permanent changes to the interior. I was going to mount it to the plastic trim like wayoflife did in his write up, but I really didn't want to drill into the plastic and I was afraid bouncing would make the trim retainers pop out and make it fall off. So what I came up with was this:



It is just some scrap square aluminum tube (I think 1") I had laying in the garage that I cut to fit between the pads on the "safety cage." I bent two steel "L" brackets to have an extra 90* bend at the top going the opposite from the other bend like a Z but the center section is straight up and down having 90* bends instead of whatever angle that Z has. Then I drilled holes in the tube and the brackets and riveted the top of the bracket to the inside of the top of the tube. I put the bar on my jeep and marked where the center of the bars on the "safety cage" hit the upper bend of the brackets and drilled holes where I marked. At this point I could have drilled one small hole on each side on the top of the cage and bolted it on.

I didn't want to drill holes into the Jeep, so I took 2 hose clamps the size of the metal part of the "safety cage" and drilled and riveted them to the bottom of the brackets. I didn't like how far down the cb sat with the mount that came with the cb so I used some small L clamps I also drilled and riveted them to the aluminum tube where they would center the CB in the middle of the tube. The top of the brackets faced in toward each other of course so that they would be hidden by the body of the CB. I then sprayed the whole thing with duplicolor spray bedliner from autozone.


The final product was sprayed with bedliner and the pads to cover them up where they were almost invisible. Here is a test fit of the hose clamps:



I put thin rubber between the clamp and the cage so it wouldn't cut thru the paint. I made sure that they were the same distance from the windshield on each side and in front of the holes for the door surrounds. I then used the cloth on the cage pads to cover the brackets up. I ran the wires thru the trim of my windshield and put plugs on the wires so I could unplug the CB and remove it if I wanted. The wires came out of the plastic trim right above rear view mirror. I screwed the mic holder into the side of the CB case and it was done. It never rattled or bounced around even on the roughest areas of the trail. I really like how it turned out.