2 way radio - aerial cable from engine bay to interior?

[BMCracer]

Has anyone put a 2way in their car? How did you do the aerial cable?

I'm going to put a 2way radio in my Gen4 facelift. Probably going to mount the aerial using the rear-most left hand front guard bolt. So I'll need to run the cable from the engine bay to the interior. There is a blank grommet very close there on the firewall, about 40mm diameter, which seems to line up so that it would come out right by the fan under the passengers' side of the dashboard, but the firewall seems to be double-skinned as I can't get a draw-wire to come out? I don't want to drill a hole in the car, rather use an existing hole. Got 4.5M of cable so if it has to go across the engine bay to the drivers' side to enter the interior that's no problem.

[Yowie]

I think I mounted the aerial on a z-shaped bracket on the same guard bolt you're talking about (albeit on a Forester).

I then ran the cable along the plastic firewall trim then in the unused large firewall grommet where a manual car probably has clutch mechanisms (mine is auto). The UHF cable is the un-shielded cable going in at about the 11:00 position.






In my view it's more important that you can reach the grommet you'll be using from the inside of the car rather than how close it is to the final radio position. You may have an excess length of UHF aerial cable to deal with anyway.

[BMCracer]

Thanks for that Yowie. Yes I agree I need to be able to reach the grommet from inside, that's the problem I was having with the grommet on the left side in the engine bay, couldn't see it from inside the car. My car is auto too so hopefully I have the same clutch blanking grommet there. I'll have a look this morning.