Fixed the Antenna

Of the many cosmetic issues that Gudrun came with the missing antenna was perhaps both the smallest and the largest. Small in that it didn’t affect the running of the car but large in the sense that I couldn’t really listen to the radio. Whatever caused the original aerial to fall off must have been violent because it deformed the hole through which the antenna cable passed through the body. I had bought a replacement antenna kit awhile back but due to the warping of that hole I couldn’t just connect it up. I considered taking it to a body shop as I don’t really have the tools to fix these sorts of things, but after a year or so of not getting around to doing that I decided to try and figure out my own method.

In essence, the task I needed to accomplish here was to flatten the edges of the hole enough that the base of the antenna could be pressed up into the edge of the hole and secured. I wish I had taken a photo of that bit, but I didn’t so imagine a metal barrel with a sort of hook on the top edge. This hook wedges under the top lip of the antenna hole and is held in place when the aerial is screwed into place. The warping of the edge of my hole was preventing this piece from fitting well enough to allow the retaining nut to catch the threads that hold it on.

Ultimately how I solved this problem was to take a very wide and sturdy washer and thread a bolt through it. This went into the hole. I then threaded the bolt through another large and sturdy washer and positioned this one on the outside so they sandwiched the sheet metal of the body. I then screwed on a nut and tightened it down as hard as I could. They end results was a passible straightening of the edges that, with a lot of straining and fidgeting, made it possible to install the antenna.