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Well, I’m a gigantic idiot. Backing SOs truck out of garage as it was opening and it must have just caught the shark fin antenna by an inch on the door and ripped the entire thing clear out of the roof. The wires are still attached and the antenna is functioning.
I wanted to run my plan by you guys and hear any suggestions.
Im going to wire wheel the bottom of the antenna to clean up all that glue, clean and possibly scuff the paint under the antenna. I will then stick the antenna back on with either 5200 marine epoxy or 4200 urethane. These are gnarly permanent marine grade epoxies that can hold plastics and metals to pretty much anything. I was going to apply it liberally under the antenna to make sure it’s sealed all the way around.
Aside from bringing the truck to a body shop this is the only thing I can think of
Judging from how the hole appears to be peeled up it might be sandwiched on there mechanically as well.
I was in such a hurry, It ripped off and I immediately pulled back in the garage and switched cars. Haven’t even been back yet. Return Tuesday to take a closer look. If the forum thinks my idea isn’t good enough, I’ll just bring it to a body shop. But I suspect they may have the same approach...
You did a stupid, you recognize that, it happens, we're human. The worst thing you could do would be compound the mistake with an extreme solution that isn't warranted. A wire wheel is nothing but a bad idea.
This isn't a structural connection, that antenna weights nothing, there's usually negligible stress on that connection, treat it like a piece of trim or badging.
Clean up the area with alcohol and use a nice continuous strip of good quality VHB tape. You could seal it further with a fillet of UV stable silicone or urethane around the perimeter of the joint.
A wire wheel doesn’t mean an angle grinder or bench wheel, they come in all shapes and sizes... point being I don’t think a simple wire brush is gonna cut it. The bottom of the antenna must be mechanically cleaned, obviously not the roof. That white stuff that is shattered everywhere, is adhered to the bottom of the antenna.
I also need to check that between the antenna and inside of the roof there wasn’t a base plate that got torn in half. When I look at the parts for the antenna, in some diagrams I see a larger piece below,
No it doesn't HAVE to be mechanically cleaned. Surface preparation is entirely dependent on the bonding strategy being used, and if you're using VHB you want the surface to be less rough, not more rough, so degreasing and removing dust is all you want to do.
Total Drag. However... I agree with the above post regarding roughness. Depending on the adhesive, smoother may be better, of course no oil, wax, dust or moisture. They also make "eraser" type wheels, urethane I think, that would better clean/prep surfaces. Also, 4200 is semi permanent, 5200 IS permanent.
Funny enough, it happened to me last winter. I was backing into the garage and it clipped my door. I wasn’t paying attention and somehow pushed the garage button twice so it stopped a bit too low.
How did I fix it? I bought the automotive black epoxy and glued it down. It’s stuck on good. Doesn’t budge at all and is the fastest and cheapest fix. It’s waterproof and has gone through at least 100 automatic washes. A proper fix requires removing the entire headliner which will take a day or two.
Well, I cleaned up the area, there is a small bracket that holds the antenna down and a little rubber gasket in the middle. The bracket pulled the surrounding metal up on the roof so the antenna wont sit flat by about an 1/8". The metal needs to be flattened with a dolly so the headliner needs to partially come down. That is beyond my scope in my little garage so its at a body shop. They are just going to use urethane adhesive to glue it back once the metal is flattened out. They billed it for 5 hours.
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