Removed Roof Antenna

fxlr8

fxlr8

Staff
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I just removed my roof antenna, unsoldered the base and turned on the radio, surprisingly I still had the same reception. I then brought the base circuit board into the car re-soldered it and stuffed it up under the headliner. Now I have a nice square hole on the top of the car.

Not sure what I am going to do with the hole as of yet but I covered it from the bottom with jb weld and a small piece of sheet metal. Probably will end up filling, painting it with touch up paint, clear and some wet sanding.
 
God for you! Been wanting to do this for some time, purchased this in preparation
http://www.dakotadigital.com/index....tegory_id=406/home_id=-1/mode=prod/prd105.htm Dakota's unit supposed to be one of the best. Did you pull the headliner? Welding is supposed to the the correct fill method but there are some 2-3 part epoxy's you can use to drop in a plate from the inside and then mud up to that. John had some good insight on the fix.

Always hated the antennae, never thought it looked like it visually fit the roof line.
 
I did not pull the headliner just yanked the sunglass holder/console down. It is held on by a couple of metal clips and some velcro, hopefully I can get it back on.
 
fxlr8 said:
I did not pull the headliner just yanked the sunglass holder/console down. It is held on by a couple of metal clips and some velcro, hopefully I can get it back on.
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Do you mind doing a verbal DIY for the console "yank and replacement"?

---------- Post added at 09:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:06 PM ----------
Dr.2K said:
Dunno why most do not like the oem antenna. I think it looks sporty and fits well with the FX design.
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One mans opinion only but it always seemed a bit too pronounced to me, almost like it was designed extra large for an off road vehicle? I had been considering an antennadectomy since I purchased my FX then one of the shops I use in Bellevue had Viets ride on the floor for a few weeks. After seeing his less the antenna repeatedly it just confirmed how much I liked the smooth roof line. My biggest concern about the removal is signal loss. The guy I spoke with at Dakota said that once you have the radio out to try the antennae in multiple spots to find the best signal and you should be fine. Jeff's reinstall of the board inside the liner is interesting tho', I had considered trying stuffing it back in but always wondered if the signal would hold.
 
It was also held on by 8 or so metal lock washers (not sure what they are called, but they slide down on a plastic pieces and hold it onto the headliner).

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2 black dotted squares = metal snap in clips
red circles = little plastic pieces with a metal lock washer that holds it to the headliner
red rectangle = velcro

I just broke off the red circle pieces before I reinstalled the console. The metal clips and velcro can hold it fine (plus there is a a couple of plastic tabs towards the front of the console that hold it onto the headliner).

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What I did to remove it was just grab the sides towards the windshield and yank downwards, since the one way washers (red circles) was holding it onto the headliner it just basically ripped out of the headliner.

If you do not want to rip it out of the headliner you would have to remove the headliner and I didn't feel like doing that.
 
just an FYI. you can do the same for the 2nd gens. The shop manual asked to remove the entire head liner. there is no need. You just unclip at the top of the rear hatch and you can get your hand and a wrench in there to remove it.
 
Thanks

Nope, no spacers..I also have a good bit of negative camber which makes it look worse than it really is. I will be swapping the rims out for some monoblock 22's soon. Also, will be raising it up a bit...
 
fxlr8 said:
Thanks

Nope, no spacers..I also have a good bit of negative camber which makes it look worse than it really is. I will be swapping the rims out for some monoblock 22's soon. Also, will be raising it up a bit...
Click to expand...

Oh yeah the 5x120 super secret wheels! I am very interested in that setup as I spent this morning measuring and remeasuring the rear wheelwell because someone is selling some wheels off an X5, its a E53 model but he swears up and down that they are 12" wide rears. No way those would tuck in on a 1st gen X5. I need to go see them in person. Ok I might be babbling because it is late and that benadryl is kicking in hardcore:smug:
 
Just to be clear, are you guys saying I need to start from the front of the car to reach the back end of the roof to access my antenna?
 
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