Exterior Antenna support strut replacement

[Lap Dog]

My dad left his antenna up and drove into a tree. The support strut was mangled but all the gears and roof mount was in tact. With the nearest supply place an hour away I decided to just go down to the local hardware store and get a piece of alum. the only piece they had was 1mm thicker and we got that.

The job went well, and by grinding the plastic fittings at either end we got the whole thing neatly back to ‘factory look’. Given the wind up gear and mount were in tact we decided the the lighter original aluminium was intended to be sacrificial so we cut/nicked all 4 corners of the support strut to weaken it.

In the cold light of day and having slept on it ... I don’t think we weakened it enough and the next step is to get out the angle grinder and cut vees in each corner. Any thoughts before we go ahead?

Btw if I had my time over again I would have waited and got a proper replacement... which we still may do.

 

[Drover]

Your Dad is not alone....................mine got reshaped in similar circumstance but just the bottom section was bent so after removing the gear bits I just cut off the damaged sect and refitted, about 4" shorter but still works though the cable is zip tied to the outside, I wouldn't have put cuts in it though as it does cop a bit of stress in the wind, if anything maybe some holes would give it a crush point without causing a stress fracture ...as for a replacement, be cheaper just to track down some lighter gauge alloy than try to buy a replacement mast, you will gag at the cost.

 

[Lap Dog]

Thanks - drilling is a better idea than the angle grinder.

 

[Bushman]

I bent mine on the Panda pulling the cover off
Can't just buy the shaft had to purchase the whole replacement head unit, $300 not bloody likely,
Down to the Big Green Shed, purchase square aluminium tube, used the old on for template, a mate drilled the holes with bench drill and cut the slot with a Dremil job done

 

[Lap Dog]

I bent mine on the Panda pulling the cover off
Can't just buy the shaft had to purchase the whole replacement head unit, $300 not bloody likely,
Down to the Big Green Shed, purchase square aluminium tube, used the old on for template, a mate drilled the holes with bench drill and cut the slot with a Dremil job done

Did you manage to get the correct gauge aluminium at the big green shed? My local little blue shed didn’t have it...

 

[Bluey]

Be careful nothing is damaged in the part bolted to roof water can leak through .... theres some seal in there i think if it eva gets damaged or fails water will come into roof slowly soak up in there by the time it drips inside van you have very bad water damage in roof i hate it myself for that reason its a weak point for water to get in roof

 

[Bushman]

Did you manage to get the correct gauge aluminium at the big green shed? My local little blue shed didn’t have it...

From memory it was, it was about five years ago, and don't have the van now