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.
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.