63 Flush Mount Antenna

[steelman]

Back in 2016 a member of this forum showed pictures of a flush mounted antenna in a 63-65 Riviera. This peaked my interest and others here, but I was not sure anyone had finished this. Here is a link to the old thread and a teaser pic of mine completed. More details to follow shortly.

 

[steelman]

Since I have had my car, the Wonderbar radio has never worked. Electric antenna did, but over the years of non-use didn't anymore. And I wanted to change the antenna before I started work replacing the radio. As stated in the earlier post, I started with a Hirschmann Hit Auta 2050. You can pick this up on eBay or Amazon for about $90. The access panel in the front wheelwell is exactly that, remove it and drop the old one right out. To get the new antenna to fit flush in the original escutcheon, you need to trim about 3/4" off the bottom. Up to the first notch. You also need to trim the third leg of the spring clip. This will allow the new antenna to fit flush on top and be rotated into any position to fit below. We made a nylon T shaped bushing to go inside the original escutcheon (guess which picture came out fuzzy?) that will isolate the base from the antenna and keep it centered. The nut of the new antenna has a flange that goes inside the base, so it is the ID of the bushing. It ends up being about .015 thick each way. We made a bracket to attach to the bottom of the antenna and the cover of the access panel, just as Buick had. We added a weatherpack connector to the wiring. I can unscrew the lead and unplug these wires and drop the antenna out for paint without disturbing any of the radio controls.

This antenna will not work with the original dash switch. Red wire goes to battery hot and the green wire goes to radio power. When the green wire is energized the antenna is up. When there is no power to the green wire, the antenna goes down. As stated, I do not have a working radio yet. I can hot wire this and know it works, but that is all at this time. New radio to follow soon, but wanted this out of the way so I only had to remove the radio once.

And it turned almost all the pictures when I added them.

Edited May 20, 2019 by steelman (see edit history)

[Barney Eaton]

Thanks for posting all the photos and details.........the inside fender picture show the amount of room you have when installed.

[RockinRiviDad]

Love this mod…but how would we make that “T shape bushing?”

 

Great pix too. I love pix haha. How did u get so many pix on one post? It always tells me to take a hike when I try to add more than like 4 pix haha

 

Edit: hopefully one of the electrical wizards can help figure out how to get this new antenna to work with our dash switch?? 🙏🏼🙏🏼

Edited May 26, 2019 by RockinRiviDad (see edit history)

[RivNut]

7 hours ago, RockinRiviDad said:

Love this mod…but how would we make that “T shape bushing?”

 

Great pix too. I love pix haha. How did u get so many pix on one post? It always tells me to take a hike when I try to add more than like 4 pix haha

 

Edit: hopefully one of the electrical wizards can help figure out how to get this new antenna to work with our dash switch?? 🙏🏼🙏🏼

My step-son Steven has the dimensions and is working on 3-D printing the bushing.  Right now he's trying to find black material that has UV qualities.

 

The wiring should be simple.  Two wires come from the switch - one to raise the antenna, one to lower it.  The OE antenna is grounded through the case.  I see two colored wires on the replacement, probably one to raise and one to lower. Plus there's the black wire with the ring terminal.  Ground that to the bracket and it should work.

[steelman]

I moved the pics off my phone and resized them on my desktop. They end up about 20% the size they were before so you can post more at once.

 

Ed, we thought long and hard about the dash switch. Factory switch and antenna can be stopped going up or down in any position. Just release the switch. But this one has no intermediate setting. It is all up with both wires energized or all the way down and closed when the green wire looses power. Note sure any other position would be possible or needed.

[Barney Eaton]

This should work for wiring.........the factory switch, as noted above. you push and hold.   If you release the antenna stops.

The switch will have three wires.......12V going in and the other two wires go to the antenna.....one wire is for UP the other is for DOWN

It appears the Hirchmann antenna pictured by Steve above has only two wires......the instruction will probably tell you to ground the antenna.

The factory antenna picked up ground from the mounting.

[steelman]

The Hirschmann has a separate black ground wire. It can be seen in a couple of the first pictures. The case is plastic, so a separate ground is needed.

[steelman]

The bushing need not be Tee shaped, just how three gear heads chose to solve the issue on Saturday morning drinking coffee. The original post says a bushing is needed, but no specifics were given. The antenna shaft must be separated from the base or it will ground and interfere with the radio. The inside of the Riviera base is tapered, being larger at the bottom then the top. The top of the tee above the base only serves as a locating ring to keep the bushing square in the tapered hole and from dropping too far down and dislodging. We made this an interference fit, meaning the outside of the bushing is .002 larger than the hole to help keep it in place. Fortunately, my uncle, a retired tool and die maker was one of the three gear heads at the shop that Saturday morning. I think he recorded the specifics of the bushing if needed.

[RockinRiviDad]

Ed’s son who is doing that 3D image thing may need those specs

 

Also, it could just be the pic, in your pic with antenna extended it looks like the antenna goes on forever haha. Is that an illusion or is it just a super long mast?

[steelman]

No illusion. It is very tall extended.

[RivNut]

Barney,

 

If you'll find Steelman's post (the second one in the thread) and look at the 5th picture, you'll see two colored wires lying below the body of the antenna. In the same picture, you'll see a black wire with a copper ring terminal.  I'm betting that black wire is the ground wire. Just connect it to onr of the screws that holds the panel in place. 

[Barney Eaton]

I just worked on one of those antenna,  there seems to be some variations with age etc.....the one I did was from a 1987 GN that the owner said he got from GM in a Delco box.

It happened to have a three wire connector that was plug and play with the factory wiring.    I think I have a box with several that have broken parts.

Edited May 27, 2019 by Barney Eaton (see edit history)