Lining up/adjusting a front fender 86 CV and antenna replacement

[Kaysboat]

One of the three minor winter projects of mine is replacing the power antenna assembly as I stripped mine a few years ago trying to lower it after the car was parked outside in the winter and the antenna was iced up.

I read the shop manual which vaguely states you loosen the front fender bolts and then there’s a few straight forward steps.

I started to do the job by removing the two bottom bolts between the front wheel well and passenger door. At this point I realized the fender had shifted somehow and now the passenger door is jammed shut with no gap between the door and fender. (Alos meaning I couldn’t do one of the other minor projects, replace the passenger door lock actuator). I was a bit discouraged and moved on to the third project, replacing the driver’s window motor, which was a success.

As I find body work and panel alignment quite intimidating, I’m thinking of simply removing the fender and replacing the antenna, then getting a body shop to line everything up properly. However, I’m wondering...

1. How do you remove a front fender? It seems like the hood hinge has to be removed as well, and I imagine there are a million small bolts in inaccessible locations; and

2. Any tips on lining everything back up after? I’d like to try it myself and if it doesn’t work, then take it to a body shop. But I know this work is netoriously tedious and finicky.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[87gtVIC]

Weird that removing only the two 10mm lower fender bolts (rocker panel area) caused the fender to shift that much. Its possible there were shims in place and now the fender sprung back towards the door? Still weird.



Anyways removing the fender takes some time....

4?x 11mm nuts in the fender connect it to the header panel. NOT FUN. Remove battery to get better access and PRAY the studs stay put in the header panel.

The inner fender has two 8mm big washered bolts in the wheel well and then a bunch of stubborn push pins.

Remove another push pin in the wheel well by the foot well area to access another bolt holding the fender to the body.

I have always removed the hood when doing this job as to not stress it when removing some of the bolts for the hood hinges. I personally would loosen up the header panel bolts at the hood catch area just to not put too much strain on it while removing the fender.

There are a handfull of bolts in the hood hinge area. 13mm and 10mm iirc.

There are at least 4 tricky 8mm bolts that hold the fender to the header panel behind the bumper.




I have removed 6 fenders in total throughout the years. My last set was in the blazing suns of Phoenix Arizona. Made quick work of those!

You can do it. Just take your time.















I have had no issues lining things back up. I would definitely try doing it yourself first to save the money.

[gadget73]

So easy you can do it standing on your head now?

[87gtVIC]

Apparently.

[gadget73]

but anyway, I have extracted power antennas without removing the fender. You have to remove the plastic inner fender though. It does just barely come out, and overall the job sucks in a major way but it can be done. Fishing the antenna cable through the dashboard is nearly as horrible and bloodthirsty as extracting the antenna.

A word of advice, make sure the thing works right before you install it, both up/down wise and for pulling in radio stations. I've installed them and found that the radio part did not work. I suspect the connection between the cable and the mast broke but I never made the effort to figure out what exactly ailed it. The ohm meter said the connection was open and thats as far as it went.

If its just the mast, that can be changed without removing the rest of it. basically you remove the nut at the very bottom, the round part with two flats. Run the motor up and the antenna will just come out of the hole. Pull all the bits out and then feed the new mast in while running the antenna down.

[Kaysboat]

Thanks for the tips. I assumed the entity assembly was shot as the antenna is stuck about 3/4 of the way up and it stopped working following the ice incident. I can still hear it running, but I obviously stripped something. I may try just changing the mast thought as it seems like a heck of a lot less work. If it’s still broken, then change the hole works. Either way (removing the fender or inner fender, it sounds like a crappy job, but it does really bug me the antenna is stuck.

[87gtVIC]

You almost have to remove all of the fasteners for the inner fender to get the fender off anyways so I would just stick with removing the inner fender and save yourself the extra work. There is like one bolt holding the antenna motor in place and the big nut up ontop of the fender. She'll come right out after that.

[gadget73]

if you can grab the mast and the motor runs, it should be able to spit it out. The mast has a plastic "tail" on it with teeth. Probably thats what broke. Likely if you give it some help and pull the thing out you can re-load it with a new mast and call this adventure done with.