Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:48:48 -0400
Reply-To: Dan Resler <resler@LIBERTY.MAS.VCU.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Dan Resler <resler@LIBERTY.MAS.VCU.EDU>
Subject: Re: 91 Westy Antenna Replacement
In-Reply-To: <358EF0AB.2D40D627@Schwenk-Law.com> from "Steven X. Schwenk" at
Jun 22, 98 05:02:51 pm
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> This URL from the archive files on vanagon.com tells the procedure:
> ftp://gerry.vanagon.com/pub/technical/how-to/vanagon-antenna-removal.txt
>
Yes, but this articles leaves out one VERY important piece of
information, IMHO.
The first DIY job I tried to do with my van was replace the antenna
using the instructions in the file listed above. No Bentley manual, no
experience with VWs, and hardly any with car repair in general.
However, I did have enough on the ball (so I thought) to tie a strong
piece of cord to the radio side of the antenna cable before I pulled it out
the front of the van, thinking, of course, that I could use this twine
to easily route the cable back to the radio from the outside.
Wrong. It got horribly snagged up in the rats nest of cables under the
dash, and after over an hour of wrestling with the thing, the cord
finally broke ... and the cursing began. The only thing left to do was
to try to route it from under the dash using by fat hands & fingers;
at this point I was almost prepared to duct tape it low on the
firewall if I could just finish the bloody job and hear some tunes!
Then the DIY gods smiled on me. While reaching under the dash I happened
to grab hold of the top of the driver's side black console (or
whatever it's called) near the window ... and it gave a little
... more than I thought it should have, in fact! Could it be?
YES! I gave it a tug and it popped right off, exposing the top of the
rats nest all the way from the headlight-area to the back of the
radio. Though it still was a bit of a squeeze with my hands, it was
then *much* easier to route the cable back to the radio.
GRRRRR. Either the author of the article above has very small hands
and didn't need to pop the console top, or the cord trick worked for
them, or they neglected to include it in this (otherwise fine and very
helpful) how-to article.
If you get top access to route the cables, and you can manage to get
the radio out using the coat-wire trick, then radio installation
and/or antenna replacement is a very straight-forward and, dare I say
it, *easy* DIY job.
dan
P.S. - A friend of mine installs radios at Circuit City, and he later
told me that if you can save yourself alot of potential grief if you
have the installation crew at the place where you bought the radio pop
the radio out for you using the nifty little tool they have for the
job. As long as you bought the radio there, most places won't charge
you just to pop it loose. (I also understand you can buy a tool to do
this very cheaply at Wal-Mart or other stores, but my local *-Mart
store didn't have one.)
--
Dan Resler
Dept. of Mathematical Sciences
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA
23284-2014 USA
email: resler@liberty.mas.vcu.edu
