I have some windshield mounted lights on my home made brackets and my lights were sticking pretty far out to the side. My antenna was rubbing against them so I decided to rotate it. I know some people have done this but I have never seen a write up on it so here it is. To get the plastic cover off, first unscrew the antenna. There are 2 tabs at 3 and 9 o'clock. Some people use a screw driver to try to pop them out, but I just used a channel lock and squizzed it on the top and bottom to make the sides push out.




After you unbolt the antenna base, you will notice that it bolts to a bracket on the back side of your corner panel. I was planning on just rotating that base, but it is spot welded in and would of been more of a pain. I drilled 3 holes on the antenna base, where the red dots are at (Sorry but I don't remember the drill bit size so you will have to match it up with the bolts).



On the back side of that bracket, there is a tab that sits at the 12 o'clock position. You will need to notch out another spot for that tab to sit roughly around the 11 o'clock position. The red at the top is what you need to notch out.



After that, you can bolt it back on. My antenna is sticking out a little bit but I secured it better using a zip tie mounting base (but black, you can buy them in a 10 pack, this was all I could find on the HD website) and attached it at the top of the window frame. I also painted the antenna black.





I ended up trimming the zip tie base just because I thought it was a little to big.

 

Lot of work when you could just bend the antena lol

 

took a box wrench, slipped it over the antena and bent it to match angle of windshield....simple, fast looks great and no rubbing

 

For about $13 i bought a shorty antenna on ebay and it only took about two minutes to install/replace with the factory one.

 

second that... got it off ebay for like 10 bucks... works great

 

Great write up! Just got finished, looks good. For the record the bolts are 8mm and the drill bit size was 3/16.

 

Just completed this mod, thanks for the insight. Unfortunately when I was removing my antenna cover (Black Plastic), it broke.

Does anyone have a spare or is this available at the dealer?

Got one at the dealer.. $8

 

I may have to do this, I have my hardtop hoisted in the garage and I can drive underneath it, it's my antennae that's hitting the hardtop. Kinda annoying. I think I'm just gunn a bend it. Nice write up BTW!

 

Moved my antenna and i think it looks great!!! I also order an 15 in antenna just to see the difference.

 

That looks good. Nice wright-up.