Small side project while I put off finishing the cargo cover.
When I got my 84 I soon noticed that the radio reception really sucked. It never before occurred to me that an antenna can stop picking up signal (at least, for any reason other than being broken in half), but I was meandering around the Crutchfield site and found the section for antennas which suggested exactly that.
As it turns out, Crutchfield sells a $10 replacement that fits our cars and works brilliantly. It's a two-piece, fully retractable mast with a rather nice-looking chrome base, like so:
Which brings me to the second big improvement, it's fully retractable! I don't know if the lower section of the factory antenna is supposed to retract into the A-pillar, but mine wouldn't budge. So that's a major plus for me since I like to go to the carwash.
Here it is extended to maybe maybe two-thirds of full length. This thing extends ridiculously long just like the one it replaced. Reception is very good at this moderate range, as tested with an early-/mid-90s Alpine tape deck. Even fully retracted the reception is decent, and noticeably better than the old antenna.
I don't have any third-party ref for this part, if it's made by Metra or somebody else, but it is available from Crutchfield at time of this writing, for $9.99 with free shipping:
Item# 12044HD92 at Crutchfield.com
Crutchfield also includes their MasterSheet with full instructions on removal/replacement of antenna, head unit, speakers etc. for your model, which is very handy, but I will add the basic steps and some tips below...
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