Roof antena damage repair advise needed

[doru]

This is fresh this morning.
Got truck in the garage yesterday for fluid changes and left it on HI.
Took car out this morning and the freaking roof antena caught up on the door edge, bent the door and in the process was partially pulled out of the roof.
I have a trip comming up in 10 days so need to fix it fast so water doesn't get inside the roof.

The roof metal is very slightly bent next to it.

Never opened the liner on this before.
If you have experience with this please advise or at least give me an idea of how hard is to properly fix it.
Please ignore the paint damage. That is the easy part to fix.

Thanks!

 

[doru]

You can see the slight bent on this one.

 

[staggrlee]

If it were me, I'd probably just get some RV sealant (Sikaflex), run a bead in the gap and force it down as much as you can and let it cure. Looks like your rig is silver and Sikaflex is available in an "aluminum" color which should be an acceptable match if so.

Fix it correctly when you get back, or, if it doesn't bother you appearance-wise and is water tight, just leave it.

It would be nice if there was a delete blanking plate for the people who don't/won't ever subscribe to satellite svc.

 

[KLF]

It would be nice if there was a delete blanking plate for the people who don't/won't ever subscribe to satellite svc.

Somebody (@suprarx7nut) needs to 3D print something that will do this. I'd be in for one!

 

[doru]

So far managed to get to it and remove it w/o taking half the truck apart. The roof metal sheet was bent and the paint was cracked but that's all damage there was (ignoring paint scratches on the antenna for now).
I straighten the metal as much I could. The antenna sits flush with the roof now.
I need to fix the cracks on the roof paint as water getting into them will create problems down the road.
I need to reinforce the metal sheet where the antenna nut's claws dug in from below, as the metal is weak now and very little torque on the nut deforms it again.
Then I need a way to seal it. The antenna has 3 seals: one that has a double lip, and you can see it at its base all the way around, one O-ring around the main shaft, and one foam gasket around the location pin (basically prevents antenna from rotating around its main shaft). Given that the painted roof surface around the main shaft hole is no longer perfectly smooth, I may need to apply some sealant. But I ponder if applying a thin layer of auto silicone sealant around the inner lip or the big seal is not a better solution for future removal using a string to cut it. Sealant near the main shaft will surely get inside the hole and make it very difficult to cut it off.

 

[doru]

Finished fixing as mentioned before, and applied silicone around the inner lip. Also applied on the screw's heads. The roof around the hole had paint chips and cracks, no way the O-ring will seal it. The only additional thing is that I had to place some weights on top of the antenna overnight to make sure it stays flat with the roof - there was a slight gap in the back. After the silicone dried it keeps the antenna flat with the roof.
For the metal sheet reinforcement, I used 10mm/0.5" wide strips of thin stainless-steel sheet (cut from some old outdoor lamps, so the corrosion resistance is proven already ). I attached them with very thin 3M double tape to make my life easier.
Nut torque is 4.5Nm, but good luck fitting a torque wrench in there. I ended up playing with the torque wrench on a wise to get the feel and then done it by feel on the truck. That was important as it is easy to over torque that nut and deform the roof again.