Thanks.
Shark Fin Antenna
- Thread starter sheepoppa
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I’m interested to see some more height measurements with the shark fin. Ram claims 81.9”, but I have to imagine there is some variability especially with the Level 1 package presumably higher overall mass weight.
I’m going to be REALLY close in a couple of primary use cases.
My garage door measures 81” to the bottom of the weatherstripping. That has about 1.25” of flexible rubber hanging low, so I imagine it could bend out of the way slightly. I also have an uphill climb into my garage, which means the shark fin will pass a bit lower than the truck height on flat ground. Still, it’s going to be awfully close.
My parking garage at work has a 7’ limit, which would really stink if I can’t get in there as well. That gives me 2.1” of clearance, but I would really have to watch any bouncing in the bumps in there.
How much clearance does removing the shark fin really gain? I think I saw there is another box on the roof, and I think the shark fin is recessed into a lower spot on the roof as well.
I’m hopeful to find a solution! My current lifted Laramie is at about 79.5” from what I can measure, so seems like the RHO will be up to 2.5” taller which might be enough to cause me some new problems!
I’m going to be REALLY close in a couple of primary use cases.
My garage door measures 81” to the bottom of the weatherstripping. That has about 1.25” of flexible rubber hanging low, so I imagine it could bend out of the way slightly. I also have an uphill climb into my garage, which means the shark fin will pass a bit lower than the truck height on flat ground. Still, it’s going to be awfully close.
My parking garage at work has a 7’ limit, which would really stink if I can’t get in there as well. That gives me 2.1” of clearance, but I would really have to watch any bouncing in the bumps in there.
How much clearance does removing the shark fin really gain? I think I saw there is another box on the roof, and I think the shark fin is recessed into a lower spot on the roof as well.
I’m hopeful to find a solution! My current lifted Laramie is at about 79.5” from what I can measure, so seems like the RHO will be up to 2.5” taller which might be enough to cause me some new problems!
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I park in a 7ft garage at work with no issues other than the occasional “ducking of the head” for absolutely no reason.
That is really good to hear. The ducking part goes away after a little while. I feel like I’m just about to tap in my truck but have driven through there enough now that I finally trust it!
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Exactly how mine looks going into my garage... the first time I did it was VERY nerve racking... i wonder how high it will be when the temps in the garage are higher.... I suppose ill let some air out of the tires before then.
Hopefully I’ll have some clearance! Did you measure from the ground to the bottom of your weatherstripping?
One thing I’ll have to watch for, if I have clearance I’ll probably never want to jack my truck up to rotate tires, for example. That usually takes a bit to resettle and I don’t want to get stuck in the garage if it sits a couple inches taller after removing the jack.
So, have anybody here done this antenna removal? If so, how difficult is it to remove it? Also, any tips or advise for those trying to do it?
It’s kind of a pain in the ass considering you have to drop the headliner to get to the underside of it. For me, definitely worth it in the long run though as I would not have been able to park in my garage without doing this mod.
One thing I noticed after relocating the sharkfin was that the truck had a hard time getting a location for GPS even while using Apple CarPlay. This is because when your phone is connected over CarPlay, every vehicle uses the onboard GPS, NOT your phones GPS. It would take about 5 minutes of driving around before it showed an accurate location on google or Apple Maps. Sometimes the truck would show that I was on the next street over, but a lot of the time it would show I was like literally miles away from my actual location before it fixed itself.
This went away after a week or two and I haven’t had it happen since. Did the mod when I bought the truck in March.
Interesting. What did you use to cover where the shark fin was? I recently hit the antenna when I was trying to park in my work garage, and I need to remove this shark fin ASAP. Is there a YouTube video that show you a step by step on the process I looked around no luck.
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There's a youtube videos. Guy changed his third brake light and removed fin. White base RHO
So I’ve just picked up my brand new RHO and the dealership service department told me firmly that they can do the sharkfin removal. But on the day of delivery they told me they can’t do it anymore because “My truck has the sunroof which leaves little to no space in the headliner behind the third brake light”. Which I think it’s a complete BS because I saw someone in the TRX forum has the level 2 package with the sunroof and we’re still able to do it.
So I took the truck to the body shop where they’re gonna do the Xpel ppf.
They told me they can do it and they’ll just remove the headliners maybe from B pillar to create a larger opening to do it without removing the third brake light.
The only concern is they’re not sure how solid the headliners are. If bending it too much it might leave permanent damage to the headliners.
They’ll keep me posted on the process and I’ll see if I can share some pics if they do it.
So I took the truck to the body shop where they’re gonna do the Xpel ppf.
They told me they can do it and they’ll just remove the headliners maybe from B pillar to create a larger opening to do it without removing the third brake light.
The only concern is they’re not sure how solid the headliners are. If bending it too much it might leave permanent damage to the headliners.
They’ll keep me posted on the process and I’ll see if I can share some pics if they do it.
The headliners can crease very easy... Due care is needed.
Okay my body shop just finished the job.
The space was indeed very tight. Dealership wasn’t bs me.
And the headliner is indeed very fragile.
This is the right side headliner and you can see it’s relatively fine on this side.
But on the other side you can see the creases immediately when dropping the headliner.
My body shop was extra careful but this still happened. Good news is you can’t see the creases once the headliner is popped back in.
The rest of the steps are basically the same as the YouTube video.
I bought the same cap as the video and the body shop added a layer of 3M tape on the lower piece.
And the top side they’re gonna cover it up with the PPF so there will be zero chance of a water leak.
To sum it up, if you’re gonna do it yourself or at a body shop, make sure to pay more attention to the headliner than anything else. And if you’re not doing the PPF at the same time like me, consider extra water proof measures because we don’t know how long the rubber pad gonna last.
The space was indeed very tight. Dealership wasn’t bs me.
And the headliner is indeed very fragile.
This is the right side headliner and you can see it’s relatively fine on this side.
But on the other side you can see the creases immediately when dropping the headliner.
My body shop was extra careful but this still happened. Good news is you can’t see the creases once the headliner is popped back in.
The rest of the steps are basically the same as the YouTube video.
I bought the same cap as the video and the body shop added a layer of 3M tape on the lower piece.
And the top side they’re gonna cover it up with the PPF so there will be zero chance of a water leak.
To sum it up, if you’re gonna do it yourself or at a body shop, make sure to pay more attention to the headliner than anything else. And if you’re not doing the PPF at the same time like me, consider extra water proof measures because we don’t know how long the rubber pad gonna last.
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I live in the city (uptown Toronto in my case).
Both my condo garage and my girlfriend’s are pretty tight—mine has a clearance of 6’8” and hers is 6’10”. We’re not planning to daily-drive the RHO, just use it on weekends, so ideally I’d like to be able to park it in my garage.
Without removing the antenna, the truck won’t fit in either garage. Taking it off technically brings the height down to about 79”, but since my truck is Level 1 and has the extra GPS antenna, I estimate it’s closer to 80”.
In the worst case, if there are any low ceiling spots in the garage, I could deflate the tires a little to get it in. That should also help with most garages around my area—though probably not downtown.
I realize this isn’t the perfect parking setup for such a large truck, but it’s what I have to work with right now. I’m just trying to think of every possible way to shave off even a bit of height.
Meo
Lowering springs and not 35" tires... LOL... Waiting to see someone make it more of a street truck.
Have same issues when going anywhere with a parking garage. Have to check ahead of time and take my other car at times. Having these trucks is a lifestyle change in a lot of ways from oarking garages, parking lots in general, etc. Etc...
