I recently added an aftermarket receiver to my 03 Denali and with it I did an aftermarket XM unit too. Well I had been driving around with the XM antenna mount up under that dash like was suggested by some people. I was never really impressed with the XM coverage I got with it mounted there as it was greatly effected by trees and other natural wonders. I had always wondered if there was way to mount it on the roof that would not be easily moved (it is a magnetic mount antenna). Two days ago I decided to remove the factory XM antenna to see if I could possibly mount it there and found a few things.
The factory antenna has 6 screws under it that you can remove and get to the guts of the unit. Once the cover if off you can see the actual antenna which has another clear cover over it. All of this can be removed by unscrewing a few small screws. To remove all of the guts of the antenna you will have to cut the factory plugs off of the wires to be able to feed the wires back through the hole.
If you get this far you will soon realize that the remaining factory base has two problems. The first is the mount itself is aluminum which is not magnetic and second is there is no way to fit the largeish aftermarket am plug through the factory hole.
Here is what I did to overcome these two problems.
Too small hole - drill out larger to fit aftermarket plug.
Non magnetic base - cut thinish metal plate to place in mount to hold antenna.
Drilling of the hole for the wire also creates another problems as it also removes the factor "nut" used for attaching the antenna to the car. You can remedy this problem by welding a bolt or nut to the plate you made.
If you have any questions about this shoot me a message or post it here and I will answer it as best as I can. The new reception is leaps and bounds better than under the dash. At this point I do not think that I compromised the factory seal as running it through the car wash did not create any wet spots in the headliner,
The factory antenna has 6 screws under it that you can remove and get to the guts of the unit. Once the cover if off you can see the actual antenna which has another clear cover over it. All of this can be removed by unscrewing a few small screws. To remove all of the guts of the antenna you will have to cut the factory plugs off of the wires to be able to feed the wires back through the hole.
If you get this far you will soon realize that the remaining factory base has two problems. The first is the mount itself is aluminum which is not magnetic and second is there is no way to fit the largeish aftermarket am plug through the factory hole.
Here is what I did to overcome these two problems.
Too small hole - drill out larger to fit aftermarket plug.
Non magnetic base - cut thinish metal plate to place in mount to hold antenna.
Drilling of the hole for the wire also creates another problems as it also removes the factor "nut" used for attaching the antenna to the car. You can remedy this problem by welding a bolt or nut to the plate you made.
If you have any questions about this shoot me a message or post it here and I will answer it as best as I can. The new reception is leaps and bounds better than under the dash. At this point I do not think that I compromised the factory seal as running it through the car wash did not create any wet spots in the headliner,
