Ok, so I wasn't planning on fixing the NAV for a while. I generally use my phone anyhow for navigation. But I stumbled upon ///MPorium BMW. If you haven't heard of them (him) that's OK, he is just an ebay store:
http://stores.ebay.com/Mporiumbmw/_i.html?rt=nc&_pgn=1&_ipg=48
He exclusively buys salvaged/wrecked ///M cars and parts them out....*extremely* meticulously. His daily drivers are a pair of matching white exterior and red interior ///M's. An e93 M3 and e70 x5M....nice. He has some really cool stuff. Entire S65s (yes, multiple), DCT's, an e92 Carbon Fiber Roof, the matching e92 alcantara slick top headliner to match the CF Roof. He also has things like full comfort access sensor suites (for a comfort access retrofit), and PDC retrofits, etc. But the majority of his inventory is just normal used parts, one of which is the Shark Fin antenna cluster.
At $30 for the antenna it's not expensive, but I have seen videos of removal of the Shark Fin itself and it's a bitch. Definitely not something I want to do right now, but getting an antenna this cheap sounds like a good idea. And the kicker is ///MPorium BMW is only about 15mi from my house. So I swing by, see his cool garage setup, about 1/10th of his inventory, chat for a bit, and leave with my antenna.
When I got home I put the antenna on my counter top in my garage. Later that evening I was walking out the garage to take out some garbage, and on the way back in the house I had this strange urge to tug on my shark fin. I don't know why...they are taped down with some gnarly 3m glue/tape stuff that is famous for being a bear to remove.
The damn thing just popped right off!
Judging by the part number sticker on the antenna itself, and the glue/tape that let go so easily, I could tell that someone had gone through the trouble of removing the shark fin before to diagnose the issue. They probably just checked the connections, found them to be secure, that didn't fix the Nav, and they didn't want to spend the $225 for a new antenna. They just put the shark fin cover back on with the same adhesive. Not cool, but it is a win for me...
One bolt, then the old antenna swapped for the new one.
At this point I just bolted the raw fin down and went for a test drive. Nav works!!! Since everything appears kosier it's time to button this thing up correctly. First we need to remove this new antenna and clean the roof correctly in prep for new 3m adhesive:
Now we need to clean up the mounting surface of the plastic fin cover and apply new adhesive:
Finally we bolt in the new antenna, put the cover on with the new adhesive, buff out the paint, and give it the ole tug test to make sure it's g2g!
And that good people is how you luck out into replacing a shark fin antenna in less than 30min due to some other previous fuckup that worked out in your favor!
