Bikers Workshop Series

Part 18; Fitting Hondaline CB Antenna to a GL1800.

By Steve Saunders.

Fitting the Honda GL1800 Goldwing CB radio itself is covered in part 7. This part covers fitting of the antenna to a GL1800. This job takes less than an hour. You will need a Phillips screwdriver, Allen key and a drill with 3mm, 6mm, 10mm & 13mm drill bits.
If you need more than just the pictures and instructions here, go to the end of the page and download the video clip. The pictures on this page are actual screengrabs from the video.

Click the thumbnails for a bigger image.

First remove the saddle.

First you need to locate the two X marks inside the Goldwing trunk on the left side. These mark the spots where you need to drill the 10mm holes for the antenna mounting bolts. Start by drilling a 3mm hole in the centre of each X, from the inside of the trunk. Then from the outside of the trunk use a 6mm drill bit to make the holes a bit bigger, and finally use a 10mm drill bit. Now put some masking tape over the holes and measure half-way between the closer edges of the two holes. This should be around 24mm up and down from the edges of the holes.

Use a pointed tool to mark where you will be drilling the centre hole, which the antenna lead goes through. 3m, 6mm and 13mm drill bits will get the job done. Needless to say, be careful not to damage your expensive Goldwing panels.

Now remove the left trunk pocket from the Goldwing. The pocket is held in place by the four Phillips screws shown in the above left picture. Pull the pocket away. Now push the antenna lead in  from the outside and through the hole already in the trunk back.

Route the lead as shown in the picture above left and use the supplied tab to attach the lead to the screw that you can see me pointing at. Clean up the trunk mounting bracket and bolts are so that you will get a good earth/ground for the CB. I was fitting Kuryakyn armrests to this GL1800, so I had to use the longer bolts supplied with the armrests instead of the nice Honda ones.

  When you connect the antenna and CB leads together, keep them near the back of the trunk before you refit the saddle. This means that you can access them later on if you need to adjust the SWR with a meter, without having to remove the saddle from the Goldwing.

If you want to download the video tutorial, right-click the link here and "save-as" to a location on your computer. It's a large file so will take a while to download. If you have a fast connection then just click the link and play the clip live in your Windows Media Player.
Antenna fitting video tutorial (Windows WMV format). 3 minutes, 47 seconds playing time. 6.40 megabytes file size.

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