Bankswood

My power antenna just started to mess up. It no longer goes down which is OK but the motor keeps running for a minute or so trying to move it down. I took a quick look and there are two plugs Large upper and smaller lower. Which on will shut the power to the antenna?

TIA

SC400slide

iTrader: (11)

Any of the two probably...if the power antenna is broken, I'd replace it with an economical antenna, not an antenna that extends in the air a couple miles.

Bankswood

HA!! I hear you.

8052JZ

iTrader: (13)

I had the same problem too and I just unplugged the power plug I believe the smaller of the two, and was good to go. Never touched it sense lol

texan_176

iTrader: (5)

I had this issue and fixed it for $12.

All 92-00 SC cars have the same power antenna assembly. BUT, the 97+ cars have a revised internal design of the gears where the mast spools. The bean counters at Toyota made it cheaper and lower in quality in the later cars IMHO. The 92-96 cars used a metal plate inside the spool area to isolate the mast from the gears once inside the body of the assembly. I wish I had taken pics when I did it. The newer design deletes the plate and adds more plastic gears. Anyway, if your antenna relay is blue you have the superior early version but if your relay box is yellow you have the newer and cheaper built one. The part number is the same so they all interchange.

99% of the time the mast breaks but with mine the sensor that tells the motor to stop was faulty. This sensor is on the spool area and has 3 wires going to it. It is moulded into the body of the spool housing so you can not replace the sensor alone. Well, you can swap the cover of the spool body and do it that way but it's not worth it to save the plastic cheap version of the 97+ assembly.

SO, I just got an assembly from a junked 1st gen GS and it worked fine once I swapped the mounting bracket and a ground wire that is clearly different between SC and GS. The relay and antenna assembly is identical in every way between 1st gen GS and SC; less the bracket. My mast was good so I reused it.

If your mast is broken they have one on Amazon that is identical to the Toyota mast for about 40% of the cost of the OEM one.


The GS antenna assembly was $12 in a junkyard and all is well.

But I do have one question on the antenna. Some time ago I read on this forum that different radio frequencies result in different deployment heights of the antenna. Is that true?

I have not really paid attention to that.

BeaksSC

iTrader: (1)

If the motor is still running extra, I'm assuming that the mast cord is broken or the timing for the assembly is messed up. I ordered a new mast when I had this issue and installed and it worked for a solid 3 tries. Then my assembly decided it was going to play tug of war. I now have masts with no gear cords. I just took the whole thing out and plugged in the antenna. Works decent without it. Oh well.