My antenna motor was powering up, and spinning, but no antenna mast activity. I opened the retaining nut, and pulled out the mast. No plastic teeth, so I ordered a new mast from Amazon for $20 (I use Ebay rarely because of problems I've recently encountered).

The new mast arrived in 48 hours, sealed in a retail package, as promised. I inserted it into the car, and got a partial result. Unfortunately, the mast didn't work well, and the motor was making loud grinning noises. I correctly presumed the old plastic teeth were still in the motor.

Here's my saga of tearing into the wheel well and antenna motor assembly. The car is complex like a swiss watch! Here are the steps following by numbered illustrations-

1) Empty the back of the trunk, including the spare, mats, car jack and tool kit. When you get around to the wheel well trim, be careful to disconnect the trunk light. When I re-assembled this, it was the only item I forgot, and a pain to get back to. There are 2 - 10mm bolts and a single screw which hold the trunk convertible sensor.

2) Continue to pull out the trim. It's all connected, and a bit of a chore. There's one hidden clip and a water drain tube you need to pay attention to. I carefully set the trim aside without disconnecting the tube. See bottom photo on illustration 2.

3) Another photo showing the trunk with all trim moved away allowing access to the motor assembly.

4) The antenna is buried beneath metal and other components. I was happy to discover just a single nut held it in place. Remove the nut and carefully roll the antenna away from the metal holding it in place. The antenna needs to stay upright, and the RF cable is VERY short, and needs to be pulled straight down when able. The only other item needed for removal is the wire harness, which is easy to get to.

5) Remove the metal frame, then the motor cover. Inside I found an entire spool of broken plastic teeth from the original mast. I pulled it out, carefully re-assembled and returned the antenna to it's home in the wheel well, crossed my fingers, and powered up the radio. I'm still smiling.

I was concerned my antenna mast would damage the motor system as there were 2 spools grinding inside the assembly. After installing the new mast from Amazon, I realized I needed to take action without delay. I'm glad I did. These motors are hard to find, and quite expensive.

I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them.

Enjoy!
Marty

 

Great job Marty and thanks for the DIY instructions. Hopefully I'll never need them but it is worth having this type information in case I do!

 

Awesome step by step and pics! I'm also having antennae problems. My antennae will rise but will not retract when the ignition turns off. I hear a grinding sound from the motor, but If I give the mast a small touch it will retract. Not sure if it's worth the headache of the tear down until it fully fails. Thoughts? Suggestions?

I'm also interested, if I choose to eventually open up the wheel well, replacing the mast with a stub/billet style antennae. Problem is though, none of the stub anntennaes I've seen are actually functional (ie. no true RF connection). They have all been just for show. Any recommendations on a truly functional stub/billet antennae that fits flush with our vehicles? Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks Marty


awsome write up I am printing it out as I type

 

Great job on those photos. Thanks very much.
In fact, you have raised the bar for posting annotated photos of DIY repairs, and surely other members are now realizing that they must learn Photoshop to keep up. A lot of time when into putting that post together, and we greatly appreciate it.

 

It is a post like this one that makes this forum so valuable. Great job.

 

marty
nice work

 

Shawn, it sounds like your current antenna has some missing or damaged teeth. You should be able to just follow the instructions from the earlier threads about removal to pull out the old antenna and install a new one and be free and clear without having to tear everything apart. It will probably take you about 10 or 15 minutes.

 

Thanks Harold, I appreciate the response and I don't mean to hijack this thread as the tear down provided is amazing, but I wanted to consider the option to change the style of the antennae and was hoping for advice from anyone that has experience with such a modification. I don't want to lose my FM reception as I do enjoy listening to radio once in a while and all the aftermarket stub and billet antennae I've found are nonfunctional (ie. have no RF connection). Also I want an antennae that will fit into the stock "receptacle" on the exterior. Does anyone have any recommendations? If there's no suitable replacement then I suppose I will do the recommended repair on other threads or at worst case the tear down as described in this thread. Thanks.

UPDATE: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc-...ml#post8157253

 

Used Marty's detailed step-by-step instructions and awesome photos to solve the exact same mast problem on my recently acquired 06 SC430. Antenna wouldn't drop the last 8 inches, so after multiple attempts to re-feed it correctly, I bit the bullet and pulled the motor, thinking something may be jammed inside. Like Marty's car, it had a full broken spool of plastic teeth coiled up in the antenna motor. Took the broken coil out, put everything back together in the trunk, fed the mast cable on the good antenna back in and voila! Probably Took me about 90 minutes start-to-finish, but I was going very slowly and methodically. I probably could do it all again in less than an hour. (But here's hoping I don't ever have to replace it again...)

This saved me probably $400 vs a dealer, so "Thank You" to Marty99 and this forum. Such great info here and such a willingness to share ideas and how-to's. Keep up the great work, everyone!

Rob