The coax may be hard fixed to the antenna, .....You might try this....follow the coax back from the antenna a little and see if there is a disconnect. Just a thought.

 

Yup, you're right on that hard-fixed call.

Next question is 'where does the motor harness itself disconnect'? I followed it all the way inside the fender well, to just in front of the antennae/body opening. There, the harness disappears, without an obvious disconnect, into some type of body re-enforcment panel. What a pain![sm=smiley5.gif][sm=violin.gif][sm=smiley26.gif]

String Theory has nothin' on a vette.

 

WOW! Lifting the car on a hoist!!! And the wheel and wheelwell liner too!!! Just to do the antennae???
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What weren't they thinkin'???

Well, I got the mast lubed down pretty good. And with a little pressure, the thing retract all the way. But not unless I help it down. I guess this is NOT a relay problem?

 

[/quote]

Yup, you're right on that hard-fixed call.

Next question is 'where does the motor harness itself disconnect'?
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I believe it is in the cargo compartment under the carpet on the same side as the antenna. I found this after having to deal with my antenna motor running on.

 

Great.

I'mfresh out of laser-guided smart harnesses.

 

I jacked the car up, pulled the wheel and the wheel well off, disconected the antennae wires under the carpet in the back hatch, tied a string to the wires and disconeecte the antennae motor from the car, pulled everything out and put a new one in. And no, mine still doesn't work.

 

Smart trick with the string.

Now, from old posts, seems two other posters here replaced their antennae motor (about $110), THEN, after not fixin' the problem, they tried replacin' the relay ($15), and the problem was fixed.

That SEEMS to make the relay the first thing to fix. But my characteristic of the antennae is different.

Unless someone has had this one before (last 4 inches retraction failure, except when 'helped'), then I'm in thedark...

 

The mystery wire was attached to a grounding washer, which was clamped to the antennae mast:


There's two g. washers there - each has two wires.

The free wire, see first pic above, was connected on the other end, to one of the two g. washers. The other wire on that same grounding washer, went no where too[sm=smiley25.gif], tucked behind the fender well liner.

So here's where we are now:

The antennae still does not retract the last 4 inches.
I have a free 'black with white stripe' wire. Anybody got a wiring diagram? (yeah, never mind the signature there, hypocracy is my auxilliary religion)
Does this wire control only the last 4 inches of retraction???[&:]Everything else works!

Help?

 

I kinda doubt that, sounds like it's binding up before the last four inches are retracted.

Is it a new assembly, or, are youtring to getthe old one working?

 

I doubt that a ground of ANY sort would be for retraction of the last 4 inches. Unless, somehow the motor drive gear is 4 inches around, and that ground tells the motor 'one more lap'.???

It's the old unit. We just did exploratory surgery.

No sense in buying ANY parts, till we figure out what the wire is for - bothblack w/white stripe, attached to a grounding washer, which was on the antennae. And not near anything, like wires commonly are, at re-assembly time...

Gotta' go get haynes or chilton's. I wonder if they'll let me trade in a new haynes Venture van manual?

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