Please help Mr "Thicky"

[Dave Elcome]

I'm sure the answer to my question has been posted before, and i have searched high and low to try to find it, in order to save emarassing myself with the question below.


My radio aerial is knackered, and i understand that you can get them seperately.?? believe it or not i worked as a mechanic for 15 years, and in all that time i never changed just the mast!!

The question is, how do you get the mast out, and the new one in? is it a case of stripping the aerial motor apart, or is there some cunning method of replacing it in seconds??

Sorry to ask such a dumb ass question, but you know the old saying, "you learn something every day" (i hope)

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

:bannana: :bannana:

 

[Koolvin]

hirschman make the ant. for MB. and yes you can get just the insert for it from MB. just unscrew it and pull it out while on, and replacment is easy enough to do as well....

 

[Dave Elcome]

Thanks Koolvin.

 

[Sp!ke]

I think once you actually buy the mast all will become clear as only then will you be able to see the way it works.

To get your old ariel out all you need to do is remove the plastic cover on the outside of the car and undo the bolt hidden underneath. Then remove the carpet liner in the boot next to the ariel and you will see that the bottom of the mast is also secured by a bolt. The rest should be pretty self explanitory once you get there.

I haven't checked on a W124 but generally the mechanism is (in very basic terms) a sort of tank track that goes from the mast through the motor. The motor sort of pushes and pulls on the track.

I might add that mine was partially seized until recently. It would only go up about half way and wouldnt retract fully either. Despite having a full dealer history from day one, the reason for this is that it was bone dry and didnt look like it had ever been lubricated. Copious amounts of WD40 later along with manually moving the mast up and down throughout its normal movement, all was working smoothly again. I was surprised haw long it actually is when fully extended - must be about 5 foot long.

 

[Dave Elcome]

Originally posted by Sp!ke

I might add that mine was partially seized until recently. It would only go up about half way and wouldnt retract fully either. Despite having a full dealer history from day one, the reason for this is that it was bone dry and didnt look like it had ever been lubricated. Copious amounts of WD40 later along with manually moving the mast up and down throughout its normal movement, all was working smoothly again. I was surprised haw long it actually is when fully extended - must be about 5 foot long.

This is the problem with mine, ever since i've had the car the botton, biggest section has refused to move, despite WD.

Despite regular treatment with said WD, the next section up is now troublesome, so i figured it was worth getting a new one if i could.

Thanks for the help guys:bannana:

 

[andy_k]

you may not need a new one Dave - chances are it's just got slightly bent - the mechanism will have pulled the bend down inside so once you have the mast off - as koolvin said - clip the top of it inside a vice or something and pull hard on the bottom section, there's a pretty good chance it will eventually extend without breaking A word of warning is only to use grips/clamps etc on the solid bits of the aerial ie the very tip and the base where although not solid it is made of stronger metal - all will be revealed when you pull the mast out

once extended, you can roll it on a flat surface to find any bends in it and gently straighten it then lubricate it - we had the same problem with ours and it's worked faultlessly ever since.

I read somewhere that the replacement masts are about £16 so it's up to you whether you consider it worth the hassle - we only found out after we had done ours how cheap they were


Andy

 

[Koolvin]

eurocarparts sells replacment masts i think

 

[andy_k]

bizarrely Dave - you contributed to the thread on another forum about replacement aerials

Andy