Well, so many other people have shared their various troubleshooting/repair experiences on here for the good of the group, I thought to add a little bit myself.
The antenna on my 1979 450 SLC 5.0 makes whirring noises when I turn the radio on and off, but no antenna comes up. So I took it out of the trunk and moved it onto my work bench, aka desk.
The Hirschmann antenna model type is Auta 6000U - 485.
What a tank of a unit! Solid aluminum casing with stout gears and relays inside. The upper portion of the unit, where the electronics reside, was in perfect shape.
Much better than the plastic, chewing gum, and bailing wire model currently sold as a replacement.
I was able to pull out the 8" section of broken chrome mast stuck inside the housing with a pair of needle nose pliers and then unscrewed the 4 Phillips head screws holding the cover on the case (nicely embossed with an "H") to look inside.
What a mess. Or maybe disaster might be a better word to describe what I found inside.
The whole bottom third of the housing was packed full of powdery, white gack, which is, I am assuming, aluminum oxide from extended exposure to water. The aluminum is quite pitted and corroded in some areas but luckily the structural members, such as the screw bosses, as intact.
I have no idea what I'm doing with this antenna, but I had the bright idea to start poking around on the 6 pin connector with a 950 CCA 12V car battery (I live in Alaska, you know!) and some test leads to see what was what.
I managed to get lots of sparks but eventually found a combination that caused the motor to crank right up smoothly and then it quickly shut off as the cam mechanism triggered one of the relays to turn the motor back off.
I'm still not sure how to run + and - to the pins on the 6 place connector to get it to cycle up and down without sparking, as I think it must be Brown to negative and then positive to at least one pin to prepare the antenna to operate and then additionally, power to another pin to go up, and another to go down.
This car does not have an antenna switch, so as I understand it, it's either all the way up, or all the way down...
I can't tell for sure how to do it from the wiring diagrams I found online and here at Benzworld. (Thanks, Nobby)
I toothbrushed and screwdrivered some of the gack out of the casing and got the three screws loose that hold the antennna motor and casing in so I could look inside the take up reel, suspecting that there was a piece of old nylon antenna rope broken off inside.
Not the case. No nylon cord inside, but plenty of corrosion. More brushing and scraping.
Then into town for some white lithium grease to lube it back up after using CRC Contact Cleaner to get rid of the old, original M-B grease off the gears, idler wheel, reel housing "axle" and such.
The white grease is spray on and doesn't work as well as I had hoped it would. The parts guy at Napa said not to bother with a small tub of white lithium-based grease, ("You're overthinking it and being too anal" were his exact words) but if I were more knowledgeable about white lithium compatibility with nylon/plastic, the tub stuff would have worked better in my opinion.
I haven't tried to fire the antenna back up yet, but I would guess it will turn a bit more smoothly now. It turned before my attempted repairs, but in any case I wanted to clean it up some.
I now have to order a new antenna mast with nylon cord, which I take is the tapered tail model and not the toothed one, since it is a pre-1980 model.
Then we'll see if I can get it to work right after the new replacement mast arrives.
Onwards!
Anthony
The antenna on my 1979 450 SLC 5.0 makes whirring noises when I turn the radio on and off, but no antenna comes up. So I took it out of the trunk and moved it onto my work bench, aka desk.
The Hirschmann antenna model type is Auta 6000U - 485.
What a tank of a unit! Solid aluminum casing with stout gears and relays inside. The upper portion of the unit, where the electronics reside, was in perfect shape.
Much better than the plastic, chewing gum, and bailing wire model currently sold as a replacement.
I was able to pull out the 8" section of broken chrome mast stuck inside the housing with a pair of needle nose pliers and then unscrewed the 4 Phillips head screws holding the cover on the case (nicely embossed with an "H") to look inside.
What a mess. Or maybe disaster might be a better word to describe what I found inside.
The whole bottom third of the housing was packed full of powdery, white gack, which is, I am assuming, aluminum oxide from extended exposure to water. The aluminum is quite pitted and corroded in some areas but luckily the structural members, such as the screw bosses, as intact.
I have no idea what I'm doing with this antenna, but I had the bright idea to start poking around on the 6 pin connector with a 950 CCA 12V car battery (I live in Alaska, you know!) and some test leads to see what was what.
I managed to get lots of sparks but eventually found a combination that caused the motor to crank right up smoothly and then it quickly shut off as the cam mechanism triggered one of the relays to turn the motor back off.
I'm still not sure how to run + and - to the pins on the 6 place connector to get it to cycle up and down without sparking, as I think it must be Brown to negative and then positive to at least one pin to prepare the antenna to operate and then additionally, power to another pin to go up, and another to go down.
This car does not have an antenna switch, so as I understand it, it's either all the way up, or all the way down...
I can't tell for sure how to do it from the wiring diagrams I found online and here at Benzworld. (Thanks, Nobby)
I toothbrushed and screwdrivered some of the gack out of the casing and got the three screws loose that hold the antennna motor and casing in so I could look inside the take up reel, suspecting that there was a piece of old nylon antenna rope broken off inside.
Not the case. No nylon cord inside, but plenty of corrosion. More brushing and scraping.
Then into town for some white lithium grease to lube it back up after using CRC Contact Cleaner to get rid of the old, original M-B grease off the gears, idler wheel, reel housing "axle" and such.
The white grease is spray on and doesn't work as well as I had hoped it would. The parts guy at Napa said not to bother with a small tub of white lithium-based grease, ("You're overthinking it and being too anal" were his exact words) but if I were more knowledgeable about white lithium compatibility with nylon/plastic, the tub stuff would have worked better in my opinion.
I haven't tried to fire the antenna back up yet, but I would guess it will turn a bit more smoothly now. It turned before my attempted repairs, but in any case I wanted to clean it up some.
I now have to order a new antenna mast with nylon cord, which I take is the tapered tail model and not the toothed one, since it is a pre-1980 model.
Then we'll see if I can get it to work right after the new replacement mast arrives.
Onwards!
Anthony
so i need it described like:
