The antenna stopped going up and down the other day. My toothed nylon strap broke so I had to take out the motor and get the broken piece out of the drum. Very easy job. What I can't believe was the price of the mast...$9.68. It cost more to ship than the cost of the mast. I haven't fixed anything that cheap on my Jag since I fixed the console latch with a piece of beer can.

 

I had a similar problem with a previous car in that the mast would not fully retract. I did not bother pulling out the motor but merely pulled out the mast with plastic cable and then installed a replacement mast/cable that I got from ebay for about $10. Luckily, whatever piece of cable remained in the system from the original mast did not need to be removed and everything worked fine. Of course if the motor is easy to get to, it is obviously better to remove it to retrieve the broken cable piece.

Doug

 

There was only about 4 inches of cable still attached to my mast. The rest was in the roll up drum. It's interesting that the cable feeds through some type of rollers and then freewinds into the drum. The drum lifts right off to extract the broken cable.

 

Is the process of removing the motor and/or getting to the drum pretty simple on these cars? I recall it was a real PITA on the Corvette which is why I did not attempt.

Doug

 

2 torx screws and remove the earth strap and power plug. It pulls right out. The biggest headache is putting the drain line back in.

 

Replaced whole ant.unit. (motor was bad). Got a good after market replacement from auto parts store. Found a black shaft on ebay. I think this will look pretty good with my British Racing Green paint and tan top. Now that new power unit is in I'll just have to pull out the old and push in the new. One of these days. The drain hose was a pain until I cut off about an inch. This made the hose diameter a little tighter and kept it from falling off the nipple. Jack

 

no pics pophen? We LOVE DIY tutorials with pics

 

I just finished putting my old original mast back in after the pretty black one I got on Ebay fell apart. It lasted about two weeks until the toothed drive piece separted from the mast. Just a warning that the black ones are not made well.

 

Thanks oldmots, Still have the black one sitting on the shelf. Did it break so that the toothed piece could still be powered out? Jack

 

I did do that a while back.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...t=antenna+mast

 

Yes, the toothed part pulled out of the mast so that it went up fine but when it retracted, the motor just ran and ran since it pulled the toothed shaft out and it came to an end in the drive pulley where the smooth brass ferrule was. When I replaced it, it came out easily. I was actually surprised that it did come out okay.