electric aerial probs

So its now 2 weeks since I have seen my 911 and I am getting desperate again, esp now I am 21 and if I had the money for the insurance I could be driving it!

For my birthday my girlfriend's parents got me a leather factory repro Porsche 911 keyfob (advert in Feb '01 911 & Porsche world) in tan which is sweet.

Anyway, onto my question. My car has an electric aerial fitted and after fiddling about with the array of unmarked controls in the car I finally realised that the rocker switch next to the ignition controlled the aerial. I moved the switch and the motor went but aerial didn't move. So I put some Oil/WD40 on the aerial and left it - still not working next day. I had a look at how to get to it, and concluded it looked hard to get to, I think just under the wing. Should I just replace the unit, and if so how do I go about it?

Thanks,
Phil

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'72 911E Sporto

A few things that I have learned about power antennas. First, never put oil on them. It attracts dirt and just makes them gum up worse than they were before. Try using carburetor, brake, or electrical parts cleaner to break up the gunk that is making it stick. Be careful not to get it on the paint. Second, if you can here the motor moving, chances are the cable that makes the antenna operate is broke. It might be possible to open up the casing and try to reattach the cable, I don't know if that's possble or not. Probably best just to replace it with a manually adjustable one and save some money and trouble.

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'80 Targa

Thanks rad, I hope I haven't made it worse with the oil - only used a little.

Manual is prolly the way to go - although that must have been a rarity in '72

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'72 911E Sporto

I had a problem with my power antenna not working. Eventually took it out and disassembled it. What I found was over the years, water had entered the box through the antenna. Cleaned everything and relubed it with white lithium grease. It works fine now.

On mine there were two screws on the firewall holding the unit on. Loosen the nut on the underside of the fender and screw the top nut off. The antenna should slide down through the hole.

Pay attention to how the wires are connected. One is the power wire, the other two work off a switch to drive the motor to raise the antenna, the other drives the motor in the opposite directions to drive the antenna down.

Steve

The mast in your antenna is broken. The mast is a white (usually) nylon line that is much like any weed whacker line. It breaks over time due to stress or due to a sticking antenna. I have rebuilt many Hirschmanns and these are fairly common units if you want to simply do a core to a rebuilder and get a new one. Otherwise, you'll need to either replace the mast outright (only) or do this AND clean the unit itself (the better way).

Pull your antenna by unscrewing the nut that holds it on---not the larger nut under it that holds the entire unit to the body of the car. Remove the ant. and have a look: if you see a white line that emerges from the bottom of the ant. proper, and there is only a small length, then it is broken. If you cannot remove the ant., operate the switch and "help" the ant. up. The fact that you have removed the bolt will mean that even the toughest stuck ant. will not keep the mast line from spooling off the reel and thus pushing the ant. up.

From here it is only a matter of getting a fresh ant. or freeing up your ant. sections from one another IF you clearly see that ALL of the mast line that needs to is being fed out. Usually, however, this is not the case: the unit will probably need to be disassembled and cleaned, removing the remaining mast line from the spool and cleaning the area up in general. Then, put the unit back in, without mast, and feed your new mast in using the switch and by threading the new mast in; it really is that simple.