Source for 308 antenna mast

Does anyone know what happened to antennaworld.com? I've been trying to get onto their website all day and I keep getting error messages. Even tried linking to it through Google and Yahoo search and the same thing. They're not there. I need to either replace the mast on the antenna in my '84 Mondial QV or put in a whole new unit.

 

Their phone number is:

1-888-268-3627

I would suggest ordering by phone, it might be easier than when I did it online.

Jesse

 

Agreed, Antennaworld has one of the least friendly on-line ordering systems...probably better to call and talk to them in person.

 

I am confirming previous statements regarding a Hirschmann 12V HIT AUTA 86998 currently removed from my 1984 308 GTS Euro (German). It worked well for years, but then it didn't. It has two wires white with blue or green. Blue is down, green is up. But it squeeks on up and needs pushing to go down. I tried spraying the rods with WD-4O and both electrically and manually working it, but little improvement. My guess is that there's a coil spring in there that gets tension on the up route and relaxes/retracts on the down. I'd rather open this baby up (Phillip screws) and de-gunk it, but before I do, I appeal to any of you who have walked this path before me. I'd really appreciate some feedback.

Quasimotor

 

I don't have any first hand experience with the specific model mentioned above, but I have repaired several automatic style antennas over the years. Most recently, I rebuilt/repaired one on my girlfriend's 1996 Lexus ES300.

You can often find replacement masts on Amazon.

There's no spring inside. The basic idea is that the mast itself has a long plastic linear toothed cable inside it. I'll attach a couple photos below so you can get the idea. Anyway, there is a motor in the main unit which grabs the white cable thing (which has teeth on it) and basically it drives it up and down - thus pushing the antenna up. When the antenna mast goes down, the plastic cable just coils up inside the drive unit.

In a lot of cases, you can extend the antenna and remove the collar and just pull the entire antenna up and out. Usually what happens is the bottom end of the white plastic cable snaps off and then all hell breaks loose and/or teeth break off and you have kind of a "dead zone" where the motor can't coil up the cable properly. The best approach is to open up the motor in the base and re-grease everything and clean it all up. Then buy a new mast and thread things back into the main drive gear. Usually it requires some adjustments in the form of trimming the length of the new mast - in other words, such that when the unit fully retracts, it pulls the antenna down snugly to the base at the proper height.

Sometimes if you are lucky - and the internal plastic cable hasn't broken - you can just pull the old mast out and thread a new one back in (although opening up the drive unit to clean it out is always best). Once you understand how it all works, you can thread the mast in and out while operating the motor in order to fine tune things.

Anyway, if you have any questions, feel free to let me know.

Ray

Image Unavailable, Please Login


Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Ray! This is great. There was a very long-winded German showing how to do this and making it look really hard. But your explanation made it sound much easier. Maybe it was because you wrote it in English!? I'll give this a try. Is there a way to buy a black slanted escutcheon similar or exactly like the one on the Ferrari 308? Verrill makes one for over $100, which would be worth it if there isn't something similar online. I'm going to give this a try when I get back home.

Thanks a lot!
Quasimotor
George Avgerakis

 

Everything in Germany is more complex than it needs to be

You can try searching "Hirschmann 12V HIT AUTA 86998" on google and see what comes up. However, if your main unit is still functional, most likely all you need to do is unscrew the housing and clean everything up and re-grease it. Just take photos so you can see how it all should go back together.

As mentioned above, usually the only thing that breaks is the little cable / track thing which has the teeth on it. If you can source a mast replacement, then it's pretty easy to put it all back together and get things working. I've done it several times and it's not all that difficult of a job.

Ray

 

And just in case you need it, this is the grease I use on those (both for the internal gears as well as the mast cable track itself):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XBH9HI

Ray


Image Unavailable, Please Login