R33 Mast Install

[816PWR]

Hi guys

Well I installed an AP12 (an aftermarket one made by aerpro? not sure on spelling) mast and rope. You can get these from super cheap or autobahn. Supercheap has them for $26.99 so it is pretty cheap. Not all of the stores stock them as I had to go to three to get one.

First though this will only fix an antenna with a broken "rope". An easy way to tell if you have a broken rope is each time you turn on the radio you hear a whirring noise from the boot but nothing happens! If this is you your mast is broken, I have a 1994 Series one GTS-t not sure if this is similar to any other skylines

1. First thing to do is unscrew the top off the antenna. It is not as easy as it sounds, as it is not a nut it has two holes either side. This is a picture of the top note the two holes

Start by pushing the antenna all the way down. There is probably a tool out there to unscrew something like this but i made my own tool, it was quite simple. I took a scrap bit of metal about 20cm by 2cm and about 4mm thick. I cut a U shape in the top and file the sides of the U to make them small enough to fit in the two holes. They are 13mm apart. I then bend the piece about 1/4 of the way down into a right angle. Here is a picture of what it looked like, if you live in brissy and want the tool you can come have mine as i have no use for it!

Once the top nut is off, remove the black plastice finisher.

Most likely your rope has snapped and it is rolled up in the motor (mine was), this means you will have to remove the motor. if you can pull you rope out without removing the motor well lucky you!. To do this open the boot and remove the panel covering the jack. Remove the jack. Now the are two bolts (they are the ones with the metal tougue between them) together holding the motor in place, remove these.

Remove the motor, there is a bit of fiddling to get it our but it isnt too hard. Disconnect the loom, antenna wire and the drain hose. Now you have to pull apart the motor to remove the rope. It is held together by 6 screws remove all 6. And open the motor, remove the broken piece of rope and put a bit of grease in there if you motor is noisey....

Now rebuild the motor and replace all the screws, NOTE: The middle screw on the right hand side of the motor also secures the mast coming out of the motor, meaning that when this screw is loose you can rotate the mast coming out of the motor, try not to rotate this as it is very hard to align later to refit the motor!

Now reconnect all the lines and wires and replace the motor. Replace the black finisher and make sure it site properly as once you new mast is fitted it will be a bitch to change it again. Turn your radio on and make sure the antenna motor winds away, if it doesnt the loom is probably loose.

Get the new mast and remove the metal finisher as you can use the factory one. Align the serated edge of the new rope towards the front of the car and slide in down the hole, it will hit the bottom but you have to fiddle it to get it a bit further so it will engauge when you turn off the radio.

Now get a mate or a remote control for your head unit and turn it off, you will hear the motor start. Start trying to feed rope down and get it too enguage. Dont worry if it doesnt engauge just turn the radio on and try again. Now the antenna wont be fully down but this can be adjusted, as long as it went about a third of the way down that is fine, if you were too slow try again. Put the mast in place and add the metal finisher, dont worry about screwing it down. Now turn the car radio on again and the antenna will extend to the maximum and stop. Turn it off again and it will go all the way to the bottom. If it doesnt keep repeting until it does.

Make the antenna go down and screw the metal finisher back on. And YOUR DONE!!!!! The top sticks out a little higher than the factory one but hay it is a lot cheaper.

Here is a photo of the finished job

I probably have gone into too much detail but i know if i was doing it for the first time this would be a big help. Send me a PM if you need some help and if you live in brissy and want the tool you can come have mine as i have no use for it!

Thanks guys

Braiden

Edited December 3, 2005 by 816PWR

[Chris Rogers]

actually thats a very good description of how to do it. works on pretty much any car. more photos could help if you decide ti rewrite it.

[816PWR]

Yeh thanks i just didnt have the digital camera as i did it so i took the photos when i was finished

[RANDY]

I did exactly that on my last car =-]

We had to give it a few tries, because if it didn't grab it straight away, we'd end up with an antenna half up when it was supposed to be fully down. I think the Skylines have a sensor that measures the resistance in the wire, where as my last car just had a timer or something... or there were gremlins in there that counted the number of turns of the electric motor.

[sewid]

hehe yeah the tool you want to undo the top nut is needle nose pliers and you can get them at any hardware place although a bit of bent wire does the trick as well.

[nnwar1]

Hey Guys,

Just my 2 cents regarding the installation. Thanks again to 816PWR for the detailed installation steps, saved me a lot of time fiddling around . Mine was just the replacement of a bent antenna mast. I have few points to add to the installation steps:

• To unscrew the top nut, you can also use two very small screw drivers and hold them in each hand and rotate the nut counter-clockwise.
  
• If the antenna mast is bent as in my case you may have to pull it out of the factory metal finisher from the top instead of pushing it down through the bottom. Of course you can't do the former because of the mast's bottom edge is prevented from going through the factory metal finisher's bottom edge. I end up making some room between the two edges and cutting the wider mast edge and allowing it to be pulled out from the top.
  

Here's a crude picture I drew up showing the different sections concerned:

Hope this helps.

Cheers