Well, since I've had my 300SDL for the last 3 months the antenna has always made a grinding noise when it was lowered. I thought that the teeth on the mast might be stripped so I thought I would need to do that. Well, 2 weeks ago I went through a car wash right after leaving the dealer and the mast was hanging off the side when I exitted. Well, I turned the car around and went to the dealer to pick up a new mast. BTW, lower your antenna before entering an automatic car wash, usually I do, but not that time. To make a short story short, I installed the new mast and that didn't fix the problem.

Removal of the antenna assembly is VERY easy. Once the liner is out of the trunk it's a no-brainer. As soon as you get the motor on the bench, insert a regular screwdriver into the slots between the two halves and twist slightly while pulling them apart. This was by far the hardest part but not bad at all. Just work your way around and take your time and you'll be fine. Once you get the housing apart you'll see that the antenna mast doesn't really contact for a very long distance. Remove the circlip that hold the two gears in (they're on top of each other, one is driven by the motor and the other below it contacts the mast) and remove the washer. Then slide the two gears out and clean everything up. Make sure the lower gear can slide around without the top gear on. The top gear centers the lower by a plastic hub type ordeal. Once that's cleaned remove the 4" curved piece that resides over the mast teeth and remove that little round piece. Clean the old grease off of it and maybe spray some lithium grease around under the gears and on that metal piece. Then, reassemble everything and turn the motor with your hand to see it if it will let it keep turning once the mast is down. Note on the reassembly that the nub piece on the top gear which faces down goes between the two end of the spring. There is a hole on each of the gears and they should line up.

Put everything back together and enjoy no longer telling people what that noise is coming from the trunk. I didn't take any pictures but only because it's so easy! This only took me 30 minutes but my liner was already out and I took the assembly outside and tested it without the cover on to make sure it was ok.

Thanks
David

P.S.
If my antenna button is in the middle position (not full but not off) the mast only comes up about 12". Shouldn't it go up higher than that? If it should, can I adjust this? one last thing, the PO must have tried to fix something because the screw piece of the antenna wire has pulled off the rest of the wire. They had electrical tape on but that must explain why recently I've had reception problems. I took the metal piece off completely and just inserted the wire but it still doesn't have the best reception though better.

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2000 Honda Accord V6 137k miles

1972 300SEL 4.5 98k miles

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