I know there are a million topics about the pesky power antenna's on the W123's, but I still have two questions:

1) My antenna is stuck all the way down. There's a tiny, tiny little bit of antenna that I can just about get a hold off with some pliers. All removal descriptions I've seen assume that the antenna is stuck up, or at least can move somewhat up and down. Anyone ever removed one that's all the way down? Just remove the little nut, grab a hold of whatever you can grab a hold on and yank it out? Right after I bought the car I did attempt to just yank the antenna mast up with pliers so I would have some radio to listen to on the drive back, but that mast is hella-stuck...
2) Anyone know of a manual replacement? I've searched a bunch but came up with nothing. I might not have been searching correctly though. I can't justify spending 200 bucks on a replacement antenna, and frankly I couldn't care less about it automatically going up or down.

I mean, I might drive a Mercedes, but I can easily ask my butler to get out of the car and manually push it down, whenever I tell my driver to drive Betsie through the car-wash...

Lastly: I grew up in Europe. My dad had an '84 W123 in the late '80's. I could've sworn that antenna was on the passenger front fender. Am I crazy?

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"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)

You should be able to easily remove the antenna when it's stuck in the down position.
When you open it up, you will be able to replace the mast. Readily available on the Internet.
Alternatively, you will be able to raise the antenna after it's opened.

And finally, are you sure it wasn't a w116 that your dad was driving? I know that the W116 had the antenna on the right front fender.

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Closing the store
Benzbonz.biz on your smart phone or tablet.

@mespe
Thanks for the advise! I'll go mess around with the antenna tonight. So just loosed the nut and try pulling the mast etc out that way?
I figure I want to tackle some easier jobs for a while. Betsie still needs a bunch of serious wrenching, but I am a little done with all bigger mechanical works for a few weeks. I figure I will try and tidy up the interior etc in the coming weeks a little.

And my dad's was most definitely a white, 1984 W123 with blue cloth interior. It had all the euro-goodies you guys love so much. Bumpers, hand crank windows, manual sunroof with that big chrome grip on it, manual HVAC, no AC and 4speed manual. It was a 300D, non-turbo and no wood in the interior.... Lovely bundt wheels, slow as molasses and even more noisy than our American versions, because I remember not being able to really talk to my parents or hear the radio at all on the highway (no speakers in the rear). Of course, speed limit in Europe is a little higher, so I'm sure it was pretty much cruising a long at top speed (85mph) all the time...

I grew up in the back seat of it. The one and only reason I love the W123 so much is because of that particular one. It's the reason why I bought a white one with blue interior and bundt wheels. I'm kinda driving my dad's old car, although mine has the horrible automatic tranny and ugly leather seats.

I am almost 100% confident my dad's had the antenna on the front right fender. I need to look up some old pictures to verify, maybe my memory is hazy.

EDIT:
Did some quick Googling. Euro's indeed have it on the front fender. Guess I wasn't crazy after all

__________________
"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)

Antenna: my '85 123.190, Euro wagon with five-speed manual, had a non-automatic antenna on right front fender. I don't remember if the antenna was fixed or could be pushed down into the fender.

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Respectfully,
/s/
M. Dillon
'87 124.193 (300TD) "White Whale", ~392k miles, 3.5l IP fitted
'95 124.131 (E300) "Sapphire", 380k miles
'73 Balboa 20 "Sanctification"
Charleston SC

If you can open the antenna case in the wheel wheel..
1. Locate the motor wire and get a 9Volt battery. It will operate the motor to send the antenna up/down. This will also determine if your motor is dead or if the mast is possibly bent and stuck inside.
2. If the above doesn't work, unscrew the two screws holding the motor down. Pull the motor away from the gear. You should be able to easily pull up/down the antenna. Again, if the mast is bent..it might be harder to do.

Finally, I did the above about a month ago when I was troubleshooting. I ended up buying a $70 Hirschmann Antenna 2050. It is automatic. I rewired the trunk harness and the antenna rocker switch. When my radio is on..it goes 100% up. When it is in any other mode, it goes down.
Don't let the "rewire" comment scare you if you. It wasn't too difficult. You can PM me if you have questions as I documented it in my notebook somewhere.
Also, the good thing about this newer antenna is that it looks great and I didn't need to buy a separate antenna grommet. This thing came with some newer smash together pieces..

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1985 300d Turbo Diesel

Didn't the earlier Euro Cars have the Antenna up front ?

My 84SD has a small electric motor connected to the antenna via a small belt. I popped the cover off and recovered the belt then searched around for a replacement. I didn't find the exact size and haven't gotten it installed so can't speak to how well it works.

Try looking inside the housing and see what you see. You need a metric belt I think 5mm wide. I don't remember the length. The belt has teeth to match the drive wheel. I don't remember the specs but a call to the supplier will get that information. I couldn't find a 5mm belt (5X120mm I think) and ended up settling for 3mmx120mm. I bought 2 in case it works and the other car can use the same thing. The few dollars in shipping was more than the actual belt.

Edit: I found the broken belt. It is 120mm x 5mm with teeth every .2 mm.

I never found a 5mm wide belt so will see whether the 3mm with will work.

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85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

The antenna is simple to remove and easy to fix "if" the PO didn't install an aftermarket radio and the antenna is the OEM one to the car....Take the nut off that you can see on top of the quarter panel the mast goes through, take the trunk liner out or bend and undo a 10mm I believe bolt and it comes right out...then you can open it and take a photo of the guts...should be able to tell you what to fix or if it can be fixed...

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@Cooljjay
Thanks! I did unscrew the nut on top but the mast still wouldn't budge. So there is one bolt behind the trunk liner that holds the motor in?
There is this little flap you can bend away that gives you access to it I think. It's too late tonight, but I'll take another look tomorrow and see if I can get it out then.
The car was originally ordered without radio, based on the VIN check I did. The radio that is in there is an '80's Sanyo, with digital tuner and a tape deck. It's period-correct, but I'd love to have an OEM Becker in there at some point.
The antenna is original, I think? No reason to believe it isn't. The antenna button in the car does nothing, and the motor does not make any noise, so it either doesn't get power or the motor is burned out.
I don't care about fixing the power antenna, if I can convert it into a manual one I'd be happy.

__________________
"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)

Most of the card I have bought had nonfunctioning antennas. My parts 190E had a good one but it was slow so I disassembled it and cleaned it and now it works beautifully. I bought two others at Pull-A-Part for about $15 each hoping to do the same but discovered both of them had bent masts . Last time I was at the yard I pulled another one and took it apart while my friend was pulling something off a Toyota truck and again found a bent mast. Somewhat infuriating, especially considering how expensive the masts can be.

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Current: 1975 450SEL, 83 300D, 88 Yugo GVX, 90 300D OM603 swap, 91 F150 4.6 4v swap, 93 190E Sportline LE 3.0L M104 swap, 93 190E Sportline LE Megasquirt, 03 Sprinter, 06 E500 4Matic wagon.

Does this have the rocker antenna switch above the climate control?

If it was ordered factory delete for the radio, everything should be aftermarket....you may have some odd hidden fuse inline somewhere of the motor that is burnt and not letting power to the antenna...

Really need to see the setup and a photo of the antenna motor area with the trunk liner removed...

Correct way to remove the liner is to remove the trunk divide behind the fuel tank, 8mm bolts, then there "was" two push pin style clips one above each tail light that held the liner to the body, once those are out, simply grab the liner from up under the quarter panel and work it out.....be careful of the power sunroof cable tube if you have one, it "was" clipped to the liner.

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@Cooljjay
Thanks for the description! I'll go play around with it tomorrow!

And yes, the car was ordered with radio delete, and it has the antenna switch above the climate control.
I also have a sunroof. The sunroof works half. It opens fine, but it won't close. It makes a loud PRRTTTT noise, like gears grinding/slipping.
So I got it to close by having my wife holding the 'Up' button for the roof and me pulling on it real hard. Then I discovered two things while going through the car wash:
1) Car-wash water is ice and ice cold!
2) My closed roof leaks like a sieve and traps all water in the headliner. The headliner is pretty water-resistant and swells up like a balloon when that happens... :|

I got the water out by briskly accelerating and braking a few times (much to the amusement of my wife who was getting most of the water on her). Did I mention she already hated the car the day I bought it? Yeah, that didn't get any better after that happened...
Anyway, I then taped it shut to keep the water out and pulled the fuse so it can't be accidentally opened.
The plan is to fix the sunroof somewhere in the "future", which will probably mean it will have tape and no fuse 5 years from now....

__________________
"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)

Hmmm well if someone installed the factory antenna switch maybe the antenna is an OEM one. I just know that when my euro was ordered radio delete there wasn't even an antenna hole drilled some after market who ha that installed my radio opted to drill three holes for some odd amplified antenna..

Well I was going to say that you will probably need to disassemble the sunroof and degrease/clean and relube everything but...

If your leaking threw the headliner, big chance the sunroof pan is rusted out in one of the four corners. PITA it means headliner needs to come out and then you will drop the sun roof pan and then have to fix or find a replacement....I did in my euro...still um not "finished"

This is after I discovered the roof can easy be removed from outside the roof with no alignments needed on reinstall..

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Thanks for all the responses guys!

All right, so I pulled the antenna out of the car today. I removed the trunk liner that sits against the rear wall in the trunk. It can be removed by getting the two 8mm screws on the bottom and the 2 10mm screws on the top out.
I then unscrewed the left liner (8mm) and was able to pull it all out, since one of the previous owners had already broken off all the plastic clips.

I am pretty sure that this antenna is an aftermarket. It's stamped "Made in Germany", and looks brand new...

Anyway, when I got it out of the car I extended it by hand by spinning the gears by hand, and the mast is not stuck, rusted or bent.


Here's another picture of the antenna unit:


I checked the fuses, but they are all OK.

So, unfortunately I don't have a volt-meter (yet), but as far as I can tell the problem can be one of two:
1) The motor is broken
2) The antenna simply does not get power from the car

I have a 9V battery I can use to put power on the motor, but I don't know which pin is ground and which one is for power. Any of you guys know?



I am pretty sure this antenna will work, since the thing looks pretty darn new and the gears are all still nice and greased up.

Attached Thumbnails

     

__________________
"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)

All right, I consider my antenna problems to be over. I did not actually fix the antenna, but in it's current state it's good enough for me.
I took the antenna apart and removed the electric motor and control board, but left the big plastic gear that winds the antenna wire in there.
This gives more than enough resistance to keep the antenna up fully extended without it falling down, yet allows it to be easily manually raised and lowered.

Good enough for me. I didn't see anything wrong with the antenna. The control board looks fine, no broken or burned traces. I think the problem is with my car not giving power to the antenna, which I will test when I can borrow my buddy's volt meter next week.

I am keeping the motor and control board sealed in a plastic baggie, so this antenna can be put together and actually really fixed somewhere in the future, but for now I can finally listen to the radio!

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)