Antenna 76 300D

[doppx006]

My antenna worked last week perfectly, now this week it will not go up, and I can not hear the motor at all, next step is to do process of elimination finding out if it is the switch, motor, or gearing or something inbetween. I opened up the housing for it, you guys should really open that thing up and vacuum out some of the dirt and rust, quite amazing actually.

[300SDog]

Never seen an original Hirschmann antenna motor that actually worked.

1974 280/8 w114 actually had the tenna motor mounted in the passenger side front wheelwell exposed to salt and weather. The antenna motor was a petrified fossil when I bought the car.

Previous owner had replaced the mast with an ordinary radio shack fixed length, single piece steel whip antenna that worked fine. Apparently you can attack the problem and replace the mast alone by removing the collar on top of the fender.

[Tristar1959]

This may sound silly, at first - but does the actual radio itself power up or not?
Some models have a tiny inline fuse behind the radio which provides power to both radio and (via the on-off switch of the radio) to the antenna -
if yours used to raise when you turned the radio on, and lower when you turned it or the ignition off, and you also don't have power to it, you may need to pull the radio to get at the fuse. Otherwise, as you've discovered, that space behind the plastic panel is a lovely dirt and moisture collector - and I'd look for power to the plug, before pulling the antenna itself...
The antenna mechanism also has a "park" off switch, similar in operation to windshield wiper motors, which may have remained in the "off"/open position the last time it went down. You can TRY pulling up on it just a tad, to see if you can reset that.