That annoying electric antenna, every time the radio was powered up/down. It wouldn't completely seat within the mast case, so about 8cm sticking up with the triple clunk as it tried to finish closing. I usually tend to the "don't/won't drive" first followed by annoying noises, followed by other. You can get the picture about me and noise...
Anyway I carefully removed the boot liner on the LHS. Nice brown (eek, but take note very user friendly) felt cover. It was a matter of removing the rear tail lamp inner panel and that has two knobs, which are just for bulb replacement, so far so good. Carefully sliding the liner out at various stages until of was free.
The power antenna was not an original MB job (my looks like the one below), but looking around on internet not a real cheap one either. You can get a new "universal" one on Ebay for as low at 40-50 AUD and even twice that amount is common fare. While I'm all for cheap, something like a noisy clunky replacement would probably detract from the overall feel.
Anyway I disconnected all the wires which were colour coded and easy to figure how to refit. The earth wire was removed easily. I think there should have been a bracket to stabilise the unit but there wasn't, yours may have one. Also the actual antenna lead which is thick black with a larger connector was not willing to budge. So I left that connected fearing it would simply break.
So now the unit was almost free, with only the nut located on the outside of the car around the mast. It was actually loose so I unscrewed it by hand. There are a handful of parts here you need to remember how this comes apart. The nut, a couple of chrome trim pieces, the rubber seal. Also on the inner side there is a semicircular toothed fixture to grip the fender and yet another washer under that.
Then it's a matter of sliding the unit down within the boot and there you have it. Since there are a number of units around yours may differ but I think mostly they are similar in how they work. Firstly I noticed the mast was very tight and wouldn't move easily up and down by hand. The masts generally have a long nylon whip which has teeth along one edge. I opened the cover on one side by undoing a single nut which exposed the gears. There is a electric motor and series of gears which the whip is fed through as the largest gear turns.
For my problem the motor was still working OK but the mechanism was stiff. I suspected some teeth were torn on the whip which could explain it's action. I full extended the mast and ran my finger along the whip but couldn't locate broken teeth, a good sign! I think what may have happened was the lack of grease caused the mask to become too stiff for the mechanism and at some point the whip jumped a few cogs. From then on the mechanism was unable to wind fully. What I did was re-grease the whip (with mast closed fully) then drawing the mast fully out the grease was fed into the mechanism via the whip. I then replaced the cover. I wasn't confident this had worked but I though I may as well reinstall the unit. If it didn't work I would be looking for another so in the meanwhile, at least the hole would be filled rather than leaving it open until the replacement was fitted.
To my surprise it worked. Well at least 3-4 times so far. Maybe I fixed it, maybe I didn't, time will tell, but I was happy with a couple of hours fiddling around and it working again...
Next job that creaking rear!
My saviors are here:
http://ozbenz.net/
