URGENT-REAR ANTENNA NOT POWERING UP/DOWN-WHICH WIRES??

[irish-e30]

URGENT AS IM WORKING ON THIS RIGHT NOW
Hi,

I just bought this car so I dont know the history. But the rear antenna will not go up. I pulled out the stereo and the antenna is plugged into the back of the stereo. I looked at the antenna and it doesnt look like its damaged in any way. I ended up just pulling it up out of its housing to receive fm stereo in the meantime, but id really like to get it working, ie powering up and down. Can anyone help me on this problem. Whats the best way to tackle it?

Could it be a relay?
Could it be a fuse?
If the motor is ceased or stopped working can it be fixed?

As much info needed as possible on this ie relay locators etc etc I dont notice any noise turning on and off the car so its not like its stuck or anything.

Thanks !!!
J

[Chris-W]

When you say it's plugged in to the back of the head unit, just to confirm you do mean there is a blue (usually) wire connected to it?

If so, best to check the connections at the aerial unit itself.

Be careful operating the aerial manuall in the mean time as you may damage the toothed belt.

[GDBN]

The power wire to the aerial is white ... normally a blue one from the stereo. Check they are connected.
Is the mast bent ? This will prevent it from going up and down - replacement mast takes about 2 minutes to change.

G

[GDBN]

Sorry .. forgot to add that is if it is an original Hirshmann.
Motors on them are bulletproof.

[irish-e30]

no the aerial was connected via a black cable only into the aerial socket

[Chris-W]

There you go then. There's a wire from the aerial (blue or white) which goes to the loom on the head unit from which it gets it's juice.

[geo1400]

Yeh I'd agree with that, check the motor on the ariel and see if the same wires coming out are going into the headunit, if there's one missing by the time it reaches the headunit thats your problem.

Cheers

[Brianmoooore]

OE wiring is a red wire that provides power to the aerial motor, and a white wire which carries a control signal. Open circuit = aerial down; 12V+ = aerial up.
The white and red wires are in the form of a parallel twin figure 8 cross section cable. The red wire should come from pin Z (top left) of the accessories socket, via fuse 28, and the white wire should normally go to the radio.

[irish-e30]

Thanks alot lads ill check this all out thanks again for the imput.

[irish-e30]

ok im back on the case of this one.

I dont think the problem is the aerial, I checked the power leads to the antenna in the rear, a red one and a white one. there is no power (DC) detected from these wires at the rear.

At the moment i dont know where to trace these leads to, is there a relay in the front left area of the passenger side or where do I trace the red and white leads to?

Fuse 28 is fine, so somewhere in between theres a problem. I also found an old antenna lead and blue wire snipped above the glove box in the meantime. A different antenna lead is plugged into the stereo.

Strange....again another issue from previous owners!!

[Brianmoooore]

Red lead should come from the top left socket of the accessories socket at the back of the glovebox, and the white wire should come from the radio or an ignition switched supply, depending on whether the aerial is arranged to go up when the radio is switched on, or when the ignition is switched on.

[irish-e30]

Yep brian, i kinda have an idea where the red is going but ive no clue where exactly the white will plug into. looking at past threads it says the ISO connector, is it fairly straight forward where the white connects in on the ISO connector??

Hey she passed the MOT !!!!

[Brianmoooore]

Not really familiar with the ISO connector. Only the very latest touring E30s came with them.

[irish-e30]

Can someone tell me if this is correct for testing the power antenna motor

On the power antenna there are 3 leads, one red, one green and one black (ground)
I have took the antenna out of the car and im trying to test it with a car battery, im connecting the battery (-) to the green lead, and the battery (+) to the red lead. im not bothering with the black ground.

The power antenna is making a high pitched buzzing sound, but nothing is happening, am i even doing this right???? Or do i connect the Battery (-) and (+) to the red input into the antenna and leave the green and black alone???

Or can somebody tell me how?



The wires on the power antenna (black is ground)

as i realise one source is meant to be the power supply (red?) and one acts as a trigger (green???) so since they are not in the car how will i test it???

[Brianmoooore]

I would guess that black = batt neg., red = batt pos., and green = trigger (open circuit, antenna down; 12 volts +, antenna up), but since this is an aftermarket antenna, it is only a guess!

[irish-e30]

The black was connected to the chassis of the car so thats why i was guessing its earth. How will i test the antenna outside of the car??? IE what will act as a trigger?

When I connected the red of antenna to positive of battery and the green of antenna to negative of battery all i got was a buzzing noise....no movement in the motor. any ideas??

Motor generally looks good so im not willing to give up on it yet. Is it possible that it needs two sources of +12V DC to the red leads? and just ignore the negative?? im no electical whiz so please throw some ideas in here!

[Brianmoooore]

If you connect black to battery negative and touch both the red and the green against the battery positive, I would expect the antenna mast to extend. If you keep the red connected, but disconnect the green, I would then expect it to lose up again.

[irish-e30]

Ok brian I appreciate that let me give that a whack!!

[irish-e30]

Brian,

Worked a charm!!! previous muppet had that black connected into the side bracket, to be fair there was a screw in place originally for that,....... either way time to check the wiring now that the motor is 100%

[irish-e30]

Ok,

Found the problem, the red and white power supply was cut up under the glove box, next question is

Red goes into the power accessories outlet, but where? (See Picture1)


White goes into the back of the car stereo, is is into the blue outlet you see pointed out by the screwdriver in picture 2??


PICTURE 1


PICTURE 2

Any ideas please let me know asap as im workin on this right now

[irish-e30]

The red wire should come from pin Z (top left) of the accessories socket, via fuse 28, and the white wire should normally go to the radio.

There are 2 boxes in Picture 1, is it the one on the left? and the top left outlet??? are we sure on this?
Now that its located does it look any different Brian??

RED LEAD INFO:
I just looked and the outlet on the left in picture 1 has numbered outlets, im assuming these are relative to the numbers of the fuses, i tested outlet 28 by placing the red pointer of the multimeter in the outlet with the car running. i didnt touch black off anything. I got a reading of zero on the multimeter so theres no 12V DC from there. Am i even doing this right ???

WHITE LEAD INFO:
I dont know where the white lead is meant to go on the radio unit, no antenna was even plugged in, i found the antenna lead under the wires in the glove box, is was accompanied by a blue wire which was cut.

On the radio itself you will see the wiring, i tested the light blue and dark blue leads, and there was no DC voltage from them, (at least i think not) when i plug the antenna into the blue outlet marked by the screwdriver in the picture, the radio just goes dead and wont switch back on til it is removed.

Bit lost here!

[irish-e30]

Bump!! need help!!

Red wire to the aerial comes from the top left pin of the accessories socket, next to the radio socket.
The white wire from the aerial goes to the ISO connector.

Brian, i looked at mine (picture 1), there are two seperate outlets if you like, those on the left, numbered 1-30 and those on the right, NO IDEA WHAT THE OUTLET BOX ON THE RIGHT IS FOR.



As for the stereo, ive marked them as follows,

1 = blue outlet no idea what this is for but when i plug antenna in here stereo switches off

2= unknown

3= marked AMP 3.0 Amp output!!!

[Brianmoooore]

The accessories socket is the one on the right!!!
Z is the top left with two red/yellow wires going to it. The left hand one of these looks like it ends in a free plug. This is where the red antenna wire goes.
The white (green) wire from the aerial goes to the radio - to whatever wire the radio instructions say.
If the instructions don't say, then connect a 5W 12 volt bulb between earth and any spare wires until you find one where the bulb lights when you turn the radio on. DON'T USE A METER.
IIRC, blue is used for speed related volume control. Output for this is a socket on the back of the cluster just below the speedo.

[irish-e30]

excellent!!! legend brian!!

[irish-e30]

Done and dusted!!!!

Thanks Brian, worked fine using your light bulb idea rather than the multimeter.

Works!!!

Thanks again Brian, royalratch and everyone else !!