Aerial switch

[capnmchl]

Did any E30's, or any BMW's come with aerial retract/extend switches?

I want to put an electric one back in, but I'd rather have it go up and down on my command.

[polsta]

easy to do, i came up with this mod myself, any e30 switch will work, i used a fog one as it has no decal, put it in the dash in the spare slot, wire the blue remote lead from stereo to ariel through it, i wired the sub through the other, so i could just extend the ariel when i want, and turn the sub off when i wanted

[capnmchl]

Take it you used a front/rear fog light switch?

My thought was the same if they didn't make an aerial switch.

I don't know the system very well though mind. Does the aerial use a seperate 12v feed for power? Can't imagine a little blue cable powering up the motor.

[polsta]

yes theres only 1 fog light switch the one with 2 square buttons, or you can use any e30 switch

no dont mess with the power feed, the blue "remote" wire, is a thin one that the stereo speaks to the ariel with, which is when the stereo powers up the ariel comes up and stays up, so you put that wire through the switch

[capnmchl]

You get single rear fog light switches

But yeah, that's what I thought. It looks like someones been at the aerial before so I'll have to get the ol'multimeter out.

Cheers for that.

[Brianmoooore]

The wire coming from an aftermarket radio might well be blue, but the colour of the aerial control wire put there by BMW is plain white.
OE blue wire to a radio is speed controlled volume.

[capnmchl]

That's handy information that the loom wire is white

[polsta]

wouldnt it depend if you have an original ariel or not ? i thought all remote wires were blue, blue on the stereo, was blue on my ariel in my is- although that wasnt the original, and on 3 different sub boxes with wiring ive had, the remote wires have been blue on all 3, so for me any remote wire ive ever come across has been blue

[Brianmoooore]

The cable going from the glove box to the boot of the car should be a red and a white parallel twin cable. The wire should have a two pin plug at the rear end, which connects to the OE aerial, and at the front the red should go to pin Z of the accessories socket, or more accurately, connect to a short red/yellow wire that goes to pin Z. I've never seen the white wire with any kind of connector on it at the front end - it's always been connected to the radio by various means.
The colours of these wires are not chosen at random, but to a colour code that is largely the same throughout all BMWs. A plain red wire is always permanent live, and a plain white wire is always going to be a wire that has 12 volts on it under certain conditions when the ignition switch is on.
If the aerial has been replaced, then, like on the radio, the colours are likely to be different, but the red and white parallel twin cable should still be there in the boot, even if the original plug has been chopped off.
Polsta - everything I post on the zone generally applies to facelift E30s. I don't 'do' pre facelift stuff at all. It's possible that pre facelift colours were different, although I've never heard that they are, and as I've said above, a blue wire wouldn't conform to BMWs colour codes.

Edit: I've just looked up an '84 loom in the wiki: http://www.e30zone.net/e30zonewiki/imag ... e30_84.pdf and it still shows the wire in question as plain white.

[polsta]

interesting info brian thanks, all i went by is the stereo end of the is (facelift) and the siring that was there

this is of interest to me because my pre facelift 325, is currently stripped out, it had had the ariel removed at some point, ive sourced another a genuine bmw one from adit, has a load of wire with it coiled around it, but not touched it- but i think its long enough to go from the ariel position to the stereo, i cant remember what colors, also i have no idea if theres a wire/loom you mention in the car to the boot area for that, ie-chopped or with plug

but also the actual stereo wiring in there was cowboy fed of the cig lighter live i think, so that was all removed and there was no actual stereo loom

so i have a stereo loom,removed from a 318is breaker i had, so when i re build the 325 thats going in, in to the socket on the left side by the glove box area, is that correct ? , but ive not really looked at the wiring in the 325, thats all to do when its all re built and a new dash and obc unit is also put in, along with the ariel and a blaupunkt memphis stereo and small amp , so all the wiring will be looked at and sorted out at that stage before the carpet and trim go back in etc