1998 Maxima - Power Antenna Mast replacement

[deyab]

There's plenty of posts in this topic, and I got good information to be able to do this successfully. I did notice that a lot of people seem to have difficulty with extracting the old antenna from the housing containing the motor - some simply give up (according to those posts). This was the case with me as well, but I was able to successfully extract the mast to put in a new one. Thought I would post a few pictures:

Entire assembly outside, on the floor, with two pieces sticking out:

Problem is, it just won't come out. Took a good 10 minutes of wiggling with a needle nose pliers (which kept slipping) to half destroy it and finally take it out. I took the entire thing out of the car so I can get a good grip on the sucker and apply as much force I wanted without causing damage to the car or paint. Oh, I also used a dremmel tool to cut up the top of the tube a bit to get good grip with my cheap pliers

Success:

Motor housing ready to go back in:

[lino]

It's always nice when someone shares things like this. I had a little trouble replacing my antenna mast on my Q45 and I finally got it done and now it doesn't go all the way down unless I turn the stereo on and off repeatedly which ends up retracting the antenna a little each time until it finally retracts fully. It goes up smoothly though. My mast is an genuine part too.

[jltibbs]

I simply made sure that my antenna mast was all the way down then unplugged the motor. I have a little trouble picking up lower frequency stations, but the higher ones are just fine.