Gen II factory power antenna retrofit

[Joe Dirt]

She's welded and documented... After the new warrantied engine at 34,000 miles.

This is SHO #9 for me, I can't stop buying these damn things!

 

[Magicland]

Once you get past that little cam issue that Ford swears doesn't exist, they're pretty solid. Just saw a white '97 SHO on ebay with 99K, $1000 with a day left. VERY tempting, but I've got 3 cars sitting in the driveway now, and I'm the only one in the family who drives...

I'm hoping that antenna mast gets here tomorrow while the good weather holds.

 

[Magicland]

Played around with this mess today, didn't get any progress. I can't seem to get the power antenna motor to run. I've got the same connector you do behind the kick panel (mine originally had the power antenna), there's a disconnect, but the wires (same colors) keep running to the back where all the controls are. I did find an orange/lt. blue wire behind the kick panel as well, one end coming from the back, and the other running up somewhere behind the dash (though I can't find it anywhere near the radio).

I disconnected the wires going to the power antenna to check for voltages. Tried reading both wires to ground, but didn't get any voltage reading on either of them, with car on or off. Of course, this could just mean that something is disconnected in the rear (I really don't want to have to pull off the rear panel again, I had enough of that when I wired up the sub).

I cut the orange/lt. blue wire, and tried connecting each end separately to the antenna wire from my kenwood, neither triggered the motor (also tried connecting both ends of the orange/lt. blue wire together with the antenna wire from the kenwood, no difference).

I tried connecting the antenna wire to one of the leads running to the motor, and +12v to the other lead, but that didn't work either.

Since the antenna wire from the kenwood puts out +12v, I'm assuming there is some sort of relay somewhere which is kicked on when the deck turns on, and off when it goes off (or perhaps reverses polarity, and the motor also has a relay which turns itself off once the mast is either all the way up or all the way down).

 

[Magicland]

Okay, an update. After much, much googling, I've found the following. Apparantly the two wires which go to the Explorer's power antenna come off of some sort of relay, and the antenna is grounded to the chassis. If power is applied to the red wire, the antenna should go up. If power is applied to the other wire, the antenna should come down.

Unfortunately, this isn't happening with mine, so it looks like the motor might be shot (oh, joy).

For those attempting a retrofit, a simple SPDT relay should do the trick. Connect the antenna trigger from your HU to one of the coil inputs (usually 85 and 86), and connect the other to ground (if the relay doesn't contain a diode, it won't matter which one is positive and which is negative). Then connect a +12v source to the "common" terminal of the relay (usually 30), and connect the NC terminal (87a) to the green/yellow wire, and the NO terminal (87) to the red wire. It might be prudent to use a switched +12v source for the power, so there's no chance of a malfunction draining your battery when there's no key in the ignition

When there's no power from your HU's antenna trigger, the green/yellow wire gets connected to +12v, powering down the antenna. When you power on your HU, +12v powers up the relay, connecting +12v to the red wire, powering up your antenna. At least in theory. I believe the motor turns itself off when the antenna is either fully up or fully down.

 

[Joe Dirt]

Thanks for the updates- do you think maybe you buzzed something in the morot testing it, a fuse/relay, or that it was bad from the start?

 

[Magicland]

I'm pretty sure I didn't fry anything, though early on in the testing I did think I heard the motor run briefly while I was sorting through the wires. This was before I'd disconnected anything or run a wire down from the HU's antenna trigger to the kickpanel, almost as if there was a short (or break) somewhere which either unshorted or closed while moving the wires. I wasn't able to reproduce this.

In theory I should have gotten +12v on the green/yellow wire on the non-antenna side of the connector without the HU's antenna wire connected to anything, but I wasn't reading anything. Of course, that's supposing that all the wiring was connected up correctly still in behind the rear panel, which might not be the case as I know the RCU was bypassed by a previous owner (which I found out the last time I pulled that darned panel off while wiring up the sub).

However, when I applied the +12v trigger wire from the kenwood HU to one side of the antenna side of the connector, I should have gotten some action out of the motor, provided its working correctly (ie., still grounded, not jammed with the broken end of the old mast, etc.). The old mast's plastic teethed part was broken, so that may be the cause of my problem (or my motor might just be shot). Either way, I'm going to have to figure out how to access the motor, which seems to be hidden away somewhere under the fender. I imagine you've done this while removing the power antenna from the donor vehicle. Hopefully it isn't too much of a PITA...

This thread here: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/newbie/36426-question-regarding-power-antenna.html
proved to be a big help in figuring out what was supposed to be going on, and verified that providing power to the antenna motor shouldn't fry it.

 

[Joe Dirt]

Either way, the motor should run, whether there are pieces of the toothed portion of the stem is irrelevant- it should still run for you. If you pull the inner fender liner/splash shield off of the fender, you will have complete access to the motor. I'd pull it out of the truck, it's easier to work with it that way... Nothing is hidden, I pulled it out in 5 minutes after removing the splash shield. Not sure why some say you have to remove the fender, becuase you don't. You only need to remove the liner.