1978 eldorado power antenna drive cable replacement

[J. Doogla]

On my 78 biarittz, I believe the antenna drive cable is broken. After cleaning the electrical connections, the antenna motor runs with the up/down switch on the dash, but the antenna doesnt raise or lower. However, I can pull the mast up, or push it down, by hand. Is the nylon cable fairly easy to replace? I have the service manuals for the car, but they're an hour away. I found a replacement cable online, but the company specifically states "This Cable will NOT COME with written instructions. We don't support installation help with this part." and that attitude turns me off instantly, just because. But if it's my only option, I guess they have me over a barrel. I have a factory cb, with a good factory mast, I dont want to replace it with some random universal turd of an item.

[Cadman-iac]

J,
Can you get a picture of it so we can see what you are working with?

[J. Doogla]

I can get pictures during dayshine hours.
Factory 1978 eldorado power antenna assembly.

[cadillactim]

I've rebuilt several of these antennas. Couple of issues: First, the tip is not screwed on, but staked. So you have to cut the tip off, put threads on the last section and have another tip that will screw on if you are going to reuse the top section. Now if you are getting a replacement cable that includes the top section of the antenna you are okay, just need to get a replacement tip.

Second, when the cable breaks it is inside of the spool. Most of the time there is a small part of it sticking out. Just use a pair of needle nose pliers to grab it and pull it out.

The rest is pretty easy.

[J. Doogla]

The replacement I've found has the uppermost piece of last attached to the nylon cable. Bummer I have to cant reuse the original tip though.

[J. Doogla]

The service manual was a bit of a dud on this, at least for the eldorado.
Anyway...
I took everything apart. The uppermost section of my antenna might have already been replaced, because the tip was threaded on. The cable had broken off about 2" below the crimp on the upper mast. So I cut off the broken tail, drilled the remnants out of the crimped "barrel" and reinstalled the cable the the barrel on the mast, and made new crimp points. And now my antenna works like a charm, fully extends and fully retracts. This, of course, after I had to disassemble the motor, fish the cable out of the spool, screw around with the timing of the motor and red gear, and the electrical contact points.
The cable had no other cracks or weak spots. So hopefully it will work for a while.

[Cadman-iac]

J.,

   Glad to hear you got it working again.  I've looked at how the factory attached the cable to the mast piece, and I've wondered if it was possible to do just what you did. I have one antenna that has the cable separated from the mast, I might try it out now.

Rick

[J. Doogla]

I wasn't able to replicate exactly what the factory did, as far as crimp points. But what I ended up with seems to hold just as well, and is serviceable if need be. It also looked like the cable in my antenna was a bit longer than needs, I assume to make sure nothing got bound up on either extreme.

[Cadman-iac]

  That's very good to know, thanks for posting this. It'll help a lot if someone else has the same issue and wants to give it a try.  I know I'll be trying it sometime.