Electric car aerial sticking

VanMan2007

I'm pretty sure it's due to all the oil & dirt gunked up on it, which I've neglected to clean. Have tried WD40, but no luck in getting it to fully extend. The whole "stack" comes out, with just the top section extended. And it all retracts fine. I'm sure if I could get all sections to fully extend, I could clean and oil it and it would be fine.

Anyone got any tips for just winkling out each section? A very fine pin, maybe? Or can it be extended manually?

Also, what is the best type of oil to use on this? And the best type of cleaning agent to clean off the gunk?

Thanks guys.

(Update: since original post, got a second section to come out, probably due to more WD40 application.)

rodenal

What kind of car? I had problems with the electric aerial in a mk2 mr2 a couple of years ago, tried cleaning it to no avail - eventually got it to extend but it wouldn't reliably go down and up.

Maplins done a very similar aerial for a tenner that pretty much fitted exactly in the recess (I just had to use the original seat from memory), ended up just buying that and wiring it up, the only down side was it extended as soon as the head unit was turned on rather than when only the tuner was on as it lacked the third control wire. No big deal though really

What you could maybe do with your existing one is send voltage to the control wire so it keeps trying to extend and see if you can help it on its way up initially then clean it out - you might burn the motor out doing this though.

VanMan2007

Thanks rodenal,

It's a Mazda Xedos. The aerial (usually) extends when the stereo is switched to "tuner" option. I don't know if it keeps trying, or stops when the blockage is detected. I only noticed it yesterday.