Had the nylon/plastic cord on my antenna break. Don't know how it happened - came that way from PO. So, how to fix without forking over the $115 for entire motor assembly. Talked to Dan, who said an older (?) Camry had similar assembly and could order the drum and cord to try....and it worked, for a whopping $12. Hopefully Dan will chime in here with the part and maybe if it works for other model year besides 96. [Part #: 86327-22211]
Here's what I did:
1. Finagle antenna out of PS fender well by holding mouth just right.
2. Remove 2 nuts and one tiny nut holding housing together.
3. Once this is off, you can see the metal drum that the cord attaches to (see pic). This drum pops of with cord attached.
4. Remove old cord w/drum from antenna. (for some reason this was difficult on mine - think it may have something to do with why it broke.)
5. [Gets tricky now] The cord is crimped along the inner diameter of the new drum - DON'T DO THIS YET
6. PITA: Feed cord thru antenna assembly. What finally worked: feeding from top of antenna until it caught close to the motor. Then sticking old cord in from bottom. It knocked or freed something that allowed the new cord to come all the way thru.
This was way harder than it should have been. Feeding it up from the bottom (starting with the nut on end) caused it to catch about 2 inches from the top of the tube attached to the motor. Feeding it from the top caused it to catch an inch from coming out of the bottom. Must've been some kind of bottle-neck. For some reason, I could feed the cord backward just fine.
7. Crimp new cord to new drum.
8. Reassemble.
And now it works.
Only problem is it won't retract all the way (3 inches or so). It must be that this camry antenna cord is 3 inches longer than the cruiser's. If I ever take it apart again, I'll try and uncrimp the cord and cut some of it off. It does raise the antenna fully.
Here's what I did:
1. Finagle antenna out of PS fender well by holding mouth just right.
2. Remove 2 nuts and one tiny nut holding housing together.
3. Once this is off, you can see the metal drum that the cord attaches to (see pic). This drum pops of with cord attached.
4. Remove old cord w/drum from antenna. (for some reason this was difficult on mine - think it may have something to do with why it broke.)
5. [Gets tricky now] The cord is crimped along the inner diameter of the new drum - DON'T DO THIS YET
6. PITA: Feed cord thru antenna assembly. What finally worked: feeding from top of antenna until it caught close to the motor. Then sticking old cord in from bottom. It knocked or freed something that allowed the new cord to come all the way thru.
This was way harder than it should have been. Feeding it up from the bottom (starting with the nut on end) caused it to catch about 2 inches from the top of the tube attached to the motor. Feeding it from the top caused it to catch an inch from coming out of the bottom. Must've been some kind of bottle-neck. For some reason, I could feed the cord backward just fine.
7. Crimp new cord to new drum.
8. Reassemble.
And now it works.
Only problem is it won't retract all the way (3 inches or so). It must be that this camry antenna cord is 3 inches longer than the cruiser's. If I ever take it apart again, I'll try and uncrimp the cord and cut some of it off. It does raise the antenna fully.
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