1994-1996 Power Antenna Motor Replacement

Let me start off by saying that this is very frustrating to do the first
time around. Don’t worry, and don’t lose your cool. I did this on
my 1994 coupe. It took me around four hours because I didn’t know what
I was doing and the other set of instructions didn’t detail how to
disconnect the wires, and I also discovered a small screw in my back tire.
Don’t let the length of the instructions scare you, I tried to very
throroughly describe the entire process step by step so you’re not left
wondering ”What?”
TOOLS:
GM Part #10156160
Torx wrench
set,
Car jack (Or a lift if you have one),
Phillips and Flat Head
Screwdrivers,
Socket Wrench Set (Both Metric and Standard. I don’t
remember all of the sizes, sorry.),
A light,
Jar of Vaseline,
Eye
protection (You’ll be under the car, there’s lots of built up dirt
that will fall onto your face),
About 1 meter of string.
and a
Punching bag (Just kidding, it’s not THAT frustrating 😀
)
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Open the hatch, turn off the radio, and then
disconnect the negative terminal on your battery.
2. This whole
process will be MUCH easier if you remove your wheel well, so first
you’ll want to remove that. Put your parking brake on and jack the car
up enough to expose the back three bolts in the wheel well and allow
enough room to remove them with a socket wrench. Use your Torx wrench set
to remove all of the bolts around the outer edge, and a socket wrench to
remove the three bolts in the back, behind the wheel. Remove the wheel
well and be careful of your paint. Set aside.
3. Next slide under
the back driver side so you can see the antenna motor. This is where the
light becomes necessary. You’ll see two bolts attached to a piece of
metal with a U shaped gap seperating the two bolts, one has a ground wire
running out from the bottom of it. Remove both of these bolts and move
the ground wire out of the way. Now it gets a bit more challenging. The
entire motor can be pulled down off of the metal holder you just unbolted
it from, so pull it down and let it hang, it won’t fall. Look up in
there and look where the wires coming off of the motor go (The ones
wrapped in wire loom). There’s a rubber grommet going into a housing,
the next step is to remove the grommet.
4. In the hatch area
you’ll notice that the upper part is wrapped in plastic trim, remove
the back part of the trim by first taking off the little handle that you
pull back on to hold the top in place when you store it in the back. It
should come off by pulling up on it. Now remove all six screws that hold
down the trim, and the screws that hold the side plastic trim on. That
allows you to completely remove the back trim piece, so do that. Be
careful with the plastic because it’s fairly brittle, don’t force
anything if it doesn’t want to move. Set aside. Now (at least it was
for me) the most challenging part:
5. Now you’ll remove the
rear cargo shade. There are two pins that hold it in on either side, and
they are spring loaded. You’ll notice that you can grab the shade and
push it or pull it towards you. Grab your Flathead screwdriver and push
the cargo shade away from you with your right hand, in your left hand is
the screwdriver. Push the screwdriver behind the spring loaded pin
located at the very end of the shade as if you were going to pry it, and
that’s what you’ll want to do–pry it away from you and towards the
other side. It doesn’t take much prying, but once you get it out of
there pull the side you pryed out towards the hood of the car, and then
the other side should come right out. Set aside. The reason you removed
this is so that you can access the hole that the rubber grommet is
in.
6. There should be two pieces of foam, between the foam
you’ll find the two wires that come out of the grommet, disconnect them
where they connect to the other wires.
7. Push out the grommet and
pull the wires through from underneath the car. Now go take a look at
your new antenna motor. Near the top there is a metal piece that has a
screw in it, holding down a metal ribbon. Remove the ribbon by unscrewing
the screw, keep the screw, but notice which of the two holes it is
attached to, you can mark it if you like. Now get under the car again so
you can see the motor and this time you’re going to need your Philips
Head screwdriver to remove the screw in the old one, just like the screw
you just took off of the new one. It’s hard, I found the best way is
to reach my arm through the wheel well over the metal support piece and
reach in while watching from the bottom, then I maneuvered the screwdriver
into the screw and used my other hand to hold the motor in place while I
unscrewed the screw enough to where I can reach in and undo it with my
hand so as not to drop it onto my face, leave the ribbon in there, it’s
not worth the trouble to install the new one; it works just the
same.
8. You’re almost there, there’s just one more thing
you need to remove from the top of the motor. On the other side of the
piece you just removed the screw from there’s a bolt holding something
into place. It took me a while to find a socket that fit because it was
loose to begin with, so it seemed like nothing fit. If it’s not loose
enough to remove with your fingers, you can simply use your socket wrench
to do this; by now the motor is loose enough to move around where you can
see and access the bolt very easily. Note that the washer around the
bolt is too large to put on the other side, it’s only possible to put
on the flat side, further note that it’s on the opposite side of the
screw, this makes it less complicated to reinstall the new one when you
get it in there. You can now remove the full motor.
9. With all
of that finished you’re now 70% complete, and from here you should know
enough about how things are arranged to knock out the installation in
about 15 minutes or so. Go ahead and put your new antenna motor in there,
but don’t mount it on the metal holder yet. You can either attach the
metal ribbon you detached from the old one onto the new one, or you can
attach the wires with the bolt you removed in step eight. I started with
the metal ribbon. From outside of the car reach in with your left arm and
find the metal ribbon, find the open end and put the screw in the hole,
and gently lay it against inside of the back bumper. (This can all be
done without looking, just feel around carefully.) Now with your right
hand under the car lift up the motor to where you can feel it with your
left hand, now grab the ribbon off of the back wall and make sure the
screw didn’t fall out (it shouldn’t) and proceed to finger tighten
it into the correct side of the antenna motor (You marked it like I
suggested in step seven, didn’t you? If not, don’t worry, just make
sure you’re not screwing it into the flat side, there should be a hump
in the middle.) Now screw it tight enough where it won’t come off.
Next, follow the same basic process with the bolt ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF
THE SCREW!! The only difference is once you get it finger tight you’ll
want to get under the car again to tighten the bolt with the socket
wrench. Great! You’re 80% done!
10. Now get your 1 meter of
string and secure it in your hatch area near the rubber grommet hole, I
tied one end to the body-colored clip that is above the foam. Now feed
the other end of the string down through the grommet hole, tie that end to
the ends of the two wires leading out of the rubber grommet on the new
motor. Now you can pull the string from the hatch area up and the wires
will come up with it. Once through the hole, remove the string from the
wires and reconnect the new wires to the connection wires between the
foam pieces. Now back under the car. Almost done!
11. Get your
jar of vaseline and open it. From underneath the car feel around for the
rubber grommet, once you find it remember where it is, put some vaseline
(about a dime sized dollop, it’s more than you need so you’ll want a
rag to wipe of excess) on your index finger and work your hand all the way
up to the grommet again trying not get vaseline anywhere on the way up.
Coat slanted (cone) part of the grommet in vaseline, don’t worry about
getting any on the base of it, but try not to. Wipe off excess vaseline
from your hands onto a towel, and from there take the towel up in there
and push the grommet into the hole as far as you can, this part is
difficult but you’ll want to slowly work the grommet into the hole.
This waterproofs it, so you’ll want the grommet all the way in, I found
that twisting it a little while pushing as hard as I could works, and once
you get it almost is you can ***GENTLY*** pull on the THICK wire from in
the hatch area. Make sure it’s the wire from the grommet, not the
speaker wire, since they’re similar in size. Don’t be afraid to
gently pull it in place, but DO NOT jerk it, and don’t think you can
pull the grommet all the way in from the start with the wire. You
won’t be able to. Check your progress regularly, when it is in you can
put the two wires between the foam pieces if you haven’t
already.
12. Now you’re ready for the final assembly. Go
underneath the car again and grab the antenna motor with one hand, and
line up the antenna (the tip of it) with the hole where the antenna goes
through and push it through the hole. Don’t push too hard, just enough
to get it in there, use your other hand to feel the progress. Once
it’s high enough to have room to put the motor on the mount, go ahead
and set it down on there. Find the two bolts you removed at the beginning
of this installation and bolt it up, but don’t forget the ground wire!
Remember, it went in the one that’s furthest away from the wall. Just
place the bolt through the hole in the ground wire and then into the hole
on the bottom of the motor. If you’re unsure as to whether it’s in
correctly or not, one of the holes is shiny and the other has a more dull
finish. The ground wire should go into the one with the dull finish.
Finger tighten the bolts and then tighten them with a socket wrench to
where the motor won’t move on its own, but you can straighten it out.
You don’t want the antenna going up at an akward angle. Once you have
it where it’s good, tighten it up.
13. Before you go any
further, go hook up your battery and turn the ignition all the way on, but
don’t start the engine. Turn on the radio and make sure the antenna
goes up. If it does, turn off the radio to make sure it goes all the way
down. If it doesn’t, make sure everything is connected. Once
everything’s working, disconnect the battery again.
14.
REINSTALLATION: Reinstall the wheel well, it should be very
straightforward; three bolts in back, torx screws around the edges. Make
sure the little metal clips are on the body where all of the torx screws
go into, and the larger torx screw goes into a support brace behind the
wheel well, so if you can’t get it to go in, make sure it’s screwing
into the support brace. Once full installed you can lower the car. Next
grab your cargo shade (This is where I ran into trouble.) Notice that the
pins on the ends of either side are somewhat triangle shaped. Now take a
look at where they go into when it’s installed. Okay, now take the
shade and put the end opposite of you into its hole, so that the pin goes
into it’s slot. Now, put your side down on the floor and slide it as
far as you can toward the back so that it’s almost in the slot. Now
just lift it a little, push the shade toward the other side, and push your
side back toward the rear. Don’t be afraid of it, just push and twist
a little until it goes in. If you start to hear cracking, stop because
it’s about to break. If it starts to break you should stop and take it
to a Corvette mechanic, but it shouldn’t get to that point. Finally
reinstall the plastic trim piece where it goes, a very straightforward
install. Put into place and make sure both flaps on the sides are
underneath the side trim pieces. Put in all screws and close the hatch.
Reconnect your battery and make sure everything is hunky dory. If so,
you’re done! Congratulations, it’s done. Clean up your tools and
enjoy your new motor.