I am going to be redoing my antenna, it has been cut my the previous owner. I am going to take the cut factory antenna and connect it to a american antenna adapter by cutting the adapter and soldering(i know that is not spelled right) them both back together. Has anyone done this or know how to do this. My main problem is I am not quite sure how to get the head unit back out(it has the bendable tabs to hold it into place), also I am gonna has to do the soldering inside the car and more difficultly inside the headunit area since the cable is not long enough to pull out of there.
I have done this many times. It is a coaxial wire (2 wires inside that cable). There will be a braided outside shielding and the inside wire is probably a single solid core wire. It is absolutely neccessary to make sure these wires DO NOT touch each other. Make sure the wires arent touching and just solder the wires together. You can use heatshrink tubing or a quality electricians tape to make sure they dont touch when your done.
I usually use an old antenna or one of those adapters (i.e. BMW to Motorola) cut the BMW end off, and use the factory made Motorola end to plug into your new headunit. Doing it this way gives you a factory style end that probably wont go bad and it sounds like you need a little more antenna extension behind the dash anyways.
My 2 cents...
__________________
-There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
-If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under...Ronald Reagan
Yeah, that's a pretty delicate operation. Like dabull said, it's a two phase lead (pos+ and neg- are both inside one lead), and it's imperative the two don't touch. Are you saying the oem termination was just lopped off by the previous owner? If not you can get an antenna adaptor for like 12 bucks and would be much simpler than trying to change the termination.
As for removing your head unit (I assume it's aftermarket), it came with a set of keys (two) that fit one in each side. IF you don't have these, you can get them from the manufacturer, or a nice install shop might let you borrow a pair if you ask nicely.
When I installed my clarion hu I noticed the antenna wire had a bunch of black electrical tape on it. Me being stupid and not thinking I start to unwind it to see what is up and find that the thing has been completely cut through and the connector "head" is separated from the wire. There is not really any wires left that are long enough to get a good connection. I have the adapter and am going to cut it and cut into the factory wire(further up to get the full wires) and splice those two together. I called a bunch of install shops and this is what they said they would do.
I should also say that I am going to attempt this, if I can not do it I will have to take it to a shop. The main thing I am doing on Tuesday is removing the trunk cd changer. It is a aftermarket POS that doesn't work anyways, so I am gonna trace the wire back to the trunk from my dash and take it out. I just figured while I was doing the work I should attempt the radio. I am getting tired of only cds right now.
If the aftermarket changer is an FM modulated type, you may be in luck. They usually have a male and a female regular antenna end coming from a small silverish control box behind the dash somewhere, usually within 12-18 inches of the radio. The factory antenna usually plugs into that box. If this is so, you might not have to go through with your surgery. You can just unplug it from the FM mod box and plug it back in to your radio.
FM Mod cd changers supply their signal to the radio by creating their own FM signal that the radio picks up as an FM station. Usually down low on the dial, 87.9 - 91.1 roughly.
Good luck
__________________
-There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
-If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under...Ronald Reagan
It is a Fm modulated cd changer, but when i pulled out my stereo it used to have some reception although bad at times, and after i took the tape off and such has absolutely no reception. Plus the antenna lead in the dash had the european plug on it. I guess I will find out tomorrow though. Thanks for the posts guys.
I removed my cd changer(Fm modulated), had to remove the lower part of the dash(bentley manual has all pics of everything, but i did not have this yet i had the Chilton and it had nothing). Took me a lot longer than it should have. Found the wire going to the trunk for the actual changer and ended up cutting it in places to make it easier to pull out. There is still a piece under the carpet somewhere inbetween the front kick panel to the back side panel.
There was a small modulator box in the dash that i left in there for now.
I still did not get the antenna working, but i have an appointment tomorrow to have a professional pull my stereo out and cut the antenna wire back and solder it to a cut end of the antenna adapter wire. Said it would be like $15 and maybe 30 minutes. I figure that is better than me doing it for like 2 hours that it would take me.
If they are going to do it for $15, then by all means let them do it, thats pretty inexpensive (i hate the word cheap ). Plus they should warranty their work if they are a reputable shop. The 30 min is about right, start to finish
__________________
-There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary, and those who do not.
-If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under...Ronald Reagan
alright it took all of like 15 minutes, i watched the guy and it was not that big of a deal but he does this constantly, it would have taken me like 2 hours to figure it out. Cost me $15 even and now i get to listen to what other people listen to......as much as i don't want to admit it i missed the radio.....was getting bored of having to choose my own music with my cds.
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