how in the world do you get to the power antenna motor on my 1983 rx 7 and where can i get 1 if its bad?

 

You need to pull the plastic finish panel inside the hatch. The following link will take you to the online FSMs. Welcome to the forum.

http://www.wankel.net/~krwright/cars/rx7/manuals.html

 

To get to the antenna motor open the rear lid and move the vertical carpeting on the passenger side out of the way so you can remove the access panel under the carpeting.When you reach into the hole you can touch the antenna motor and feel the mounting nuts holding it in place. You can also find the antenna connector and the electrical connector. If the antenna mast won't retract you'll have to cut it off. In addition to the two mounting nuts you have to undo the large chrome trim nut on the fender.

Then comes the fun part: withdrawing the motor thru the access hole. heh heh heh. I guess it's like delivering a baby. And that's the easy part! The hard part is putting the baby back! How many baby doctors can do that?

Getting an OEM motor may be prohibitively expensive and probably any junkyard motor doesn't work. So you have to get a standard 'import' motor (Radio Shack used to have a good one, but I think I got the last 3 at the Tandy warehouse) and then re-configure the mounting bracket. They may have something close at your autostore.

Then you put the baby back in momma!

 

I disassembled mine to remove it through the interior opening. Afterwards, I was told that you can pull it out through the tail light opening.






.

 

^^ sounds a lot easier, but not as fun as "putting the baby back in"

 

yeah u can pull it out the tail light. Way easier. Only like 3 bolts. Figuring out the angle was my worst experience with it. My nieghbor came by say to tilt it and slide foward and out and bam it came out! i was getting to complicated with it.

 

I've done it through the tailight, too (there's about 6-8 10mm nuts to remove, then push it clear), and the advantage is that you can replace the seal molding at this time, which is very good because these cars are old, the molding is leaky, and exhaust gas leaks into the car and puts the driver to sleep and then he crashes and it's a hell of a mess!

 

I replaced mine through the tail light opening, after trying forever to figure
out how to remove it from inside. Wasn't too bad. The problem came with installing the new one. There was no way it was going to fit the original bracket, so I ended up fabricating a bracket using plumbers tape. It tested my sense of humor, but it worked.

 

Yeah, I dismount the bracket from the old motor and then re-shape it for the new one. Usually have to drill out a hole at the bottom for the water drain.