ray green

iTrader: (14)

OK I've been living with this for about the last 6 months and I'm hoping you guys will believe me when I say I'm not crazy (might be to late to convince some).

Here's the situation, I'd love to have an explanation.

The car is an 84 GSL (the White One) with 168,000+ miles on it and it has never run better since I got it about three years ago with 83,000 miles on it. At that time I installed a radioshack aftermarket power antenna, the kind made famous by Jim Rothe (Replacing a Power Antenna; http://www.jimrothe.com/mazda/antenna/index.html) and it worked fine for about three years. But then about six months ago, every once in awhile, the antenna mast wouldn't go down when the car or radio was turned off - the electric motor would run for the alloted time, but the telescoping mast would not come down. I discovered after awhile that if I got out of the car first and slipped the bottom furrel of the mast down into the socket first, it would retract normally. This is what I now do when parking in questionable neighborhoods. It got progressively worse over the next few months and now it pretty much doesn't go down without help most of the time (but see below).

Here's the weird part that I'd love to have an explanation for.

This only happens when I go someplace, like every morning when I go to work, a 55 mile commute into Atlanta. When I park in the parking lot at work, a large asphalt lot with lots of sun, the antenna never goes down and I have to get out and slip the bottom furrel down (because of some of my students, who might want revenge). OK, get a new antenna you say.

But here's the really weird part. Whenever I get home from work and park in my gravel driveway, the antenna goes down just fine, every friggin' time, without me getting out of the car. Now I'm not real spiritual and as a scientist, I lean towards the rational, but this makes absolutely no sense to me. That's why I've waited for six months, watching this happen day in and day out, before reporting it to the world's foremost 1st gen RX-7 experts and asking for help (you'd think I was crazy otherwise, right?)

The White One is an independent soul and she has been known to give me fits before, but this one I really don't understand. What is she trying to tell me??

So you guys fixed Docs steering issue a little while back, which gives me hope that at least one of you has seen this before or can get inside the mind of the White One and tell me what's going on.

Much thanks in advance for your inspired solutions.

Jeezus

iTrader: (4)

So going to work it stops, and coming home it works? When you push the bottom furrel down, how much resistance is there, and does it grind?

EDIT: Reason my asking is my SA did the same thing, I ended up spraying some WD40 down the mast, and turn the radio on and off a few times to work it through.

ray green

iTrader: (14)

I tried the lube trick, sprayed the mast with WD 40, no difference, then with white lithium grease, no difference. After that I cleaned up the mess, no difference. There's no grinding or resistance when you push that bottom furrel down, it just moves down about 1/8 inch and engages.

LongDuck

Demons?

Seriously, if it's just the ferrule that you have to push down, maybe the mast has fallen internally and you should pull it from inside the trunk space, remove the mechanism, inspect, and reinstall. I'm betting the top of the ferrule is allowing the motor assembly to move around in there and at some angles (or temps, who knows!?) allowing the motor gear to make contact with the flexible wire that runs the antenna up and down.

Weird.

lascelles

Heat expansion
Even in Georgia after sitting in the sun all day, the metal parts have expanded from the heat.

Not everything has the rate of expansion.
Try Sat. morning +Gravel vs. Sat. afternoon + Gravel. Or stop for a coldone on the way home and park on the pavement.

t_g_farrell

iTrader: (1)

Ray its wear. These thing usually a nylon strap that has small gear teeth on it. The
motor sandwiches this thing and drives it up and down via the teeth on the strap.
When it goes up, it usually overruns the motor a bit every time. This starts to wear
the teeth down and always at the same spot at the end. Over time it starts to not
engage when you got to put it back down.

In your case I think this is happening or has started happening. As lascelles has
suggested heat expansion is making it appear flaky. That and the combination of
the bouncy entrance to your driveway helps it go down when you get home. Do the
experiment lascelles suggested, I think he's right on the money.

Thats the problem with these automatic lower and raise when the car/radio turns
off. Shortens the life of these things 10 fold. Thats why SAs are better, they only
work manually, so you only raise and lower it when needed

ray green

iTrader: (14)

"the bouncy entrance to your driveway"

Bingo that's it Tim, my drive is about 100 yards long, the jiggle of the gravel is probably just what that bottom furrel needs to jiggle it back down in its socket. I don't think heat has much to do with it since I've already done lascelles experiment on several occasions when I stop at homedepot for stuff on the way home, which is about 1/2 of the 55 mile trip. The mast always stays up in the homedepot lot too. Also this has been happening since last fall, through the winter and into this summer at all different temperatures and it still happens exactly the same way - it goes down when I get home.

Damn you guys are smart.