Well a simple mast change for the power antenna turned into a nightmare! The part was only $13 and its supposed to be very easy and in theory it is. BUT, there were a few asterix's on the instructions and every single one happened to mine. After removing the weird looking nut, you turn the radio on pull the old unit out. Well it was stuck in there. Corroded and wouldn't move. Finally I cut the old one at the widest tube, put a drill bit in there and clamped on some vice grips so I could knock on it. It came out.

Then they tell you match up the plastic cable with the teeth on it and make sure they are same length as the old one. If the old one is shorter, it means that a piece is broken off inside the motor. YEP, mine was shorter. Remove the motor unit in the trunk and get the broken piece out, reinstall, and now the new one one is having problems feeding in. I feel like a 3 armed monkee trying to turn the radio on and run back and feed the cable!

Finally got it fed and the new one won't go all the way down? The stiffening sleeve doesn't seem to fit inside the tube? Ah! Asterix #3. If the stiffener sleeve does fit in the tube, that means the old sleeve is corroded inside the tube and you need to drill it out with a 27/64th bit. Yep, it sure is. Pull it all apart again. Drill the freakin old sleeve out and clean all the chips out of the feed mechamism and reinstall. It works now but I got to tell ya if it ever breaks again I'll just leave it!

 

I went to pull a part with a list for 3 months and I finally found an OEM one off another 94 or 95. Those universal or *some fitment required* things never work right,

 

$13.00? it must be some cheap eBay chinese ****, because a mast from Honda is about $50.00

 

Everything from Honda is 3 times what it should be. These guys have OEM stuff at reasonable prices. Mine for a 95 Accord was less than I expected. Most of the other years are in the $23 range. It was exactly the same as the original.
http://www.antennamastsrus.com/Honda/Honda%20Main.htm

 

You gotta pull the motor unit out and take it apart. It's a huge pain in the ***, and be careful because the brushes can fall out and are a headache to put back in. But it's fairly simple as far as car projects go. OEM is your best bet, junkyard hop. Honda used the same power antenna units for ALL of it's vehicles. My replacement came off of a 91 accord coupe, into a 94 works great.

That Ebay china stuff alot of times is made out of spec, or to poor tolerances. I know one of the engineers for HASport and he told me the first time they had their mounts made over there they were manufactured backwards.

 

That's good info Chikin. Nice to know they used the same units on all those models. My motor was in pretty good shape. I regreased with white lith and cleaned out the old broken whip and some chips out of the feed tube. My biggest problem was actually that feed tube had the old sleeve corroded in there so the new mast sleeve would not go down inside the tube. Drilling it out (chrome plated brass) was super pain in the butt. The antenna wire was also "welded" the feed tube by corrosion and forced me to drill out the old sleeve from inside the trunk versus a proper vise on the bench job. It was slow going cause i didn't wanna ruin that tube. Works fine now but took wayyyy to long!

 

not sure who you "know" at Hasport
our mounts are made in USA

Someone in China copied our mounts and the copies came out backwards

 

They sell the aftermarket units at auto parts stores. What I did was use some connectors to wire the wires over and then take the top of the oem unit off where it enters the body and put them on the aftermarket unit so that it looks like it's a complete oem unit. Nobody knows the difference.