Antenna

Yesterday I have been "working" on the XJS. A while ago I managed to get ahold of the time period official Jaguar cassette radio. More on that in a different upcoming blog. As I was trying to connect it up I of course had to work out all the wiring and connectors as the previous owner had been messing around. One wire I was not sure about was the one needed for the Antenna. There were two wires with the same color code (white/red). After measuring them I figured out one of them was 12V from the ignition. So when hooking all up the radio worked. But the antenna did not work, sigh. So I left it and looked into it yesterday. When working previously in the trunk I had already noticed the antenna motor was hanging loose and not firmly attached to the frame:

When further looking into the wiring I could see there was also a white/red wire going into the relais. So that was the correct wire. A simple check of the wire with a fuseboxholder learned me it was without fuse. That explains. Clearly they have been messing with this as well. When placing a fuse and connecting the earth wire the antenna motor started spinning or at least making that type of noise. But the antenna itself did not move. So I figured to completely dismantle the system and further inspect it.

When opening up the mechanism all looked ok, ie: no broken wire or damaged wheels. I couldn't work out the failure. Clearly something had to be broken else they wouldn't have removed the fuse. The other strange thing was that the antenna motor started making the spinning noise instantly when connected (and radio turned off).

By now I figured not to waste anymore time on this old piece and have it replaced by a shiny new one. The old one had code DAC3542 placed on it. When checking at SNG Barratt it has been superseded by DAC4090. So I have ordered one and hope to have it installed next weekend.