I dont really want to spend any money yet to fix it with a tacoma whip or something else. What i need to know is does the power antenna have a fuse. I would like to unplug it somehow so it doesnt make that aweful grinding noise all the time. Also I dont want to take the dash out to cut the power antenna wire from the radio. Thanks

 

I had the same problem and I just took my passenger inner fender trim loose and unplugged the wiring harness from the antenna. antenna still gets reception but the motor isn't running constantly.

 

I had the same problem too. You have a couple of options to consider:
- Replace the mast portion with a new one and see if that resolves the problem. It appears the most common failures of the power ant. are due to broken teeth on the mast.
- Unplug the power lead from the power ant by unbolting the lower portion of the fender to gain access to the power ant. I also unplugged the power ant relay near the fuse box as it sounded like it was still trying to work the ant.
- Replace the entire power ant. with a manual job. It does require removing the radio to switch out the ant cable from the back of the radio though

I did the unplug method at first but ended up just replacing the whole thing with the manual antenna. I did this at the same time I was upgrading/replacing the factory radio since I was going to unplug the antenna anyways. If you replace the antenna with the manual one be sure to firmly tie a piece of twine to the old antenna wire - this will make pulling the new antenna wire into place much much easier.

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