Lexus Power Antenna Repair youtube video 

I was able to replace my own antenna and saved myself over $300. Thanks so much!

Thank you, so much for putting out this video from a few years ago, I had the same problem as you did with my Lexus RX 300, and by copying the same steps as you did, I was able replace the antenna mast on my car, and it works "great"!! Thanks again..

Unbelieveably I had to use your video again. These things are very prone to breaking. I'm glad new technology has eliminated physical Antennas.

Your video was extremely helpful and my repair went smoothly. Since I was doing the labor myself, I decided to go with the OEM replacement instead of aftermarket ($68). Very pleased ... no adjustments necessary.

Great job my friend! This was exactly the information I needed to see to get the antenna motor out and make the repair.

Excelent naration. Very helpful without wasting my time. Thanks for the tutorial!

Great step-by-step video. It made the whole process less scary to tackle. Nice job!

Thanks so much for taking the time to video and post. I had to remove the the rugs etc to get to the motor housing. When I opened it, there were two broken cable pieces inside. Your video was extremely helpful. I might add an alternative for others that had no help or had a difficult time getting the new cable ribs to engage in the gears (note the direction of the cable ribs when you remove the old one - either points in the forward or rear direction). After attaching the motor to the car (before reinstalling the rest of the deck), I could not get the gears to engage the antenna ribs. So I removed the motor, disconnecting the antenna coax cable and leaving the power connected, and laid the motor (fully assembled) on the deck. I then turned the radio on and after the motor stopped, and then I turned the it off. I quickly proceeded to the rear of the RX300 and pushed the cable in until it caught (had to repeat several time until the gear finally engaged the cable). Worked!! With the new antenna still in the motor housing and in the down position, I slipped the antenna through the inside side panel hole, attached the coax cable and loosely mounted the motor housing to the RX300 with the two nuts. On the outside, I installed the spacer and special nut and then tighten all nuts checking to be sure nothing was binding. Also, when the motor housing was open, I cleaned it with WD40 and coated it with a light silicon grease. So far, works OK. Hope it last 1/2 as long as the original antenna cable - 19 years.

I have a 2001 RX300 and followed your directions. It made it easy to replace the antenna. Thanks!

I CAN NOT tell you how much you’ve helped me by making this video. THANK YOU!!! 🙏🙏🙏 Bravo! 💛

thanks bro! you saved me some money. Great vid! I had broken pieces in my motor so your video was a HUGE help!

Great instructions. Thank you very much. To answer Richard Perez's question, teeth face to the front.

Thanks! Worked like a charm. Mine had a broken piece so I had to remove it.

Thanks for the effort in making this helpful video. I have the 2001 RX300 with the antenna not going up nor down.However, the motor is make a grinding sound then stop. I suspect there is something in the motor and will follow what you did.

Thanks for showing the steps to remove the cowling. Much success.

Thank you so much for doing this!!! Very good step by step!!!

Just did this. It was a bit more work than I was expecting but not as much as I had feared. I didn't have a good needle nose but a flathead screwdriver is great for pushing that lock nut around. Just kinda turn the screwdriver like normal but do it "orbitally" and it works fine. The electrical connector for the motor didn't want to come off. I had to push real hard with the flathead at just the right spot. It finally came loose. I had some of the nylon cord broken off inside the motor. I could tell by the length of the new nylon compared to the length of the old. I needed to get to the motor. There was no water collecting in that well, so that was nice. I was hoping to save a step and just turn the motor upside-down and activate the radio so it spit out the old nylon. That didn't work. I had to remove it. I was kinda afraid of the drain tube, that if I removed it from the vehicle (leaving it attached to the motor) it would be hard to get back in. But it wasn't. Once I got the motor off I went inside to take it apart. The weather was nasty. The motor was very greasy and dirty. I used an old pizza box on the table to contain the mess, along with about 20 different paper napkins. Still messy. There was a metal bracket at the base with two grounding cables. Take that off first and place it to the side. Five phillips screws holding the motor together. Remove them and pry gently with a flathead. It opens fairly easy. Inside, everything was caked with blackened grease. I could tell it was originally beige, maybe a paraffin-based grease. I was going to spray it all down with lithium grease but then didn't. The busted length of nylon was very easy to remove, and you could tell by the configuration that it coiled its way helically to fit the whole thing into the motor. I un-helixed it and threw it out. FYI do this with a garbage can right next to you. The parts were extremely caked with blackened grease. I took off the main cog and that white plate and wiped them with paper napkins. That wasn't enough so I used some Q-tips too. The cog had dirty grease all in the teeth so I covered my thumb with a napkin and used my thumbnail to scrape the grease out sideways from between the teeth. I got most of it. I don't know what kind of grease was in there originally but the internet said bearing grease won't destroy nylon. So I got out a tub of bearing crease and I re-greased all the nmoving parts with that. Like I said, lithium grease just didn't seem to be good enough for this. And I didn't want to repeat the operation. Make sure you get all the parts back in before closing it up. I nearly forgot this little spindle thing and had to re-open the case. Once I got it all back together it was time to go back to the car. I decided the smart play was to get just the antenna installed and then test the radio. I didn't want to rip all those panels back out. At first I didn't think the motor was hooked back up properly because nothing was happening. But when I popped my head in the car I could hear it trying to go up and down. This being 2023, nobody has a muffler anymore and just when you try to hear something important a loud car goes by. The hard thing was finding that sweet spot where the nylon "catches". I would stuff the nylon down and nothing happened. The whole thing was snakey to begin with and didn't want to stay straight. The key was trying to spin it around real fast until it dropped down to the next level down. Once it got there, you could feel the vibrations as the sprocket was hitting against the nylon. It was a very good positive. My son had that back window down so I didn't need to tap the window. I told him to turn off the radio. He did, and it began Lady and the Tramping that nylon right down. Carefully line everything up and let it suck it down into the guts of the motor. Now turn the radio back on and listen to the sound quality. Good. Turn the radio back off again. The outer lock nut went back on with no problem and I used a flat head orbitally to re-install it. Toward the end it got hard to turn so I came at is sideways with the flathead and pushed against the closest needle nose indentations. Now do the on-off with the radio so I can see the actual movement of the antenna. Works good. Slap all the interior panels back together and wash up. Then take a paper napkin and some Dawn for dishes and clean up the table. That greasy dirt gets everywhere. If you can do this outside or at a work bench somewhere, do that instead. And then once it was over I was hungry. It was my son's car so we had Bourbon Street Steaks at Applebees - his treat. Done and done.

I am buying a 2001 RX300 tomorrow and the antenna doesn't go up and down so I hope that I can just replace the antenna and not have to take the motor out, great job.

Thanks!. Great video. I had an issue arise and I thought sharing my experience can help. I had a problem knowing which way to orient the nylon antenna cable. The nylon cable was not going into the cable shaft at the bottom of the mast shaft. My LED flashlight was not bright enough to penetrate the depth of the mast tube. To determine in which way to orient the teeth on my 2002 Lexus RX300 nylon antenna cable, I used a mirror to reflect sunlight down the antenna mast tube. Using the reflected sunlight, at the base of the mast tube, I saw the smaller mouth of the cable tube. Near the top of the cable tube, I saw that the cable drive gear faces the rear of the vehicle. I rotated the teeth of the nylon cable toward the front of the vehicle. The nylon cable was curved so I worked it with my thumbs to straighten it about 6 to 9 inches. Using the mirror and reflected sunlight, I peered down the mast tube and guided the nylon cable into the mouth of the cable tube and carefully lowered the tip of the nylon cable into the cable tube. If the nylon cable meshes with the drive gear, you will feel it. Have someone turn off the radio and the gear will draw the cable into the shaft and antenna motor unit. Don't be worried if the mast doesn't go all the way in yet. Lower the antenna retaining nut (some call it a bolt) over the antenna mast. If you're able to fasten it on the top of the mast tube, great! If not, don't worry, you can work with this. If you need, remove the curved, black trim piece to make the connection. Have your helper turn the radio on again. Let the motor run only a second or two as you hold the antenna. You don't want the nylon cable spit out of its tube. Next, have your helper turn the radio off. The mast should retract all the way. Once that has happened, replace the trim piece and antenna retaining nut. Once you tighten down the retaining nut, everything should be reassembled. To test the antenna, turn the radio on and off to your satisfaction.

Great video. Thanks for making it.

Thanks Mizel, put in a new motor myself thanks to your walk through:)

Great tutorial. Thanks.

Which way do the teeth face? Towards the front or towards the back of the car?

great repair video

Good job! 👍 thanks!

Once the motor is out, what's the trick to getting the electrical plug out?

Do they sell only the antenna? Because my motor is still good

Thx! Great video! Same Lexus RX300 that I have. Are you in the SF Bay Area--[radio stations are same] ?

good video. so if the plastic part of the antenna comes out in one piece, just thread in a new antenna? no need to remove motor? thx

Did you get better radio reception?

how can you had water there?

U have the part number?. Is that OEM ?

Did this fix the AM issues? If not, you may not know the RX300 has 2 radio antennas. The second one is in the back left window. Also noise could be cause by bad grounding on the antenna cables or the defogger choke coil.

Hi Mizel...did your car smell like mildew before this repair? Our antenna goes up partially and I'm thinking now that this has something to do with our mildew smell. I never would have made this connection had I not watched this vid...thanks! Also, is it possible to simply swap out the antenna (the plastic cable and the mast) without having to pull all of the interior panels? My motor is fine and the cable is intact (I think)...it goes up partially because it's very slightly bent and has a bit of rust damage (it was a Galveston car for several years). Naval jelly, surface polishing, lots of LPS/lithium grease/silicon...nothing has helped it extend fully. I have a new mast ready to install...can I just pull out the old one and drop in a new one?

I just did this same repair. My big problem was trying to feed the cable into the motor. I had to take everything apart and then open the motor. I still couldn't get the cable to feed thru the small opening toward the base of the motor. I ended up feeding a small wire backwards thru the opening after taking the motor apart and then taping the wire to the plastic tooth cable and then pulling the small wire back toward the motor. I tried for 40 minutes to get the cable to go thru that small opening with no success until I did what was described above. If lexus would have made a tapered tube to feed the cable into the motor end it would have eliminated the hardest part of this job.

great step by step video. What was the cause of all that water?

Gracias

When inserting the cable, inside the motor assembly the teeth must face the gears. On my first try, feeding the cable, I messed up and fed the teeth away from the gears thinking it was going self adjust.😬

I was told the stereo and cd changer in my daughters Lexus work but the amplifier does not. I was also told that only a original factory amplifier would work. Non of the after market one will, is that true?

I purchased one of this vehicles for my teenage daughter and everything works but the radio. I have looked into replacing it but the replacement kit along is like $350 to $500 that is not including the radio or labor. I need some help.

Where did you buy the replacement antenna?

Thanks to you, I was able to replace my antenna assembly myself! My motor was making grinding noises long before it went out, so I purchased the exact dealer assembly here: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QU7R30W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

U did not show how to install the antenna into the motor.. either from outside or inside