I was under the impression that my '86 240 already had a power antenna in it and that it was not working since I saw a loose green cable and plug next to it (see first two pics) in the trunk BUT upon removing the old antenna (third pic) it looks like it was an antenna that was not powered but that you could move up and down by hand.

Now I'm not sure if the car originally had a power antenna in it that was scrapped for the manual one or what, but that would explain the loose plug and green wire sitting there... I think...

So I purchased a power antenna on eBay (fourth pic) that of course has no instructions and a black wire (must be ground) and green?? and red?? wires.

This is tricky on multiple levels since I'm not sure if cabling was previously run for a power antenna in the car:

1 - So for starters I need to know what that plug and cut green wire are for in the trunk?
2 - If they are power antenna related how do they connect to the new power antenna with it's ground and red and green wires?
3 - If the loose green wire and plug in the trunk are not power antenna related then what? do I have to run and from where? to get juice to the new power antenna?

Thanks.



Loose plug that was in my trunk and NOT connected to the old antenna.


Cut green cable that was in my trunk and not connected to the old antenna.


Old manual up and down? antenna.


New power antenna with green, red and black cables.

 

the green wire on the volvo side is always hot (even when engine is off), while the black wire is antenna control (hot to go up, off to go down). note the black wire in the trunk is connected to a red wire at the stereo, pin 3 on the 3x3 block molex style connector.

 

Any guesses as to how the Volvo green and black wires match up with the black, green and extra RED wire on the power antenna I got?

 

on that antenna, the black wire is definitely chassis ground (note ring terminal on end). I'll take wild stab and say red wire is always-on-power, and green wire is control, and I probably have it wrong

if you have a smallish 12V battery, connect the black wire to the battery minus, connect the red wire to battery plus, then the green wire to plus, and the antenna should go up, disconnect the green wire, and it should go down. if it doesn't go down, reconnect the green wire and disconnect the red wire and it should go down, in that case, green is power, and red is control..

 

Once I have the power antenna fully installed and tested I'm going to then install a 12-volt illuminated rocker switch (see pics below) to control it. I prefer to have the antenna down mostly, since I don't usually listen to radio stations anymore.

The rocker switch has three unlabeled pins sticking out of it. I imagine one is ground? and the other two are power in? and power out? So I'm thinking ground the correct pin and then the car's power antenna line (that would ordinarily connect to the radio) would go to one of those pins and the radio antenna wire would go to the other pin?

Does this all sound correct? And if it does how do I discern which pin is which on that rocker switch? Thanks.

 

the third pin is probably ground for the light. you don't want that configuration here, you want a on/off switch in series with the antenna control lead from the stereo. FWIW, many car stereos only raise the antenna when they are in the radio mode, and lower it in aux/cd/bluetooth/etc modes. pin 1 to the radio antenna control output (usually blue on aftermarket radios), pin 2 to the antenna control wire (red or black in volvo wiring), and leave pin 3 open. if you ground pin 3, the light MIGHT come on when the antenna is up, but I can't guarantee that will work.

 

Perfect, I'll get to this in the next few days and let you know what was what once it's working...

 

Gonna get to this tomorrow. I’m still a little confused about the black plug though that has the black wire in it and the green wire piggybacked off of it...

I get what you said that the green wire is constant power and that the black wire is antenna control (connected to the red wire on the radio side) but maybe I didn’t make this clear in my original post... that plug was just hanging loose in my trunk and I don’t see anything to even plug it into. Is there supposed to be something in my car to plug this plug into? Or was the other end of this plug on the stock Volvo power antenna?

Without plugging that plug into anything how does it get its juice? I can’t just cut the plug off of it because then green is eliminated altogether and I’m just left with a black wire... And it’s odd to me as well that the constant powered green wire is piggybacked after the black wire to begin with... logically I would think it would be the opposite way...

 

Thinking this through further: I have to find the other end that the green wire was cut off from and that will be constant power. Then I can cut the plug off and I’ll be left with the black antenna control wire. If I can’t find the original green constant wire that was it was cut from I suppose any other constantly powered wire will do as well.

 

in the trunk, the antenna wires, power and control, come from up forward along the left side of the floor, going over the left rear wheel hump.

behind the dash, that black wire is now a red wire, and goes to the ? pin connector that plugs into the volvo radio. the green power wire also goes to that connector, but isn't actually connected to the radio, the radio connector acts just a junction for the wire from the fuse panel back to the antenna.

if you connect a volt meter's black lead to a ground back in the trunk, and the red lead to the green wire, it should read +12V even when the engine is switched off.

the black wire would read +12V when the radio is on to tell the antenna to go up, otherwise its open circuit.

 

This image is from an '81 Volvo (don't even think it's a 240) and mine is an '86 240 but I suppose they're similar. I have to hunt down the other end of that cut green wire. If it was somehow removed from the car altogether then I have to run a new one to the antenna to supply its constant power.

 

That looks like a 240 fuse panel to me ..

Each fuse on the fuse panel, there are three spade connectors to the right of the fuse. The closet one is the fuse input, that is connected to the right fuse clip. The left fuse clip goes around behind to the middle and farthest spade lugs are the fuse outputs. The original green wire came off whatever always powered fuse it was on, and went over to the radio connector in the center console If someone butchered the radio, they might have cut this off leaving the trunk wire disconnected

 

Gotcha... we’ll see tomorrow! Tx.

 

Okay so in the trunk, pretty close to the where the antenna lives, I found an exposed, inline spliced green power wire (1st pic below) that goes to the trunk light. There was no independent green power wire in the car. I searched all the way up to the fuse panel.

That cut in the green power wire looks aftermarket to me so now I'm thinking this car did NOT initially have a power antenna in it and someone put one in later, and then by the time the car got to me the power antenna was removed again.

Another oddity is with the antenna power cable. It runs as one merged cable, with the antenna plug wire, all the way to the back of the radio. The oddity is that it is not red at the back of the radio but remains black the entire way (2nd pic below). The two wires can be separated by hand simply by pulling them apart. The black wire, that will connect to the radio harness blue wire, was taped down with electrical tape to the antenna plug wire since it wasn't being used at the moment. It was indeed already spliced so it was used at some point...

I tested both lines for power and all is good. Hooked them up to the antenna as a test and all worked well. The only downer is that I will need to install the antenna switch I discussed earlier because my modern radio (that has Bluetooth & a backup cam I already installed) powers the antenna up once the radio is powered on. It does NOT distinguish which source is being used to determine whether the antenna should go up or down.

Tomorrow's job will be getting the power antenna mounted. Then the next day I'll work on the switch...


green spliced wire in trunk

black antenna wire and blue radio harness wire

 

This is completed. The mounting of the antenna was a little tricky. The existing hole in the body of my Volvo had to be drilled slightly larger to fit the new mounting hardware into it.

The switch was quite easy to install. Like Pierce had thought the third pin does light up the power antenna switch when switched on.

Anyone know if the Volvo 240 is supposed to have something in the trunk to protect the exposed power antenna (see 2nd pic below)? I feel like something should be covering it somehow.





Power antenna exposed in the trunk.


Power antenna switch in the off position.


Power antenna switch in the on position.

 

there should be a piece of molded carpet all along that side of the trunk, covering the antenna, and the spare tire.... at least I think so on the 240. on a 700/900 wagon, that stuff is all behind plastic panels. on my mercedes 300E, its also behind a molded carpet panel (but the spare is under the trunk floor, rather than on the side)