Hi All,
I'm having a great deal of problem installing a new power antenna on my 1992 Firebird Formula.

The old one would not stop running constantly.
I bought a Metra AW-PW22 at Autozone today.
I'm attaching it to an aftermarket Panasonic 1.5 din receiver CD player.

Both old and new units have a co-axial cable that goes from the antenna directly to the receiver. No problem there.

The old antenna has three additional wires that come through the wall and into the interior. These three wires fit into a plug that fits into the 'antenna relay'. These wires are white, green, and gray.

The NEW antenna also has three wires. Two are blue and red and these are quite long. The third is black and appears to be designed to be attached with a grounding screw.

I have no idea which wire to attach to which.

The instructions on the new antenna suggest going directly to the usually red and blue wires in the wiring harness. Is it O.K. to just bypass the "antenna relay"?
The shop manual I have is no help whatsoever.

Anybody have any suggestions on how to hook this up.

And while we're at it...why did they make the antenna so hard to access...?

Thanks in advance.

Hey,
This topic didn't generate much interest...but in case anyone has to do this in the future I thought I'd post a follow-up.

Number 1: Do NOT purchase a Metra AW-PW22 power antenna as a replacement on a 1992 Formula.

In addition to the wire hookup problems discussed previously (and more below) this unit does not properly fit in the spot under the fender. I did manage to make it fit with great effort and some Rube Goldberg-like efforts...but you do not want this hassel. Trust me on this. Find another model that fits like original equipment.

Number 2: If you do make the mistake of buying one of these...like I did...you can...in fact you must...bypass the antenna relay and make the following wire connections:

orange to red
pink to blue
black to black

disconnect the battery first...one of those wires has live power all the time.

If someone can specify a particular brand / model number that fits better I'd consider junking this one and reinstalling a better one.

Good luck.

It all depends on how much you want to spend on an antenna. There are a couple of places out there where you can get stock replacement power antennas from but they're not cheap. Let me know how much you want to spend and if you want I can post the link to a couple of the places.

If you have them handy please go ahead and post them.

I was hoping to get a bargain with autozone...but the difficulties I encountered negated any benefit of going that route.

I had read earlier of folks finding good/cheap replacements at radio shack and I presumed that autozone would carry something at least as good. Doesn't appear that way.

Thanks.

I know you can get a fixed antenna from Radio Shack for the 4th gens but I'm not sure about the power antennas.

Here's a couple of places that carry the stock power antennas (both new and used) for your car:

http://www.tacreationsusa.com/antennas.htm

http://www.fbodymotorsports.com/Antenna

http://camaromotorsports.tripod.com/ (you'll have to call this place as their inventory changes almost daily)

You can also try looking on eBay for one as well as sites such as www.thirdgen.org, www.team3rdgen.com, etc who have mainly 3rd gens on them.