A while back I had the power antenna in my dodge stealth quit working. The dealer parts department wanted $300 for a new one. The problem was a stripped gear inside the antenna unit. Naturally, no replacement parts are available. So I sat down with a collection of nylon bushings, super glue, and a dremel tool and set to work. That hand-made gear lasted about 6 months before it broke in two, and what is left of it is shown here. I made this old replacement gear before I got a lathe or mill. As you can see the teeth are pretty irregular.
Fast forward to the present time. Still being stubborn, and still being too cheap to shell out $300 for a new power antenna or settle for some lame after-market part, I decided to make another gear, and hopefully make one to last. After watching Jose Rodriguez's video 'making gears the easy way', I took some measurements from the original gear I had on hand, and made two straight gear hobs of roughly .100 and .125" circular pitch (30 and 25 diametral pitch). I used aluminum for the hobs as I'm only making plastic gears for this project. Here are a few pictures showing the 25 diametral pitch 'pinion' section being hobbed on the mill.
Here are some pictures showing the newly-made pinion section and the original damaged gear for comparison.
Here is the helical portion of the gear being hobbed. The rotary table is being held at a rougly 15 degree angle by the vise, and the 30 pitch hob is being used.
Here's the two pieces of the new gear, shown with the old stripped gear. Note that the helical gear has been drilled through, so that the two sections can fit together for later joining with epoxy.
These pictures show the innards of the power antenna unit, including the busted replacement gear (the one made with a dremel tool)
After the two gear sections were epoxied together, I proceeded with the final machining. The result seems pretty good.
Testing with a power supply before reassembly. It's alive!
Well, after all this work, I finally have a working power antenna again.
