I Replaced My Antenna Base! Yay! Photos/Instructions Posted
 

Hi, Everyone.

I just wanted to share my (small) victory: I replaced my R56 2009 Mini Cooper S's antenna base last Friday.

I had suddenly lost all AM radio reception (yeah..I know. I'm not sure if it happens at 40 years old or what, but suddenly I find myself listening to AM radio sometimes). I thought the cause was the antenna itself so I replaced my OEM MINI Stubby antenna with a few zippy ones I got from ebay for a fraction of the price. Nope. Still a problem. A web search turned up others with the same issue, of course. Surfing this forum is the only way I learn anything about my MINI.

I ordered the antenna base from ECS Tuning:

http://www.ecstuning.com/Mini-2009-C...enna/ES182149/

I do not have navigation or satellite radio but I noticed when I received it that the one on my MINI looked more like the satellite/nav base. More on this later.

No one seemed to have any diagrams/instructions and I was horrified at the prospect of removing the headliner. I ordered a Haynes service manual and also a little antenna base "bling" from Rockauto.com

EDITED TO ADD: the manual was no help in this area. I was on my own.

I took photos along the way.

1. I gently pulled the rubber weather stripping around the hatch area and pulled the headliner down as much as possible. Not enough to do anything, so I had to proceed to remove just enough to get my hands in there.

2. I reluctantly removed the rear panels marked "AIRBAG" beside the hatch opening. Lump in my throat at seeing the air bag stuff, but I was gentle.

*see photo*

3. I then removed the handles on the roof above each rear window.

4. I then carefully removed the rear part of the sunroof frame.

*see photo*

*SEE PHOTO* of the differently sized antenna mounts.

I see that I am maxxed out at three photos I can upload; I'll try to post again and hope I get three more pix. But if I do not: at this point, I had enough space to pull the headliner and see/feel enough to disconnect the wires to the original antenna base. Mine had two wires from "the car" attaching to it, but also two coming from the base...one of which was connected (bright pink color) and the other was not and was just held in the clip holder thingy.

At this point, I connected the two wires from the car to the new base and it worked GREAT! I therefore decided my car must've had the base equipped for satellite radio/nav, neither of which I have. Everything worked: AM/FM radio and CD player (I also do not have factory Bluetooth).

The next step was to be sure the "footprint" of the new, smaller base would cover the holes in the car roof. They did! I unscrewed the bolt holding the old base on, disconnected the last wire and pulled it up from its position from outside the car's roof.

I plugged in the new antenna (SO happy that there are only the two wires coming from the car to plug in and it's really obvious where they go!), bolted it down, and reversed all processes to put the trim pieces back.

I am VERY happy to say I have no creases in the headliner that I could see. The reason I wanted to do this myself is that I do not like mechanics working in the INTERIOR of my car. I did not want any grease, scratches on the plastic panels, or creases in the headliner. If I had made a crease, it's MY crease. *laughs* But I didn't want anyone else doing a sloppy job.

Once the new antenna base was in place, I chose the antenna shaft that I liked best from the four I got from ebay, installed the chrome base (oooh...I hope I can show you this in the next post!) and the chrome washer fluid jet covers that Rockauto threw in with the base cover.

All works great! All I can say is: don't be scared to do this yourself. I can only speak for the setup without factory nav/satellite/Bluetooth but if you are careful and only remove as much as needed, it can be done. I think it took perhaps 45 min to an hour.

Thanks for reading! I hope I can post more pix below. Thanks to all of you for sharing your experiences and making me brave enough to try this. I'm no master mechanic by any means, so it's a small victory for me, but a victory nonetheless. :thumbsup:

More photos to accompany the previous post...
 

Hi again.

I wanted to show the area that *would* have been creased if I had made a lot of creases. This is the area where I most bent the headliner. Nothing much here and even if there was, I decided it was a logical place for a slight crease because the contour of the roof changes there anyway.

You can see the chrome washer jet covers and the chrome-y goodness of the antenna base and shaft.

As always, thanks for reading. I am a happy camper. Until the next thing goes wrong, that is. :wink:

...one more far shot.
 

It's a bit blurry but I wanted you to see the setup from a distance. Thanks again.

Nice job. I only had to replace the missing stubby part, which was pretty easy.

My new clubman came with stains in headliner, they had to pull windshield to remove headliner, took them 2 days , they took a headliner off another new clubman on lot cause they had to order from UK. Not an easy job.

I completely changed my headliner in my R56 JCW and did not have to remove the windshield. I went from the original grey to the black. Changing out the headliner took my 30 minutes once all the trim piece were removed. That took an hour to do with another hour to replace the grey trim pieces with new black pieces. Easy job - three hours tops and I worked alone. If I had had some help, it would have been even faster. I think the reason your Clubman's windshield was pulled was to help get the old one out and the new one in. The clearance (width) of the Clubman doors, must not be as wide as the hatch on the R56. Even still, how long does it take to pull a windshield? 2 days seems kind of extreme.

Bettehead- Thanks for the nice writeup and pics.

+1 now go on a victory lap!:thumbsup:

Thanks, Everyone. The antenna is still stuck on the roof of the car and it's still working. *laughs!* :grin:

This is great!! Thanks for sharing, everyone should do this on all installs.

+1000 bettehead

Followed DIY from OP, and all went as planned, until, I find that my shorty antenna and my original antenna will not screw into the new style base. The internal threads are not same diameter, so neither the AM stud or original threads fit. How nice of Mini to do this for us! Did anyone else run into this?

Of course doing it on a Sunday morning, and will probably reassemble with new base, and no antenna shaft, for right now.

^ if you still have the box, etc. for your shorty antennae, they usually include two threaded adaptors to alleviate this problem. If you don't have it, I recomemend going on ebay and buying a cheapie antennae just for this adaptor. It screws into the antenna and its threads then go into the base. It's sort of a "go-between". I'll see if I can find a photo to explain what I mean....


Here you go. See those gold things in the photo?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/JDM-4-8-Chrome-Carbon-Fiber-Aluminum-Screw-Type-Radio-Antenna-Aerial-Mast-Whip-/131483042771?fits=Model%3ACooper&hash=item1e9d0003d3&vxp=mtr

Thanks, I figured it was something like that. I got mine from WMW, so will see if I have any small parts from it? But, if not will look into an adapter like this, will drop a note to WMW. Thanks again!

My pleasure. You might even be able to pick one up at a local auto place, just for the adaptor thingy. I wouldn't swap the bases if it were me--too much work to do so.

Good luck!

Well, dug thru old mini stuff and found the adapter, so lucky there. Now, installed and another issue. I have a Sirius external radio, which I wired in under the passenger seat to Mini installed loom. When I plugged 2 original lines in in new base, no signal to Sat radio? I see the pink lead loose, which was going to a lead from old base? Any ideas?

So sorry....can't help with this. I don't have Sirius. Glad you found the antenna adapter though! I'm sure someone here can help with the Sirius.:thumbsup:

Glad you found the extra antenna screw. All our WMW short antennas come with both screws.

As for you Sat radio. If your old antenna had the pink lead and the new one didn't you don't have the right antenna base. The Sat radio and non Sat radio antenna bases are different parts. So that is why it won't work.

Well, I picked up the over priced, expensive Sat version of the base, today, Installed it, then all trim, and started on the hatch gasket. Where, my patience and frustration was a little thin.

HMMM- never having done it, how do I get it back on? Was it possibly crimped in place over headliner and steel lip?

What is best plan for putting gasket back in properly?

DIY notes Antenna Base R56
 

I wanted to thank Bettehead for getting me to tackle this.

I made some notes, along the way.

1. I have Sat in my R56, but no Nav, so I needed the bigger, more expensive base. The small one is AM/FM, only.

2. You will basically be sitting in the back of your car, with seats folded down.

3. You can pop the little airbag trim name plate out easily and a torx screw is inside. Then the trim will carefully release, it is held in by push pins. You don’t need to release it very far, just an inch or 2. Just lean it out from the top.

4. Each end of grab handles has a Phillips head. Once these are off the headliner has enough room to slightly flex for getting to base attachment nut and wires.

5. You don’t remove the trunk gasket. The headliner is tucked into external groove. Just carefully release it enough to gain access.

6. The headliner has a black slotted retainer(glued to inside of headliner) for a white push pin, which holds it to the interior of the roof, just inside headliner towards rear of car and rear of antenna base.Carefully release this pin, and slide out of slot. Now you can gain access to nut.

7. If you have Sat/Nav, the wires can be seen and disconnected. This will be either the pink Sat, or the other 2 for Nav. The AM/FM can stay attached, until nut is released, then carefully extract thru roof, and take off, and insert in new base.

8. To remove Nut, I used a deepwell socket(maybe17mm, but I used an English size) and a long handled ratchet. You have to do it all by feel, so be very careful of stressing headliner. You need someone else to hold base in place, as you loosen. The nut will release from front of base, but, AM/FM wires are fed thru it, so leave it hanging, inside.

9. Slide base out, change over wires. You can attach Sat/Nav and see if all works. Clean roof good, as mine was pretty gunky from old gasket turning into mush. I used soap and then rubbing compound.

10. Reassembly isn’t too bad, but getting the nut started can be a pain. If you have Sat/Nav, the wires are bent sideways in slot, and nut will compress them as tightened. There is another small black plastic piece glued to inside of headliner, that holds these wires. Carefully put push pin in headliner and press to hold it in place. Tuck liner in gasket groove. Grab handles then C pillar trim and airbag label.

11. I think that’s it. 3 tool’s. Simple. Now that I have done it, it was probably 1hr dis and 1 hr re-assy. The next one would be ½ of this.

Great DIY info!

-Luccia

Replace antennae base and headliner
 

Dearest Bette Head and My Yellow 07,

Thank you so much for the very informative directions on how to replace antennae base and headliner. Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New Year. GOD BLESS. ;-) I will pray and try to do it by myself.


Yours truly
gabe
R56 2011

Sorry it's (bettehead) Again Thank You!

Nice DIY.

You can absolutely do this!!! Good luck and let us know how it goes.😸

This is what the forum is for. Nice job. I applaud your efforts.

ISAMIN