Hi.

Hoping someone can help me with this. I was out for a walk at lunchtime today, and noticed that the aerial on my '96 3.2 was up! Never been in the car for a couple of weeks so I was pretty surprised to see this. So, I opened the door, and as soon as my butt hit the seat, the aerial went down on its own accord. Fired up the engine, and was letting it warm up for a bit, when I heard the aerial go up again. No idea how long this has been happening, but it's definitely got a mind of it's own. I got it to go back down after switching the radio on and off, but 10 minutes after getting back in the house, I look out the window, and see the aerial is up again! This happened twice in the last 20 minutes.

Had a look around the forum, but all I've found is to either remove the fuse for the aerial (F8/15amp according to the handbook), but that stops the remote boot release from working, and Tasker & Lacy sold me the car without a boot key, so that's no good....or, remove the boot carpet at the right side to get access to the aerial wiring. The white plug in particular. Problem is, how does this white plug detach? I've tried pulling on it, wiggling and waggling it....but it's not moving. Any ideas?

Also, as if I'm not having enough issues with the car, as I remove the carpet, I find a LOT of water is entering the boot, from what I presume is the screen rubber area above the wheel arch inside the boot. The sound proofing is saturated, and if I touch the metal up below the bottom offside of the rear screen from inside the boot, my hand is soaking. Literally fills my palm with water! Any ideas on the cause of this?

Cheers

(EDIT: Plug now unplugged following a YouTube video. For anyone else trying to unplug the white connector at the aerial, there's a tab on the blind side that needs squeezing in as you pull it apart. Anyway, aerial disconnected for now, and fuse still in place enabling use of the boot remote. Still no idea why this was happening with the aerial, so if anybody can shed light on the issue, that would be appreciated).

 

I would guess that the water in the boot has a lot to do with the problem. Fix this first before investigating the problem.

 

I tried to upload a video to show the water issue, but it's MP4 and not allowed on here. Starting to wonder if it's a condensation issue though. The car's been covered with a fair bit of frost and the occasional light covering of ice or snow, so it's not impossible.
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Looking up under that far right corner of the boot (where the fuel cap is on the opposite side), there's a square pad attached to the metal. I'm assuming this is either anti-drumming as opposed to soundproofing as its just a thin pad. The underside of this pad is dripping wet, but the surrounding metal appears relatively dry. Theres no water accumulating anywhere else that I can see, and the soundproofing over the wheel arch appears to be really wet at the bottom edge only. The aerial itself, and its associated wiring is completely dry.
I've dried everything up as best I could, and stuck a damp trap in there too for the time being. I've left the carpet out too so I can keep an eye on things for a bit.

 

Agree with @Cafcpete I would try and fix that water leak asap. As a minimum get all that soaking carpet/soundproofing out, quickly.

There's some pretty mission critical electronics in the boot and large amounts of condensation could cause more serious problems than the aerial.