Fuba Betina-Mot issues

[David Head]

If you have one of these electric antennas, here's some info:
www.antennaworld.com is a good source of info. These antennas are 
considered one of the finest/most compact ever made and are very easy to 
disassemble, lube, repair etc. They are highly sought after...
Parts are pretty scarce. There's no rocket science or special tools. An 
8mm wrench and a phillips screwdriver is all that's needed to work on 
these units.

The replacement mast is still available at the dealer.
The solid rubber fender mount/bushing (V8s, other later models) isn't 
available anywhere. Earlier Audis (4000/80/100/200) used a bolt up mount 
for the fender instead of the ball mount/rubber bushing. You simply swap 
the extension and you're ready to go. We have to do this on my son's 90 
V8 this weekend.
If you have one that is working fine - I would strongly recommend 
disassembly and relube with white lithium grease. Its a simple job and 
will give the antenna years of extended life. Simply clean out the dirt 
and relube. Remove the chassis, remove the metal drive gear and make 
sure you relube the drive gear shaft as is goes through the chassis. If 
you need to swap a chassis, the control board and motor come right off 
after removing a few screws.

If you have one that is doing a kind of 'duh, duh, duh, duh, duh' at any 
time (no mast movement, partial movement), then you have the 
chassis/gear problem and are destroying your black main gear. (BTDT). 
Luckily I found an older one in the junkyard that was good.

Failures:
The nylon lead gets brittle and breaks, which requires mast replacement.
The nylon chassis wears out where the drive gear goes through. This 
causes the metal drive gear to chew up the teeth of the large black main 
gear. The black main gear is not available anywhere...