Like many, the automatic mast on mine bent. Mine never worked or ever tried to raise/lower (last owner unplugged it, but I don't know why), and it just looked sad and out of place. I've seen the Tacoma whip replacement, but I could not find one less than $50. It seems the NOS has dried up, and maybe I read it wrong, but the unit now comes as a $50 part, plus the $20 mast.

Enter: the aftermarket part



This was advertised on Amazon as a direct fit replacement for the fixed mast Tacoma. For ~$20, what have I got to lose?

This is the Metra 44-TY23. You can find it on Amazon, but mine arrived bent and I sent it back. They are also available on Ebay for a couple dollars cheaper.


Here is what it looked like before:





That's an almost 30 degree bend from vertical. The replacement unit is next to it for comparison.


There are tons of instructions on how to pull your antenna. I won't copy them here, but here are some pointers on speeding up the process.

1) remove the passenger tire. I thought I could save time by not, and ended wasting more time with not enough clearance. I consider myself average size, and there isn't a lot of room to comfortably bend the inner liner and be able to reach in to do the work.

2) you'll need a 10mm socket to remove the hardware holding the inner liner on, and remove the hardware for the underside dash piece.

3) I had a set of needlenose pliers that worked on the OEM trim ring.



Side by side comparison:



The top piece is slightly different. The OEM is more contoured, and a better fit. The aftermarket has the right angle, but flat and not contoured.



The bottom mount is nearly in the same position, but because the top piece isn't contoured, it takes a little finesse to line up the bottom mount. The unit will want to follow the curve of the fender, making the bottom mount not line up. I attached the trim ring loosely to the top in order to make the bottom mount line up, and then snugged everything up once it was threaded.


Results:







From the pictures, you can see it has about 5 degrees backward sweep, and an inward sweep as well. I don't know what OEM tacoma whips look like, but this is definitely not 100% vertical. I like that the inward sweep seems to follow the sides as far as profile. The rubber boot seems to fit the fender well enough.


Afterthoughts:

This is most definitely not an OEM replacement part, that is clear from the amount of time spent lining up the bottom mount. However, this is a very economical replacement with good finish. Radio reception is as good as ever, and with a fixed mast it can be taken down for car washes or rough brush. I don't know if the mast has common threading, but I might look into stubby mast replacements in the future. I'll post again in a month for a durability update.

Nice. I need a replacement antennae, and don't care about the power version.....

How did you go about getting the cable into the cabin with this unit? Did it fit in through the original hole? Did the cable detach at the mast, or was it molded to the mast?

A little searching turned up that you can get this at Autozone (it says "Order in store") for $13.99. If they don't charge any sort of special order fee, $14 is tough to beat.

OP you got lucky. I just did this as well, same part from Amazon.

Only my white cable was broken into many pieces inside the motor itself.

So I had to rip off the weatherflare, unbolt the motor, take off the cover, remove the broken teeth, put it all back, buy new grommets to put the weatherflare back on.


Otherwise it was easy on my 2002. Just slide in the white teeth cable as far as you can, have someone turn on the stereo and it will suck the mast in.

There's a good writeup on doing the Tacoma whip mod on how to take the old motor unit out. The replacement has a rubber grommet already on the cable, so you snake it through the fender where the old one was and push the grommet in place. It comes in right at the passenger kick panel, and you just snake it up over all the other stuff to follow the OEM route.

I used an OEM taco whip off a junk yard truck, I belive the rubber fender hole cover is cut at a slightly different curvature for the taco fender as mine also angles inward a degree or so. I like it too and no one has ever noticed it but me it seems.

As for snakeing the new cable in, I e-taped a long bit of small gauge solid copper wire to the old cable as I pulled it out, then taped the new cable to the same wire and pulled it through, that way it fallowed the exact original path. (I had to remove the glove box to pop the old cable out of a few clips and guide it out on the way.)

It was a pretty easy job, I also had to remove the front left wheel. Maybe 1hr start to finish.

Don't forget to disconnect the battery.

I wish I had thought of that, would have made the job a little easier.

Took me about two hours because I didn't want to take the wheel off and thought I was saving time by not.