When Two Wipers Collide......(ideas welcome!)
Discussion
("When Two Wipers Collide" would make a good Sci Fi film title wouldn't it? Oh, something similar's been done before, you say?)
Anyway - I know this has been done before and I have been busy searching but have yet to gather all the information. Would be outside fiddling, but the heavens have well and truly opened for the week (and it's cold) so I decided to come onside and fiddle (cue Podie
)
Symptoms
Wipers have ground to a slow but inevitable halt.
Started yesterday when I noticed they were "thumping" to their stop point. Today they started up OK, but didn't come as far to the driver's side as normal. That's when I had a fiddle and, thinking they just needed a bit of re-alignment, I have tried to remove and re-seat them in the correct place.
Result was a smaller, and decreasing, swept arc until they stopped completely (all settings). As it's wet, and the other result is that I don't have to suffer a shopping trip (
every cloud - silver lining et cetera!), I've retired to nice dry cyberspace! Will augment that soon with appropriate trip to kitchen to find corkscrew.........
It seems like every model has wiper woes from time to time - what's the likely cause of them packing up gradually like this? Most failures reported appear to be sudden ones?
Over to you experts!
Anyway - I know this has been done before and I have been busy searching but have yet to gather all the information. Would be outside fiddling, but the heavens have well and truly opened for the week (and it's cold) so I decided to come onside and fiddle (cue Podie
) Symptoms
Wipers have ground to a slow but inevitable halt.
Started yesterday when I noticed they were "thumping" to their stop point. Today they started up OK, but didn't come as far to the driver's side as normal. That's when I had a fiddle and, thinking they just needed a bit of re-alignment, I have tried to remove and re-seat them in the correct place.
Result was a smaller, and decreasing, swept arc until they stopped completely (all settings). As it's wet, and the other result is that I don't have to suffer a shopping trip (
every cloud - silver lining et cetera!), I've retired to nice dry cyberspace! Will augment that soon with appropriate trip to kitchen to find corkscrew......... It seems like every model has wiper woes from time to time - what's the likely cause of them packing up gradually like this? Most failures reported appear to be sudden ones?
Over to you experts!
I've had my two wipers literally collide and stop, locked together like a pair of crossed fingers, in torrential rain. That was a bit scary.
I got round that one by hopping out and pulling the blade slightly out of the wiper arm so that it was a few millimeters further away from the other wiper than before. Worked a treat.
No idea of the cause of your problem though, Ron. Do they need greasing or something, perhaps?
>> Edited by JonRB on Sunday 23 November 15:03
I got round that one by hopping out and pulling the blade slightly out of the wiper arm so that it was a few millimeters further away from the other wiper than before. Worked a treat.
No idea of the cause of your problem though, Ron. Do they need greasing or something, perhaps?
>> Edited by JonRB on Sunday 23 November 15:03
I would start by removin gthe wipers and seeing if the mechanism works OK with out them - if so see if they are seated properly on the spindles, if not them start looking at the mechanism. You can take the wiper motor apart and check the inards quite easily - first check that the bit that takes the movement to the spindles moves OK, and also check that the chamber with the big wheel bit in it is all OK.
Frommemory Steve's book has quite a lot of info. in it - I ended up having to replace the brushes in one of mine and it made a world of difference.
Good luck,
Mike.
Frommemory Steve's book has quite a lot of info. in it - I ended up having to replace the brushes in one of mine and it made a world of difference.
Good luck,
Mike.
Thanks, as ever, for your helpful suggestions
Having taken the arms off the spindles I've found that they want to turn one way (clockwise as you look down from the front, or back to the "park" position) but are not turning anti-clockwise to make the first sweep. So fuses, relays and connections are OK - the connector under the motor is sitting in water (which I gather is a common problem) but otherwise the motor's running. So I guess it's the motor itself - back to the Garage, then....
....on a dry day!!!!
....with plenty of Rain-Ex just in case!!!!
Having taken the arms off the spindles I've found that they want to turn one way (clockwise as you look down from the front, or back to the "park" position) but are not turning anti-clockwise to make the first sweep. So fuses, relays and connections are OK - the connector under the motor is sitting in water (which I gather is a common problem) but otherwise the motor's running. So I guess it's the motor itself - back to the Garage, then....
....on a dry day!!!!
....with plenty of Rain-Ex just in case!!!!
Rozza!!! said:
Are you hearing any grinding noises at all??? It sounds like it could be something slipping in one direction. Perhaps a gear that meshes ok in one direction but slips out of mesh in the other.
Roy.
No - no nasty noises at all - just the steady whirr of the motor (which, of course, you never hear if the engine's running!!!) punctuated by the bzzz as it parks.
That's what's strange - I really expected either absolutely nothing or a big graunch-kerplonk!!!
The wiper motor spindle turns in either clockwise or an anticlock direction. There should be a small'arm' attached to this that turns the circular motion of the wiper motor into a linear (side to side) motion which connects to the spindles that the wiper connect to.
Disconnect the linkage from the motor and turn it on. It should rotate either slow or fast (2 speed wipers) and stop at the same point each time (check with dab of colour on the side of rotating thingy). If it does this then it's the linkage that's worn and nothing to do with electrics, etc.
There are plastic joints on the linkage which wear out, thus increasing/decreasing swept area on the screen. I haven't heard of this being a common problem on Tiv's but I went through a couple of linkages on my Rover 820 several years ago (don't ask).
Hope that helps.
Disconnect the linkage from the motor and turn it on. It should rotate either slow or fast (2 speed wipers) and stop at the same point each time (check with dab of colour on the side of rotating thingy). If it does this then it's the linkage that's worn and nothing to do with electrics, etc.
There are plastic joints on the linkage which wear out, thus increasing/decreasing swept area on the screen. I haven't heard of this being a common problem on Tiv's but I went through a couple of linkages on my Rover 820 several years ago (don't ask).
Hope that helps.
Just to conclude this and confirm a happy ending!
Once the motor assembly was opened up it became clear that the cable had failed at the motor end. It's a fairly standard Lucas part, btw. I was still getting some drive, where the broken parts were catching, for a few sweeps before it disintegrated totally. It's failed only due to age/use - and the connections were really grotty where they tend to sit in the water that collects at the top of the wing. So that's now packed with grease and I'll be keeping an eye on that!
Nice simple tried-and-tested design - easy to sort out!
That'll teach me for thinking I could drive my TVR in the rain
Once the motor assembly was opened up it became clear that the cable had failed at the motor end. It's a fairly standard Lucas part, btw. I was still getting some drive, where the broken parts were catching, for a few sweeps before it disintegrated totally. It's failed only due to age/use - and the connections were really grotty where they tend to sit in the water that collects at the top of the wing. So that's now packed with grease and I'll be keeping an eye on that!
Nice simple tried-and-tested design - easy to sort out!
That'll teach me for thinking I could drive my TVR in the rain
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