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Wiper Sweep


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Is there any way to increase the sweep of the wipers? These bloody wipers are the bane of my life.

Everything on my setup is new and genuine. Tdi wiper motor, wheelboxes and spiral drive. The only way i seem to be able to get the wipers to sweep up to the edge of the screen is if i set the park of the wipers so that they're starting half way up to begin with if that makes sense.

Honestly, im so fed up dicking around with these things to get them right.

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If i lengthened the primary link in the above image, would that do it? And if so by how much, 5mm?

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I feel your pain, my sweep is a disaster, I have 300 motor on td5 bulkhead, td5 wiperboxes, td5 gear in the motor, wipers are nowhere near parallel to the screen bottom when parked and dont wipe to the edge of the screen.........bloody things, I reckon this summer will see a change to all 300 with a spacer tube or modded td5 wheelbox to adapt the 300 wiperboxes, they frustrate the hell out of me! and as you know, they clunk!......

Paul

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Actually having a think about it, lengthening the link wont help. Am i right in thinking that if i lengthen it, while it would push the wipers further over, it would also mean they wouldnt come back as far?

Thoughts please.

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There are two possible causes , the wrong degree wheel in the motor , or I have found some aftermarket wheelboxes to be badly machined , so that its like fitting worn out wheelboxes that are theoretically new !! The other slight possible is that the knurled drive wheel on the wheelbox spindle isnt tight so that when the wipers are switched of , you can still move the arms thru quite an arc . HTSH

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I will check what it says on the wheel tomorrow. Though it should be the one that came with the genuine tdi motor.

I did have the wheel out of the motor though. Would it matter what position i put it back in considering im not using wiper switch to operate, rather im putting 12v direct from the battery for testing purposes.

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115 is listed in 90/110 parts book 1987 onwards so would include Tdi vehicles,

my up to 1986 110 parts book lists 608092 for use with spigot type wiper arms & 517646 for use with hokk type wiper arms.

it doesn't say the sweep angles, but going on the wiper arm type the 608092 would be less as the blade would sit above the arm instead of inline as the later hook type. a matter of wiper blade/arm centre line relationships I think.

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Ok so i spoke to svc this morning. He said that it was very unusual for there not to be a number stamped on the gear, and that he suspects that someone has supplied a Lucas motor that wasnt for a defender, and therefore had an unsuitable gear.

I have ordered a 115 degree gear from them. Fingers crossed that will fix it.....

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Here is a write up I did when I rebuilt my 110...

The modified wipers and set up still function perfect after almost 3 years and disco wipers actually park dead flat against the bottom of the screen and not 6 inches up it!. Sweep is just about near perfect, maybe another 1-2 degrees would be nice.

.................................

I also decided to bin the 30 year old wipers and did an "upgrade" to the later TD5 type setup.

A few photos of the wiper upgrade I did.

I bought the later TD5 spindle boxes which have larger gears (40 teeth as opposed to 32) and a bigger oval spindle. I had to drill the bulkhead out to 13mm and then enlarge the holes sideways with a dremel to get the spindles to fit. The TD5 bulkhead must have a wider channel at the mounting points put they do (just) fit OK.

9073698jui.jpg

However, refitting the drive cable saw a problem with the larger gears meaning it now runs about 1cm higher up the bulkhead. So the central stiffener needed modifying and the cable bending a little bit to get around this.

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The brighter ones out there will realise that the extra 8 teeth on the gear will alter the sweep of the wipers and lead to a reduced swept area. To get around this I fitted the gear and crank from a late TD5 motor (available cheaply enough as a genuine part). This has the crank mounted more outboard on the driven gear which leads to a greater stroke on the flexidrive thus restoring the original stroke to the wipers. The early type crank is marked 113 degrees and the later one as 140 IIRC. Unfortunately I have no photos of this but it is a very straightforward swap involving a circlip and 4 screws!

Next up was to modify some discovery Tdi wiper arms to fit the new spindles as this was one of the main reasons for the upgrade. The disco arms, being larger and longer, have stronger springs than the defender ones so theoretically when cut down should be even better (though I have yet to test them).

Here are 110 and disco units side by side

9073694zlm.jpg

First up, remove the springs from the arms. Pull one off and the other falls off.

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Then cut clean though the arm leaving the right length on the bottom bit for later.

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Now you have to separate the inner and outer bits from both sections of wiper. On the top bit I cut it through again to leave only the length of inner needed when reassembled since that mean there is less centre to drift out. They are a very very tight fit and I was unable to simply tap the middle bit out so I used a slitting disc and carefully cut the outer off. On the lower part of the arm you need to first remove the rivet. Unfurtunately this seems to be made of the hardest metal known to man! I used a small disc to grind it down flush with the spring mounting plate which I then levered off and then ground it down again level with the inner part of the arm. It would still not drift out so at this stage I ran a thin disc up the full length of the central bit careful not to damage the outer part. With a slit in the rivet it was possible to knock it out and then fairly easy to drift out the central section

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The shortened end piece can then be knocked back into lower section to the correct depth. Check length with the original 110 item. When happy I drilled through the old rivet hole, through the shortened arm and through the spring mount. I then tapped them for an M5 screwhead bolt (just to minimise and chance of movement) and then bolted it together.

9073693xvc.jpg

A bit of tidying and a coat of paint to finish

and here are the 2 new wiper arms ready to fit the TD5 spindles and the old one as comparison

9073696xlh.jpg

On testing of this mod it was found that the springs were too strong and the motor would not move the wipers! I removed the springs and stretched them slightly. This resulted in not enough pressure on the wipers! The solution was to fit one stretched spring and one unstretched spring to each wiper which has proven to be just right. Whether it is any better than later defender arms I can't say but they certainly work well enough!

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