The Lotus Grand Tourers

Reckon I need some new brushes. It failed tonight, about 2 miles from home. Rain, fog, spray. Bah!

Only done 203500 miles! Cheap unreliable rubbish.

Should have bought Japanese

Lucas - Prince of Darkness!

Pete

Prince of smeary glare is more like it. I was cruising nicely at 60. Had to drop down to about 15 because I couldn't see the cats' eyes properly.

amarshall wrote:Reckon I need some new brushes. It failed tonight, about 2 miles from home. Rain, fog, spray. Bah!

Only done 203500 miles! Cheap unreliable rubbish.

theres an article in this months practical classics on stripping the lucas wiper motor.

Pig of a job. I've been at it for an hour just to get the old brush set out.

Steering wheel off, instrument panel off, heater trim off so I can avoid damaging the vertical switch trim.
Wiper arm off.
String on the wheelbox, undone clamp nut and slid it and washers up the string (which is tied to the door mirror at the other end). Whacked spindle with a hammer to release the wheelbox.
Unplugged the delay unit & removed delay unit from inside dash to try to get more clearance.
Unplugged motor and removed screw for the earth strap.
Removed motor clamp.
Cursed, swore, wiggled, bled. Can't remove the motor completely, there's just no clearance unless I remove the flexible heater ducts.
Rotated motor until I could get to the base. Undid the two long body bolts and slid the motor out.
Unplugged brush unit from parking switch.
Unscrewed the brush assembly mounting screws.
Am now sitting waiting for bleeding to stop and pondering the best way of holding the new brushes back so I can install them and slide the motor in without causing damage, but still being able to release the brushes so they make contact when it's all done up...

Anyone want to buy a collection of new parts flying in loose formation?

I bet it's easy to get the spindle back in past the brushes on the bench. Anyone have any tips for doing it in the car?

Managed it eventually. Hasn't cured the problem.

Pektron delay module is the next suspect. I can hear the relay chattering and switching. If it isn't that, what else could cause the wiper to stop dead mid-stroke and not come to life again?

Drive gear is stripped?

Hawaiis0 wrote:Drive gear is stripped?

I guess that's possible, but would it have stopped suddenly without any warning? (and wouldn't I still be able to hear the motor turning?)

I'm sure Tanz had something similar . He (or a n other) replaced his drive gear to good results

How about one (or more) duff winding on one of the segments of the commutator of the motor?

So a question or two since you are in there... My wiper worked great yesterday for a 2 hour drive in the rain. I turned it on today to clear some spring time pollen and it started slipping all over the place. It ended up stopping on the drivers side when off. in engineering terms it was Totally wackadoo!! I suspected the arm was just slipping on the spindle with the lack of significant lubrication on the nearly dry screen (The washer pump was slow to get fluid on the glass). Upon closer inspection, it seems the wheel box and cable aren't engaging (motor is working and I can feel the cable moving back and forth but the spindle isn't moving but a small bit now - I figure the wheelbox disconnected from the cable - or it is stripped now!? can this be simply re-tightened or do I need to replace the cable and/or wheel box?.

I did note yesterday that on delay mode the wiper pushes water down the windshield in front of me and when the wiper goes back to the passenger side to wait the water creeps up the glass due to highway speeds right in to my line of vision. My thought was, it would almost be better if the windshield parked low on the driver side to prevent this and I get 2 wipes (up and down) spread out vs one fast one on my side.. Is it possible to reverse the mechanism? ie How is a LHD wiper setup different than RHD? IS it installed on the other side??

Second question. Is the wiper supposed to park lower than it's normal operating range when in use? What is the sweep angle? I've seen mine do almost 180* on a good day and 155* on a 'weak' day. I don't know what is right or what exactly is slipping allowing for the excessive or restricted movements. insights?
It'll be easier to fix if I know what 'right' looks like.
Thanks!!

So I pulled the dash apart. Yanked out the wiper assembly. Answered some of my own question above I believe The cause of my problem is a broken cable. The gearing wrapped around the cable sheared apart and separated about 2-3" of the tag end resulting in the wheelbox gear having nothing to engage it, just empty cable sliding past it.

Is the cable itself a standalone part? The parts diagram shows it as part of the wiper assembly. Anyone know where I could get a cable with the correct 'gear spacing' for the wheel box AND the correct attachment to the motor, which I could then cut to length?

Anyone with a bad motor laying around and a good cable? I'll buy it off ya!
91 SE Lucas motor.

FWIW I bought this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Land-Rover-Def ... 0290.m3507

Hoping it'll fit as I continue to look else where.
Can't really drive the car with the dash all pulled apart unfortunately. I'll look locally too, but these aren't really common from what I can tell.