Checking the Electrolux wiper motor and mechanism.
Pull the wiper arms from their spindles. Be careful to avoid damage to the plastic shrouds that fit over the nuts, they are fragile.
Take the whole Electrolux assembly out of the car. The 2 small rubber vibration mounts at the rear are often a problem, with missing nuts. One of them was missing on my car.
I recall on my 79 pre-HE the nuts were something like a 2BA or 4BA. BA is British Association, you can Google it.
Remove the motor and gearbox from their mounting bracket, then take the cover off the gearbox.
The motor is a much better design than the previous Lucas one. The brushgear is at the gearbox end so you can take out the 2 long screws and remove the can without disturbing any brushes. That lets you put some thin oil in the bush at the end of the can, and also try to dribble some oil into the bush at the gearbox end.
I put some electrical grease on the wormwheel in the gearbox.
Plug the motor into the 8 pin socket on the car. Use the wiper switch to check the wormwheel rotates and parks correctly.
Replace the motor and gearbox in the bracket.
Do not bolt the mechanism crank back on the gearbox spindle yet.
With the whole Electrolux assembly lying on the convertible body, and plugged into the 8 pin socket, use the wiper switch to operate the wiper motor and check it works and parks as expected.
I also checked the flick position and windscreen washer reservoir motor were functional.
How to put the crank back on the gearbox spindle.
Note this is for a RHD car with the wipers parking on the LH passenger side. Not sure this is the same in all markets.
Operate the wiper switch so the gearbox spindle is in the park position.
Move the links of the wiper mechanism so the wiper spindles are in the park position.
You cannot fit the bolt that holds the crank on the gearbox spindle in this position.
Mark the gearbox spindle nose with a spot of paint or whatever.
Operate the wiper switch to turn the gearbox spindle, but turn off the ignition switch so the gearbox spindle has only moved through 180deg.
It will take a few attempts to get it right. Move the crank so it is 180deg from where it was in the park position.
Then you can fit the bolt that holds the crank on the gearbox spindle.
This should result in the wiper arms being in the correct position when parked. Best to do a dry run and check things before putting the whole Electrolux assembly back in the car.
Fit the assembly back in the car. Finally with the wiper arms in the “up” position check it parks O.K. before placing them in the “down” position.
Ready to work on.
Motor and gearbox
Park position. Note crank covers bolt head on spindle.
I am pretty sure it came in with the introduction of the 'Recaro' style slightly narrower seats and Ford column switchgear in about 1988/9. An 3.6 I drove, late 1980s build, had electrolux wipers.
It can be fitted directly to earlier Lucas wiper cars and no mods are needed, except that you will lose the intermittent function. There is a mod possible to fix this too.
I'm pretty sure it started in the middle of 1988 Calendar Year. There were 2 VIN changepoints for Wiper Motors. One at VIN 152510 and then very soon after at 154405. VIN 152978 is at June 1988, so that's about the changepoint.
On UK cars, it switched from the wipers parking on the right to parking on the left. You see a mixture of teh 2 types on cars made & registered in 1988.
A quick question.
My Hess & Eisenhardt (US market, LHD, VIN 147396) has the wipers parked on the left side (i.e. UK passenger side).
Which bothers me a bit, they should park on the right side (LHD passenger side).
Why this is, and the car was fitted with RHD wipers, I don't know.
Is there any way to change the RHD wipers to LHD wipers?
I just completed the Electrolux conversion on my early ‘88 (146xxx) and now have awesome wipers (and also now don’t have to repair my wiper switch to restore parking). I sourced the wiper assembly from a ‘91 (VIN 178xxx) and elected to use the wiper logic module from that car.
Neat thing about that is that it uses relays and the parking circuit no longer needs to ground through the wiper switch.
And, they now park on the right (LHD car).
I believe that the Lucas non-solenoid park (which you car would have) all park on the right. Electrolux cand be made to park either way, and I believe the early Lucas solenoid type can be made to park either way.
If nobody replies with a likely source of the correct Electrolux brushes, go to an auto electrician's shop.
Show him the motor and the old brushes. He may have something that fits. Or he may have something slightly too large and you can file it down to size quite easily.
My brushes were almost like new, but then again I never drive the convertible in rain. I needed the wipers to work for a roadworthy check.
