Wobstang II

[Junkman]

For Mr Junky I tried US Automtive they dont sell wiper motors

 

 

 

 

But a lot of other stuff.

[Junkman]

Black to earth.

 

12V to red = one of the two speeds

 

12V to white = the other of the two speeds

 

If it doesn't do anything, hit it with a hammer.

If it still doesn't do anything, replace it.

[Junkman]

I meant Im opening it what should I be looking for?

Cleanliness.

[danthecapriman]

Just check the motor brushes are still ok and not worn away, poor shape or broken/missing and check the commutator (the bit the brushes contact on that rotates) for wear and damage. Check the windings are still ok too.

Obviously also check the wiring and connection points are still good too.

Old DC motors are dead to work out tbh and there’s not great deal that can be wrong with them.

 

I had a big DC motor from a 33kv power distribution transformer tap changer to check the other day, it was a big beast from the late 50’s (English Electric) and it’s the same more or less as your little wiper motor!

This one had just stopped working. Everything tested ok, brushes etc still fine but the wiring had caught fire in the end of the casing! It’s still repairable though and being rebuilt as we speak!

 

Those little clips you found on it are the same as the ones on the Mercury for holding the headlight door vacuum arms to the doors! Good old Ford parts bin!

[danthecapriman]

I know Phil A suggested I checked Chassis Earth to pins on the wiper plug I go nothing Nadda

Just sanded a small section of the motor casing and now getting a reading

So i guess thats promising?

The reading is erratic but its a reading nevertheless

I am guessing once im inside I just degrease everything then repack the greasy bits with new grease?

If the brushes are worn ive seen several types on Fleabay just hoping they are a common type?

Do I need to clean up the commutator to shiny if its dirty?

Sand it or wire wool?

The motors probably ok, it’s most likely just been sat idle and started corroding and got dirty.

 

Get some electrical cleaner spray or carb cleaner etc and wash it down with that. It evaporates and doesn’t leave a greasy film. Don’t over lubricate anything though afterwards as it’ll just make a mess, if you do have to lube anything do so sparingly!

 

Clean the commutator with a scotch pad or similar. Spray a tiny amount of AC90 or WD40 onto the pad then give it a good scrubbing. Any grease or corrosion should scrub off. Don’t use wire wool as it can break up and leave wires inside things which can then short out! Also don’t use sandpaper or similar as it’s too coarse and will scratch the copper contacts and also any tinning will be scratched off and then you’ll get more corrosion later on!

The cleaner it is the better tbh. The point is to make as good a contact between the brushes and commutator as possible. If the join is dirty or corroded it creates a high resistance joint which means your volts will go. When you only have 12 of them it doesn’t take much! Clean = better!

You might need to give it a few coats of the contact cleaner stuff if it’s particularly grubby inside. Also remember the earth/ground needs to be clean which is most likely through the casing to cars bodyshell.

 

Also, check the brushes, these need to be clean and an even surface, if there’s bits broken off the contact face or they’re worn down or an irregular shape they’re fucked and need changing.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Looks clean as fuck to me; like it's barely moved in 43 years!

As always lack of use, corrosion and dodgy earthing the usual issues. Clean commutator and then run it and run it some more until any arcing dies down.

Well done on getting the bastard out, in a nasty place to get to...

[danthecapriman]

Looks pretty good. The commutator is quite dirty though, to be expected after that long. Give that a really good scrub up. It should look like the clean copper colour where the brushes haven’t been touching top and bottom, or as near as.

From the pics it looks like it should work after a clean...

[PhilA]

Sorry, was away with computer trouble. Huzzah for liberation of motor.

Doubt anybody's been in there. Those bolts are coated against corrosion, the body would have been painted or cheaply galvanized at best, most likely that's just failed and it went rusty.

 

Those chunks missing from the motor are meant to be there, that's for balance. They would spin it up fast on a balance machine and trim metal off like that to remove vibration.

 

Take care reassembling it when you go to push the brushes back over the commutator.

 

Other than that it just looks like a bit of rust made a crappy contact. There is an uncovered wire in the disassembled picture that goes to an O-ring connector, screwed in. Does that screw connect to the body of the motor?

 

Reassemble, clip black wire of jump pack to the body of the motor, red to the white wire, should run slow, then connect to the blue/orange and it should run ever so slightly faster (you'll probably only hear a slight change in pitch).

 

The brushes are going to be some sort of funny sintered metal, they look fine. Clean up, new grease in the gearbox and test.

 

Phil

[danthecapriman]

The scotch pad type stuff is what we use at work on big electrical equipment, it’s about the best thing around for cleaning contacts up tbh. Wire wool is a massive no no!!

We had a guy who used 80 grit wet & dry to clean up a 33kv isolator once. He cleaned right through the factory tinning that’d been on it for the last 50 years and went into the copper underneath. It’s got to be coated in electrical conductive grease now to stop it corroding and going green! The scotch pads will do stuff like that well enough after they’ve been sat outdoors in all weathers, should do the job on your wiper motor anyway.

[PhilA]

They look long enough to hold correctly in their sliders, if the ends are just a smooth crescent then they're good. Likely they just need cleaning up a little.

 

Phil

[DodgeRover]

With the motor removed is the mechanism remaining on the car all free to turn?

That motor looks like it's hardly been used - I wonder if the grease could have gone solid in the gearbox?

[smellypoo]

I saw this and thought of this thread... you might enjoy it from the start but I've pasted in a link from a particularly relevant point in the video

 

https://youtu.be/Rib0jbmeaX0?t=223

 

There's a lot of vintage motoring stuff on the Thames Television youtube channel - just that channel ident sequence makes me feel like a kid again!

[danthecapriman]

It doesn’t look overly bad in there. Maybe just clean out what you can and put new grease back in.

[PhilA]

For the age of it everything inside looks pretty good tbh. Certainly good enough to put back on and expect that many years out of it again. So, it does for certain ground to the motor chassis to the car body so there will need to be a joining wire to somewhere on the body of the motor to the car's body. It won't ground through the rubber bushings.

 

--Phil

[Guest Hooli]

Lots of fun that...

 

My lass has small thing hair bands for ponytails under her helmet (how wrong does that read?) one of them around each one would do it, or small laccy bands.

[PhilA]

Oh. That requires you have five hands and 37 fingers.

 

Joking aside, you may find that the brushes push in far enough you can get a paperclip or something through the hole to hold them in place and pull them out once the thing is far enough in that they can be pulled out.

 

An O-ring around one of the gearbox bolts would be preferable to ground from, the bowl bolts may not provide a good reliable ground.

 

Phil

[Guest Hooli]

MOT'd yet?

 

I can't recall what else was needing doing.

[egg]

Have more faith in yourself Jo! Proper shite-work is going on here, great to see.

[JeeExEll]

Good to see you're making good progress there Jo, and doing it yourself. Scanning back through the thread shows lots of fiddly problems have been resolved in a short space of time (although you may not see it that way).

Keep chipping at it bit by bit, every day is a school day.

(Soon you'll have a Master's Degree in ShiteStangery).

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Probably cheaper solutions available but for the battery I would be tempted to just bolt something like this in:

 

http://www.rallynuts.com/battery-retention/rallynuts-aluminium-battery-mounting-brackets.html

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

[Dave_Q]

The £shop do ratchet straps that will do just fine to secure a battery for MOT.

[PhilA]

If it's got a small hole in one side of the tray, a hook of some sort should be able to go into it and then the thing strapped down to either the hole or the hook.

 

Glad to hear the wiper motor was just a snafu.

 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

For MoT a fabric strap would be OK, until you can secure something more permanent?

 

Phil

[cort1977]

Not sure I follow what's up with the battery tray?  The battery is sitting on a tray right?   Can you not just fit something like this, drill a couple of holes in the tray lip if necessary?

 

[DodgeRover]

Was the wire coiled up? Chances are the motor is fine after all the smoke was from the new bit of wire not the motor?

[PhilA]

Wiper motor loaded up is probably a ten amp item. What was the bad connection you mentioned before that stopped it working? Perhaps the same one again? Ten amp is enough to make quite a lot of smoke through a bad connection.

 

It's also possible the commutator got a bit smoky, residue on it and everything.

 

Phil

[Junkman]

I haven't seen a photo of a big bloody V8 for too long.

[PhilA]

Oh. That wiring isn't up to task of running that big motor, particularly if it gets a bit bogged down. The current draw as a motor takes load and slows down increases dramatically over running normally (which is why wiper motors tend to have them overload cutouts in circuit).

 

Check the motor bucket hasn't shifted and that it's also not tightened up too much, the back bearing can bind up if it is.

Don't fret. Give it a try again and see if it runs freely. If it runs all slow, pull it apart and check the brushes and commutator aren't burned or glazed.

 

Phil

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Set of jump leads would be overkill but would do the job.

 

I tend to use them more for testing bike starter motors, which like to make sparks and noise

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

[Guest Hooli]

You've just discovered why extension leads say 'uncoil before use'.