K.I.S.S.
Posted: June 26th, 2021, 4:25 pm
Driving along yesterday in ye olde Toyota, I decided to rinse the windscreen.
There was a slow bubbling of fluid from the nozzles, and the odd spurt, then small bubbles. The rear washer at the top of the tailgate seemed OK. Fair enough, it sees little use, probably bunged up.
So today armed with a syringe, needle, and pipe, I popped the bonnet, removed one of the pipes (with its 30+ year old rusty clip) and used the syringe to check the nozzles, both were a bit gunky, but I got them flowing.
Reconnected, nothing.
I could hear the motor spinning, so next I took the pipe off the motor. Nothing came through when I pressed the button. 'Bother' said piglet, wondering how much a new pump was.
However, as one last check, I thought I'd make sure the reservoir hadn't gone brittle and cracked like the one on the Camry did, meaning the fluid had leaked out.
It turns out I was correct, the fluid had all leaked out of the reservoir, the very last of it yesterday onto the rear tailgate, which has a long pipe feeding it which obviously contained just enough fluid to fool me into thinking the rear one was OK but not the front one.
All the other cars have a 'washer fluid level' light - the Carina needs a 'muppet under bonnet' one.
Paul
There was a slow bubbling of fluid from the nozzles, and the odd spurt, then small bubbles. The rear washer at the top of the tailgate seemed OK. Fair enough, it sees little use, probably bunged up.
So today armed with a syringe, needle, and pipe, I popped the bonnet, removed one of the pipes (with its 30+ year old rusty clip) and used the syringe to check the nozzles, both were a bit gunky, but I got them flowing.
Reconnected, nothing.
I could hear the motor spinning, so next I took the pipe off the motor. Nothing came through when I pressed the button. 'Bother' said piglet, wondering how much a new pump was.
However, as one last check, I thought I'd make sure the reservoir hadn't gone brittle and cracked like the one on the Camry did, meaning the fluid had leaked out.
It turns out I was correct, the fluid had all leaked out of the reservoir, the very last of it yesterday onto the rear tailgate, which has a long pipe feeding it which obviously contained just enough fluid to fool me into thinking the rear one was OK but not the front one.
All the other cars have a 'washer fluid level' light - the Carina needs a 'muppet under bonnet' one.
Paul
Actually I don't think I'd know whether any of my cars have had washer fluid warning lights. I never had to put any of them to that kind of a test.
Fortunately, when the car's windscreen washers stopped working it was just a split piece of pipe under the bulkhead, which I was able to replace at my local pet store for 75 pence. 