shooftie

Seems like a slim subject for a post, but perhaps some of you don’t know it can be done. The shafts that stick out of the front of the van, and to which the wiper arms are attached, have a plain bearing sleeve. I bet that over time any lubrication in the sleeve is lost and the shaft gets that little bit harder to move.

I have a spare wiper assembly in the barn, so here are some pics of the shaft and housing.

Front view, showing the splined area that the arm meshes with, the threaded end for the wiper arm securing nut, the threaded base that the big nut that holds the housing in place on the sheet metal (the housing is also held to the van by phillips headed screws that you can see at the front edge of dash board near windscreen). You might be able to make out a circlip just above the large threads.

Circlip removed, 2 washers, and a rubber grease seal.

Back, inside view of above, circlip and washers removed and the shaft pushed back. This exposed shaft is what need lubed.

Make sense? Ok, out to the van. First pry off the plastic cap at the base of the wiper arm. See the little slot on wiper arm base where you can insert a screwdriver to twist off the cap?

Cap off, 10 mm nut exposed. Often it is pretty rusty in here.

Remove nut and thin washer, wiggle wiper arm and remove from stud. The splines will look cruddy like this one, no worry, clean the splines out with a pin/needle. It’s these splines which bite into the softer metal of the wiper arm that prevents the wiper arm from slipping, not how tight the 10 mm nut is. So spend some time to clean the splines out.

Pry off the black plastic shroud. Careful, don’t scratch the paint.

That big nut is supposed to be somewhat tight, 69 in. lbs (8 Nm). You can see the golden coloured circlip, remove that (don’t lose it!).

In this pic the circlip and the 2 washers have been removed, and the 10 mm nut put back on the shaft (to give me something to hold on to). The shaft was pushed in and out a little and that made the grease seal pop out.

Bentley says to use molybdenum disulphide grease on the shaft, I used gear oil. If I had the shafts right apart then grease would make sense, but seems to me that oil is better in this situation.

And then it is just a matter of putting it all back together. The circlip might be the hardest part to re-install. The wiper arm nut is tightened to 5 Nm (43 in. lbs). Do not over-tighten, risk of strippage! I place the arm on the shaft and before tightening the nut, I move the arm into proper resting position Then tighten the nut and the assembly draws up without moving out of position. Oh, and another thing, I glob some waterproof grease onto that nut to reduce rusting.

A few months ago my driver’s side door was allowed to swing open hard (van parked on hill, happened on this trip) and the check strap snapped. Got around to fixing it today. I had a spare assembly from my ’82, straightforward swap.

After the door card is removed, you can see the check strap assembly inside the door. The ’86 has a plastic cover over the works, the old ’82 did not.

Cover removed, two phillips head screws holds the mechanism on.

Removed and the broken end on the other side. The remainder of the strap, the part attached to the door jamb and held on with a pin and circlip arrangement was removed when I snapped the strap.

The replacement unit, and the waterproof grease I’ve been using recently for this and that. The stuff really does seem to resist washout better than regular grease (ie on shift linkage)

Installation is simple, no gotchas, here is pin on body end of strap.

Addendum: In the comment Jon asked if the check strap could be adjusted to give more resistance. I can’t see how that could be done, perhaps Jon’s mechanism is broken? Here are more pics of the “resisting elements”, the hard faced rubber bits that pinch the steel strap.

Some more images of the slots on the slotted plates of the VC. Any burr or ridge is not so clear, but perhaps there is one on the worn side of the plate. The series show the same plate, un-worn, then worn side. Clicking on the pics will bring up larger version.

Un-worn side.

Worn side.

Un-worn side.

Worn side.

I took some pics (btw, all the pics can be clicked on to get larger image) of the plates in an attempt to see those “burrs” on the holes or slots that are implicated in the hump or STA (self torque amplification) event. I think having my sketch diagram of how the plates and spacers are arranged would be useful here:

Here is the stack as it comes out of the VC. Note that the circlip and shims are not on the end of the shaft. Also note that the top plate is not held in the stack by the circlip, but rather is pressed against the endplate when installed.

The reverse side of that top plate, obviously worn.

And the slotted plate below.

Now remember, these two top plates are not spaced apart. The next plate however, is spaced from the slotted plate you see by approx. 0.025″. Mis-focused on this pic, but included it to keep the arrangement clear. See the wear on it even though it is spaced from the plate above?

Here, with the above plate beside, slotted plate turned over.

Closer view.

Here are the adjacent surfaces of another pair, same arrangement as the worn pair above, ie has spacer separating them. Note that they are not worn.

Now lets get a better look at the punched holes.

Closer, I’d say there was a raised rim, very subtle.

And a shot of worn plate holes. I think you can see where the rim/burr whatever you want to call it has been worn.

I only had time to get one close up of the slots in the other plate type, no rim evident on this side at least.

Well, this exercise demonstrated, to me at least, that there are burrs on the punched holes. As to the role of these burrs, I will deal with that in part 3.