E30 Zone

been playing around today. Fixed the intensive wash (found out my chromie scrapper had a 10 pin wiper relay) so in good spirit i thought id have a go at fixing my headlight wiper motors. I have taken them apart, found at least 3 problems in each where they were seized (the BMW grease is a nightmare) but the motors were fine. Re assembled and they bolth work when hooked up to a battery - good times! However i hooked them up before fitting, to their original plugs and pulled the wiper stalk - they both work however the drivers side works for about 2 "strokes" of the wipers and the passengers works for double that!

Internally there is a small cog which obviously turns the wipers on or off at a specific interval. However i put both back together using their corresponding parts, and i could see no specific way in which this cog would initially sit, so i just put them both at the same position.

Has anybody else come across anything similar?

chris

just been to actually count - the passengers side wipes 4 times and the drivers only once. How many times is it supposed to? Surely not once?

Passenger one is working correctly; the driver's side is not.
Can't begin to imagine what's wrong with it though, without having a dismantled one in front of me!
As you've said, each motor's cycle is controlled by itself once it's triggered, and the cycle is determined by a cam wheel driven by gears, controlling a switch which stops the motor once the cam wheel has done one complete turn.

Thanks - i will use the passenger motor as a template then. Just taken them both apart again - the drivers side motor which also controls the washer fluid has an extra switch to turn the pump on/off however the cam wheels in each motors are identical (just with or without the extra switch), so I will try and align them both identically, just after the cogs 'click' to turn the motor on (if this makes sense), align the other cogs identically and see what happens.

If all fails il try and get some close up pictures to simulate it in front of you

thanks

Had another play around today and it is now sorted. I have a couple of spare sets of these however there was one pair i was concentrating on making functional. I spend hours pulling my hair out but the drivers side motor which controls the washer pump would only "wipe" once when plugged in to the original loom.

So i gutted it, again, and hooked it up to the battery directly. Watch the video below. Keep in mind, the only 2 cogs left in have nothing to do with timing - the timing cog was removed. The first motor movement is connecting the brown to negative and red to positive which causes the motor to run continuously. The second motor movement is cause by connecting the brown the negative and black to positive which should cause the motor to run until parking position - however it runs continiously as you would expect with no timing gear. So, strangely enough when connected to the loom it still only runs once.

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So first thing i tried was replacing the control box - this made no difference. At this point i was pretty pissed off and threw it across the garden. I decided to give one of the other motors a go. I swapped all the internals over (motor, cogs, the lot) and hey presto

[youtube][/youtube]

it worked.

So the only "limiting factor" i suppose you could say is within the motor casing its self (assuming the wiring isnt faulty in someway). So i decided to "investigate". There is a silicon sealed part on the motor which holds what looks to me like a diode between the red and blue wires. I assume this is for the washer pump power so makes no sense to me why this would be the cause, however this is the only thing i could not test (multimeter battery dead).



Just need to adjust the wipers a little better. Anybody know if the blades are still available? If you listen closely to the second video you can hear the washer jet for the headlights (currently empty) at the beginning. It doesnt seem to run for very long - how long is normal?

Chris

wiper blades are available from the dealers - bought a set last month.

Well done on sorting it.

nice one, thanks. Trying to sort out little faddy things such as this before winter comes around. Next up, heated mirrors

Excellent post Chris. Very helpful indeed

(Thanks)

no problem! i still have a lot of spares so if anybody does need a detailed guide to refurbing these (pictures, videos) i can provide

chris

Chris,
do you have any spare wiper blades for the headlamps? I need two!

Thanks, Marcus

Just been through a similiar thing getting my motor's all working and neither of my passenger sides would work, narrowed it down to the diode that you have exposed (diodes are in passenger side aswell) two new diodes later and I have two fully functional motors

glad this helped somebody

hi marcus, i probably do have a few spare sets in the garage though due to their age they tend to be crap at actually wiping the lenses and stay in their "bent shape". Theyre still available from the dealers IIRC