Headlamp washers, ...quick advice needed! (now fixed)

[endorfin]

One of my headlamp washers has been leaking so I found a pair from a scrap car. Spend the afternoon taking it off and fitting the replacement, imagine my dismay when that one leaked too!!

Both seem to leak from the bottom of the unit, near where you push the water hose onto. This piece also seems to have been designed to rotate around, not sure for what purpose but its the section that rotates that the leak is coming from.

Are these repairable, I'm tempted to take it apart to see if I can effect a repair but thought I'd post on here first to see if anyone knows what I'm on about.

Bits of the front end of the car are in bits, don't want to put it back together yet without finding a solution.

This post has been edited by endorfin on September 15, 2011 06:39 pm

[noz]

Sounds a lot like frost damage. Previous owner maybe didn't use antifreeze in the screenwash.

cheers
noz

[endorfin]

Well if that's the case, looks like the owner of the scrapyard XM didn't put antifreeze in either. I've scoured both forums and can't find anyone else who's experienced anything similar.

I don't understand why the bottom (where the water hose connects to) has to rotate round completely unless its designed for LHD XMs as well, although I would have thought the hose & pump would be in the same side of the engine bay anyway.

Any idea if these are serviceable? Don't laugh but would something like a stop-leak solution as used in leaking radiators do anything to cure this problem?


Noz, PM sent to you about something else.

[endorfin]

Fixed!

I decided to disassemble one to see how it worked, this never bodes well for me when I start messing around with things I don't understand! I prised the base off with a screwdriver and true to form it cracked.
Anyway, there's a small thin rubber O ring in the base where the hose connects to that acts as a seal, it seemed intact on the badly leaking nearside washer from the scrapyard. Couldn't see how it was causing it to leak.
The original nearside one from my car didn't leak as badly but when you turn the hose connector around 360 degrees it seemed to stop leaking but this made it impossible to connect to the hose as the connector was facing the wrong way around.

I tested the offside washer from the scrapyard & it didn't leak at all so I removed the head from my leaking nearside one (easily done, just a clip holding it in place) and clipped it on the nearside washer and fixed it back on the car.

Both units were a bit sticky when raising up, not going done properly, I sprayed some WD40 into both of them and now they work perfectly...looks quite impressive now. No leaks :-)

I've now got one wrecked washer and one that will leak if used for nearside but doesn't if its used for the offside, along with two good heads with washer covers. If anyone wants them for cost of postage to use as spares to fix theirs. Knowing my luck I'll probably lose my washer covers after I give these away!