Washers that work!
Dale breathes new life into a struggling washer system so that he can see clearly now the rain has come…
1997 VOLVO 940 ESTATE
It’s funny how you don’t really appreciate how bad something is until you replace or upgrade it, and then you wonder how you coped for so long. My 940’s washer jets are a case in point. Not only are they woefully underpowered but the coverage is laughable and they regularly become blocked, further diminishing their already feeble capabilities. What prompted me to address this situation was the need to finally fix the leaking rear screen washer pipe, which in turn was inspired by having some silicone hose left over from the vacuum system overhaul.
Fixing the rear washer was simply a matter of feeding a length of new hose from the washer bottle through the bulkhead and back onto the connector that continues to the rear window. With that job complete I moved on to the front screen.
Apparently a good upgrade to the windscreen washer jets is to install those from a Volvo V70 – they are compatible and provide a much better spray pattern, so with these ordered I set about replacing the originals. Upon fitting I immediately noticed an improvement in the jets, but I still felt that they lacked the required power to make them a viable alternative. The system is shared by the headlight washers and so its overall efficiency is diminished by the fact that two extra motors are fighting for power. I had read that removing these improved the intensity of the windscreen washers and, feeling that I didn’t really have a need for them in this country (one side didn’t even work anyway) I decided to do away with them.
Access is simple so it wasn’t long before
I had removed both motors from behind the headlights as well as the wipers and pipes, and capped off the connections at the washer bottle. Now that the system is much smaller with only the front and rear screens sharing the load, the new jets have a better spray pattern and the required power to effectively cover and clean the entire windscreen. It may not seem like a huge job in the grand scheme of things but cheap, simple little enhancements like this are always worth doing, and being able to wash the windscreen properly when I’m stuck behind a lorry on a dreary day in January will be a revelation.
I just need new wiper blades, now!