[V8] Old plastic....grrrrrrrrrrrr

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Warmed all the way up to 38 here today, so I decided to tackle the problem
of my wife's 100CS Avant rear washer not washing properly. She gets very
cranky when she can't see all the speeding cars screaming to a normal, legal
speed behind her because the rear window is all crudded up.

 

Anyway, I know that the pump is good because I replaced it several years
ago, and I can hear it whining whenever the washer/wiper lever is pushed to
turn on the wiper washer.  I also know that washer juice is getting to the
tailgate because there is some seepage past the wiper mount on the outside.
So the problem is in the wiper mount itself as the fluid flows through the
wiper motor itself somehow and out above the wiper arm as it moves around.
Pretty simple one would think.

 

The obvious cause of no fluid is that the fluid passage is filled up with
crud that has formed a kind of concrete. So logically, if I could get at the
passage with some wire I ought to be able to clear it all out, right?  

 

Right.  Well, sort of.  So I began by taking off the end cap that sits on
top of the wiper arm assembly.  Then I removed the 13 mm bolt and washer
that holds the arm assembly to the wiper motor stub that goes up through the
rear window.  Simple. Pretty gooped up so I cleaned that all.

 

I had exposed the washer nozzle by removing the end cap.  I tried to clean
that out with a thin piece of wire, but the passage makes a 90 degree turn
about two millimeters inside, and there is no way that I could get down
inside with my wire. I also tried to remove the wiper arm assembly, but it
is frozen so solidly in place that it will take a gear pullet to pull it
off, and I am not ready for that yet.

 

Next I decided that I needed to pull off the inside trim panels to expose
the wiper motor itself from inside the tailgate.  That is when I started to
curse.

 

The trim panel is composed of three pieces, all of which are held together
by stupid screws and the best that I can say is that UNlike the typical
German fashion, are not seventy in number with equal numbers of odd shaped
washers.  But the some of the screws are pulled through their mating
surfaces, and at least one third o fthe obnoxious plastic plugs that hold
the bottom of the panels to the steel of the tailgate are broken or broke
when I pulled them out.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

But then, all exposed, I found the way the fluid enters the back of the
motor assembly stub that fits through the windscreen.  No Hope.  I decided
to pull off the nozzle assembly outside, and it promptly broke off.  

 

I still couldn't clean it out so that it would work, and that nozzle piece
(plastic) doesn't appear to be removable from beneath.  

 

So it appears that the only fix is a new wiper motor assembly intact.  

 

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  And once I have that and get it in place, I will have
to get all the friggin' plastic panels back in place.

 

I think this is why so many people end up trading their Audi's in on
Subarus.

 

Roger