Morris Minor Owners Club

I have a problem with my windscreen washers on my late model 1968 Traveller. They are the non-electrical pump switch type (my previous saloon had an electrical one) so I am a bit baffled as to what the problem might be. The bottle is new and the water tube appears fine with no obvious breaks. I can push the button lots of times but no water appears. Is there an obvious regular problem I am missing? Many thanks. Neil.

Blocked nozzles? Non return valve in the bottle wrong way round? Intake filter in the bottle choked?

Thats about it unless the pump has packed up, which does happen if it hasnt been used in some time.

Great thanks for help

I couldn't get mine to work, even after replacing the missing check valve in the bottle. However, I did get it to work by adding another valve -- in this case a small off the shelf vacuum check valve -- on the windscreen side of the pump. So far as I could tell, all the pump was doing was acting as a plunger -- meaning that you need two check valves to get it to pump, not just the one. I'm guessing that there is a check valve inside the pump and mine had failed.

You often have to pump them for quite a while before anything much happens, sometimes you can feel the plunger returning more slowly as water gets drawn into the system.

It can also be blocked jets (or tube) sometimes a jell like substance form in old screenwash that can clog up. Try blowing back down the jets with an air line. It has fixed two cars for me in the last few months.

Take the return valve off and clean the end of the tube, get some clean drinking water, take a mouthful and blow it up the pipe to see if it comes out the jets!! Sometimes if the pump gets wet again it will start to lift water again.

It does not help having the bottle low down on the inner wing, much better to have the bottle high up on the bulkhead.