Morris Minor Owners Club

Hello all -

I have a 1959 2-door Minor (Serial Number 746***) and person who rebuilt it before I got it did a bunch of things a little oddly. Among others, he seems to have installed a later wiper motor: a DR3A instead of a DR2. This means the wipers have a lot of extra travel beyond the edges of the windscreen. They park fine, so it's clearly the wrong overall travel.

I have read a bunch of related threads here, and it seems you can to some extent swap out the gear wheel mechanisms. My main question therefore is, if I can buy a 100 degree gear wheel (which I believe is the correct number) can I drop it into the DR3A? Or do I need to get a DR2?

Related to this question: I opened the wiper motor gear casing to see what its gear said for its degrees of travel, but it seems not to be stamped on the top surface. I'm not sure how to take the gear wheel out to look at the underside, either, though everyone seems to think it's simple. I don't want to put a lot of pressure on things, especially a plastic gear in contact with a steel worm gear. Can it be done in place or do I need to take the motor out and put it on the workbench to access the bottom or something?

Finally, if I do need to replace the motor itself, will I also have to replace the linkage cable or can it stay in place and be attached to the DR2?

Thanks in advance!

The gear is held in by an e-clip on the underside. To remove it you'll need to remove the arm from the top, and then remove the wiper motor from the car and slide out the e-clip, at which point the gear will slide out.

DR3A and DR2, and in fact all Lucas wiper motors of this basic gearbox design, take the same style of gearwheel - they vary only in the position of the arm locating peg, which is what determines your wipe angle. The linkage will also be the same, so you can reuse it if you replace the motor, though there's no real need to change motors if you can change the wheel.

Thanks for the information!

Based on a couple of other comments on related threads, I'm wondering if it's worth my time to pull out and inspect the wheelboxes at each wiper. More to the point, I'm assuming it's something I should do, but wondering if it makes a difference to do it at the same time as work on the motor. And, again, if there would be a need to replace the cable if I fiddle with or replace the wheelboxes.

I'm sure an internet search for a Lucas 100 degree gear ( don't get one for the round shaped 14w wiper motor ) will find a supplier , if you can't find one at an auto jumble. In America I think you call them swop meets , although I might be wrong.
Car Builder Solutions http://www.cbsonline.co.uk part No WG100 stock them plus other wiper parts.
The wiper motors were fitted to a lot of British cars of that era.

Use care taking the motor to bits... Mark , by scoring the metal dome ( which houses the self parking mechanism ) and the closing plate , so you can replace it in the correct position !!
Put a cloth around the main shaft E-clip before removing, it can fly off quickly , never to be found again.
The brass arm which activates the self parking is " delicate ", note the order of assembly , note book and pencil or photos.
Scoop out the old grease with a wooden lolly stick or suitable implement and clean the bits with Methylated Spirits or degreasant before re greasing. Clean up the metal inside the dome with sand paper for the self parking contact strip.

The electrical brushes ( 2 ) might well need replacing http://www.morrisminorspares.com product no WPR161
Great care needed removing, the insulator slides out ( I broke mine ! ) and the holding springs for the arms are tiny. You can buy arms , springs and bushes as a set http://www.moss-europe.co.uk part no508170.
A light clean up of the armature with sand paper , not emery paper, to get back to clean metal, helps.
The end float on the armature should be 0.12 inch or 0.20to 0.30 mm. Adjust correctly and lock with the locking nut.

With motor detached you can judge what to do with the cable. Put a screwdriver through the hole at the end of cable and gently pull back and forth a few inches. You should find some resistance ( max 6 Ft lbs ,you can measure with a small spring weighing hook , fishermen use them ) basically it needs a little effort but if you meet real resistance, you have a problem.

You can remove by pulling the cable right out. Be prepared with some newspaper sheets laid on the garage floor and wear disposable gloves. It will be covered in grease , have a mind of it's own and will need wrestling to the ground. Clean up with rags and degreasant and then inspect when dry. If there is no obvious wear , re grease and gently re insert having first removed the wipers off the car.
Wiggle, twist and push the cable back in. If you have an assistant , employ them to manually turn the splines end ( that the wiper blades came off ) as you do it , to help feed it through. If you feel the cable is worn badly and it's all pretty bad then and only then consider removing / replacing the wheel boxes.

Note the correct order of the Bundy tubes , that connect the wheel boxes together and their orientation , they are not interchangeable. If it has a gentle bend in a tube i.e the one nearest the motor, it's meant to be there , do not straighten it. With a long thin engine gallery brush you can clean out the old grease in the Bundy tube.
The spindle nut on the outside of the wheel boxes will need a good dousing with penetrating oil before removal and examine the condition of the rubber spindle seals ( perished ones can be the cause of water dripping into the car ).

The wiper system is generally robust but I hope I covered everything you might come across. You may find different sources of parts out there in the States but at least you will know what to look for in advance. Come back at us if you run into problems.
Good luck and treat it gently.
Bob

Wow, thank you for the thorough walk-through.

The plot thickens. Further confusion here, and I wonder if anyone has more suggestions.

I purchased a used 100 degree wheel off eBay, in great shape. I reopened the motor to install it, and it was instantly obvious that the 100 degree wheel will not fit. The motor has the same design, but the wheel is significantly bigger in diameter. This is strange. The motor's case clearly says it's a DR3A on the outside, so after asking here I assumed I was safe. Everyone else out there seems to imply the same thing. The 100 degree wheel should be interchangeable with this one.

The motor looks like the one shown in this thread: http://mmoc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=31932 apart from being painted dark blue. The used wheel I've got looks like these: http://www.carbuildersolutions.com/uk/1 ... -wiper-kit though it also has the little copper arm on top like the one in the motor.

What's going on? Any suggestions?

I think you may have purchased / been supplied with a 14W round motor gear wheel in error. Hence my reference to this in my post as to ,what to avoid. Car Builders link shows the 14W type.
I'd enquire about a refund / supply of the correct gear wheel from the Ebay seller ,quoting the diameter / height of your old gear wheel.
Bob