Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi all .... Car is a New Zealand 1957 export model split screen , wiper motor drivers side in bracket upper right dash behind glovebox. Clap-hands type. I've read much of the valuable detail in the forum - great help from all.
So I have removed both gloveboxes to take a look at where to start , after learning as much as possible from here.
The problem is that the wipers do not run after switching on. First step was check power supply at the switch. I used a circuit tester and seems to be current ok (green/black - black) at the switch. The trouble is - because of the difficulty in clear access to the terminals on the motor end I cant check those easily although unlikely to be an issue looking at the general condition of all. Forum posts all suggest more likely brushes or motor problem.
Many posts suggest removing the entire rack/motor/bracket from the car out through the glovebox after lowering the wiper spindles inside. (which would make access easier to everything )... but is there a recommended way to check brushes and wiring connections first without doing this? . But I would agree that the position of the motor looks difficult. Just access to the triangular silver "cover" plate on the motor facing downwards towards the parcel tray is relatively easy - but probably wont be the problem. So is entire removal the best way ?

I have just come in from the cold, after a morning working on my wipers.
I also have clap-hands wipers and after a period of lying dormant, they worked when I revived my car. Until it rained, obviously.

The wipers worked when switched on, then slowed to a dead halt, mid-sweep.

I assumed the motor had died, so started to disassemble things. After fighting the big hex nut off the top of the spindles outside the car, I pushed both spindles back inside the dash, making it easy to undo them and remove them from the rack.

For some reason, I then clicked on the wiper switch, at which stage the whole rack began to move WITH the outer sleeve also moving.

Turns out that my wipers had seized because the 60-year-old grease had finally turned totally solid, making the friction between rack and sleeve just too much for the motor to overcome.

I ended up disassembling the rack/sleeve assembly (not hard - although the curving part attached to the motor need some patient wriggling to get it throughout the firewall) wire-brushing the solid goo off, cleaning the spindles and also opening up the wiper motor to dig out the nasty gloop and apply fresh grease.

It wasn't hard to do, just a little time-consuming. Make a note of which way up the spindles are, or you'll have wipers going in all sorts of bizarre directions! I failed to do so and have just worked out by trial and error, which way each has to go in (they're not aligned the same...)

I'd suggest that if you have current at the motor, this might also be your problem. Try pushing the spindles into the car, and try the switch, before dis-assembly, If the whole shooting match moves, your motor is fine and a pleasant afternoon re-greasing everything should cure your problem.

If the motor is dead, a quick troll of eBay ought to turn up a replacement. Or you could buy a 2-speed conversion kit - but make sure it works with clap-hands wipers - I have one waiting to go in, but the new spindles they supplied are too small to join the outer sleeve together, so I'm with my single-speed for the moment...

Have fun!

Thanks T ... I ended up extracting the whole lot .. Motor / rack ... not as bad as I expected but wouldn't like to do it in the freezing cold and limited light .... opened the motor cover and yes , grease more like clay. Nothing moving. So after digging out 1956/7 grease deposits of questionable quality , freeing up and greasing inner cable and cable drive wheels / spindles.... everything is free and moving nicely.
The motor seems to be in excellent order visually. In fact all bits surprisingly good condition.
Next step I guess is to connect the motor to power source and hope that it turns fine on its own .. great if it does. Then reassemble all back under the dash. The job was not nearly as bad as I first thought it would be - on a Series II splitscreen at least. Cheers

OK .. Murphy's Law ..reconnected power and earth from under the dash - back to motor to test it ... and not turning on its own. ^%$& !!
I removed the top cover and inspected the brushes and gently wiped away any dust etc , of which there was hardly any. It was reasonably clean inside. The brushes could do with changing anyway (the contact surfaces look a bit flattened) but I don't know if this alone would prevent the motor having any signs of movement ? would it ?. Looking down inside the aperture the windings look very good from what I can see.
Question , the motor cover has the letters CRT type and 3 56 stamped on it. Which presumably might be March 1956 ?
The car is an FAH ****** CKD Version which I have since found out means F=Morris Minor A = 4 door H = CKD (Completely Knocked Down). Probably manufactured and shipped here (NZ) in 1956 and registered early 1957.
To buy the brushes .. most of what I can see available are Lucas DR2 , DR3 etc parts. Is the CRT single speed different or can it use the same brushes. The part number apparently for the DR2 is Lucas 508170 also known as 17H5396.
Bit confusing .... ESM show the 17H5396 but will this fit the CRT motor? Is a CRT in fact a DR2 ?