Morris Minor Owners Club

My car has been off the road for a few months and I’m preparing it for a new MOT. My electric windscreen washer wouldn’t work, except that when I pushed the button, the engine ignition lights would dim. With no obvious fault in sight, I decided to connect a feed directly from the battery to the pump which got things going perfectly. With the live feed between battery and pump removed, everything now works as it should. Why?

My first guess is a problem with the washer pump itself ( could be on its way out ) and putting a good 12v across it to operate it has turned the armature past its "bad bit" or " sticky bit" and now it seems OK .
If it comes to rest in the same rotational position the problem may re-occur.

Other explanations are available...high resistance connector,overcome by disconnecting/re-connecting etc. etc.

Source a spare

John

you've simply remade the connection which was causing high resistance before .its fed via the ignition switch that's why the light was dimming

SO many aftermarket accessories on these cars are cheap, poorly made items poorly wired and installed. No Minors ever left the factory with electric washers and the manual pump type work perfectly well when in good condition, so why complicate a nice simple car?
I would take it all off and throw it away and go back to the standard system if it isn't working.

However, if you want to continue with the electric pump I have found that they often require priming as they simply haven't got the power to lift water any distance from the bottle once they are dry.

The dimming elsewhere in the circuit was caused by a high current drain to the pump, possibly a low resistance to earth somewhere, but an insufficient ‘short’ to earth to blow a fuse? Possible frozen pump? Impellor simply sticking?

If there was a high resistance fault, it would have been the supply to the ignition switch. If you did not touch that side at all, the fault is unlikely to have just disappeared spontaneously (but possible).

Tapping the pump would likely have prevented the problem, had you had a crystal ball for predicting these little blips!

ManyMinors wrote:SO many aftermarket accessories on these cars are cheap, poorly made items poorly wired and installed. No Minors ever left the factory with electric washers and the manual pump type work perfectly well when in good condition, so why complicate a nice simple car?
I would take it all off and throw it away and go back to the standard system if it isn't working.

People here often report problems after fitting some new-fangled, whizz-bang, fancy piece of equipment. The old ways are the best ways.