Dead wiper motor

[Robbie693]

Hello,

Came to use the wipers for the first time in a while today and they're completely dead. I checked for voltage and got 12V at all the 3 pins that are supposed to. checked continuity through the parking switch and checked that the plunger cuts off the supply when pushed in. All fine.

So I am assuming that it's the motor itself as there are no humming or whirring sounds from it either.

My question is has anyone bought a new one recently and where did you buy it?

I have seen a few on the net and all seem to have different part numbers, I'd also like to know if all the Lucas round top motors are the same or do they differ in some way, perhaps the degree of sweep varies from model to model? This is for a 1972 +2 S130

Cheers

Robbie

[sveris]

Robbie,

The wiper for the Europa restoration I am completing exhibited the same symptoms last week. No movement or sound that I could hear.

I removed the inner cable from the tubing and disassembled both wheel boxes. The grease was not dried out. So I removed the drive box cover, expecting to find dry, hardened grease there. Nope. It was still in what I thought was okay condition for being 45 years old.

AS long as everything was apart, I cleaned out as much old grease as I could, and replaced it with fresh grease. i also gave each wheel box shaft a shot of WD-40. Put everything back together, and all is well. Both low and high speeds work properly, and the blades still self park as they should.

IN answer to your questions, the number of teeth on the gears does vary, based on application. Wheel boxes are available - not sure about the drive box itself for a Plus 2 S130.

HTH.

Steve in Ohio

[crypto]

Agree with Steve, and check if the carbon brushes are ok.
Maybe this helps too :
lotus-electrical-f38/bench-testing-wiper-motor-t35734.html

Peter

[Robbie693]

Thanks guys, helpful stuff. As it turns out I fixed it!

Just to re-affirm my electrical idiot status I decided to wire the motor up directly to a 12V source and got some signs of life. Despite them looking not too bad I cleaned up the spade terminals on the self parking switch, gave everything a blast of contact cleaner, re-assembled and normal service was resumed.

It seems that my probing with the multimeter was making more of a connection than the spade/lucar terminals were able to and I was getting good readings everywhere. Just goes to show, never trust an apparently clean connector...

Anyway, to make this mildly useful, my searches for replacement motors uncovered this one as being the best price:

http://www.angclassiccarparts.co.uk/home/lotus/lotus-europa/electrical/lucas-wiper-motor-rack-complete-lotus-elan-2-europa

They even list it as being Lotus applicable. As Steve says, the drive gear is the bit that adjusts the range of travel and most of the motors are sold without a gear, you are supposed to fit your old one. I have found a few places selling new gears, although not all the degree options

Thanks again

Robbie