Phil Silano

While my 83 is in the body shop recovering from its deer strike on the way home from SITM 05 I thought it would be a good idea to fix the headlight washers. They haven't worked since we bought the car and I was pretty sure the pump was just full of crud.

The body shop folks were nice enough to let me work in their shop while the fender is off so I hoped the job would be nice and easy. I should have known better.

I won't try to describe the various colors and textures of material that came out of the tank when I pulled off the headlight washer pump hose. Very ugly indeed.

Trying to clean the inside of the tank had me puzzled for a while. Flushing with a hose just wasn't strong enough to remove the caked on muck. I finally hit on a cleaning solution that worked perfectly. You may think I'm crazy but;

1. Plug all holes except the large inlet opening.
2. Pour 1-2 cups of clean sand into the tank.
3. Add water to get a relatively soupy consistancy.
4. Plug the inlet opening.
5. Shake, shake, shake.
6. Open all the openings and flush very well. Pay special attention to the smaller hose connections, they seemed to gather a lot of the sand.

I had to shake mine for about 30 minutes (not all at once) but it now looks like new.

The pump was flushed in both directions and then jumpered to a spare battery in forward and reverse polarity until it came free.

The fluid level sender was broken also. It is a simple reed switch with a magnet in the float to activate it. A little solder and its back in action.

Hope this helps someone.

Phil Silano

SharkSkin

Great post, and welcome! So the jets weren't clogged or misaligned at all?

Phil Silano

I won't know about the jets until the car is put back together. The hose from the pump to the front splitter had a bunch of crud in it also, so I flushed that using the body shops gear. The bumper cover and the jets were in the paint shop so I couldn't get my hands on them. I suspect that I'll blow them out before testing the whole system just to avoid creating problems.

I should mention that the filler tube was terrible. The metal sleeve in the lower section was unrecognizable as metal. Used a grinding wheel on my Dremel to clean it out but finally decided to order a new one with a proper cap from 928 Specialists ( are you listening Jeannie?).

I'll post a follow up to this thread when all is finished.

Phil Silano

SharkSkin

Cool.... yeah, get the nozzles sorted out before the bumper is put back on. Trust me, you don't want to have to get in there for this job later. The paint shop should be removing them, so maybe just ask for them.