Clean Window and flat tire?

Chapter 5

This one gets to jump to the front of the line as we had a lot of fun on this project. So, the subject is windshield squirting. On the bug, there is a perfect example of genius engineering that is so smart, but is sick with problems and kind of dumb in the long run. Under the hood, there sits a bottle for the fluid, and some hoses. In looking around on this, I found there are no electric components to this specific system. Sounds cool right? It looks good on paper. That’s about it. Here goes. The theory on this system is to use the air pressure from the spare tire to push the fluid through the tubes and onto the window. I know, I know, lots of questions start erupting. What happens when your spare goes flat? What good a spare tire that is flat from too much window washing? Clearly this was invented by someone who has always had clean windows and never ran over a nail on the road. It pretty much stops there with the exception of the 2 hoses that are now required to be connected to your steering column to control the air flow and the special check valves on the bottle that you cannot get at your local parts stores, and the fact that this is a silly solution. This is how energy conservation turns into terrorism. Luckily these types of things are mildly irritating at worst until one of two things happen. Number 1 you get a flat and have clear windows, or number 2 you can’t see to avoid the bed of nails on the road. Either way, you got problems. So, the kids and I decided to take this problem on and solve it . This was a new thing to explain to them as I am the type guy who favors the original designs and concepts. I got a couple sideways looks and head scratches on why we were updating this car and abandoning the original design. Once I explained how the old system works, it did not take long to win them over and we wandered down the path of redesigning the squirt system. I found a $10 “universal” pump for washer fluid and it arrived at our doorstep. This one did not come with a button, or a long hose, or as it turns out, even a working pump. I am dealing with them and it will be okay. This curve ball led to a whole new adventure, but more on that later. I did not really want to drill into any part of the metal as this invites rust. So, as a telephone guy typically does, I stopped and thought about how to run the wires without disturbing anything. The answer was to run some phone wire through the air hose that is already routed to the right places. The first attempt was not successful as 1 pair wire at 22 gauge is not real rigid. So we backed out and I showed the kids a cool trick from my lab days of tying the wire on one end and putting the other in the chuck of my drill. We twisted the wires to a nice tight twist and now had the stability to traverse the rubber tube. We worked together and got the wires through and ready to power the new and improved electric pump. Now, we had to solve the button problem. Since the lever on the steering wheel is a valve, I decided to look elsewhere. I went to my college parts kit and found a great momentary button. Now, we still don’t want to drill, so, this led me to installing this button into a non-flush, magnet mounted “103” phone jack. The magnets are plenty strong to keep the button from wandering and, no drilling. Just a few cuts with a rotary tool and the button and a washer fit perfectly into the block and can be stuck onto the steel within reach. We got out the new pump and connected the rubber tubes and used a grounding screw near the headlight to install the pump bracket and connect the ground from the pump. I used a train transformer to get the 12 volts so I wouldn’t have to run a wire to the battery in the back seat. I showed my daughter how to test volts with a meter to assure we were not going to burn up the new pump before we got it working. We connected power and heard buzzing, but got no movement from the pump. We simplified by removing all wires and hoses and tried it all on its own with a bucket of water in case the pump needed the water in order to get it moving. No dice. Switching polarity and hose direction as instructed on the 3×5 instructions that came with the pump (also written in mice type) did not affect the outcome. We got a lemon and returns are very slow right now. Since the lock down is still in full swing, we happen to have grandma’s old van sitting in front of our house. We have been pulling little random bits out of it if we can because it is headed to the junk yard. The funny thing is, each time we have attempted to rogue something out of it, we have been disappointed as the thing never fits exactly what we need. This time, it worked. We managed to pull the washer bottle out and recover the connectors needed to get it working. We connected this one up and of course it works like a champ. The only issue with this set up is that it is shaped funny so mounting will be an issue, and it has 2 pumps on it for front and rear wipers. We plugged the rear pump and disconnected the wires. It will be our spare. We connected the hoses and still no squirty. We hand over hand inspected the hose and found a split. Unfortunately this was after removing the nozzle which broke in the process. No biggie, we found some aluminum ones online that will ship sometime in July for all of $9 for 6 nozzles. This is great considering that one from the local store is plastic, does not fit, and is $38. We ran the wire through all of the stuff and zip tied it down to keep it from snags, then we got to work on the mounting of the bottle. Since this one came out of a modern van, it was not a perfect cylinder like the original, it was a 3D triangle shape designed using software to fit it in after all the other stuff had been stuffed into the vehicle for machines at a factory to mount to the van. Still no drilling, I found some old metal handles that I used for brackets. I drilled the holes on the handles to fit the 14mm bolts that hold the coil springs in the bug. This way we could bolt them down and have plenty of metal and holes to tie things onto. Some long zip ties made short work of that. In the future, I will buy some flat steel and custom bend it and drill the right holes to make it look better over all and be more stable. Also, when I get tired of the weird shape, I will buy one online that has a more suitable shape. This is another advantage of not drilling holes. I can experiment and not do any damage.