Size is everything after all

Well now, it's taken 3 replacement wiper motors, 3 fuses (2 16 amp and one, correctly, 8 amp) and now 2 new wiper blades, but we now have working wipers for the first time for ages.

Size matters? Well apart from having the correct fuse installed to protect the motor, its most useful to have the correct length wiper blades fitted. It came to light when I finally managed to bodge together bits of the wiper motors I had to make one that worked and then tried to refit the wipers - nothing I did could prevent the blades from catching the windscreen rubber seal - so I consulted Haynes and the Owners Manual - no joy - it was the old Just Kampers catalogue that actually recorded the 16" requirement - I suppose you can tell what size to get when you are replacing worn ones - so how we came to have ones that were a good inch and a half oversize is anybody's guess.

So to recap, the oversize wiper blades catching on the screen rubbers probably overloaded and overheated the motors, the heat softened the plastic cog which eventually failed, not helped by the over-rated fuse which didn't blow under the increased load. Meantime the catching has also filed down the splines in the wiper arm cones, so they tend to slip if they do catch on anything, often leaving the wipers pointing towards the pavement! Result - misery.

"These are the things, these are the things, the things that dreams are made of....."

Nightmares more like - we'll get Harry his MOT next week, then we'll have to address the low compression and blowing cylinder head ......