Having only owned my Bro' for a short time I hadn't had occasion to use the windshield washers till the weather turned nasty.
There's washer fluid in the resevoir tank but only a trickle comes out the driver's side jet occasionally and nothing out of the other one. I suspected a bad electric pump or dodgy fuse but on opening the hood find that the hoses all go to some kind of gizmo that looks like a sort of mechanical pump.
How do the washers work on these cars? I was expecting an easy to trouble-shoot electric pump system. What might be the problem? Any ideas?

Martin.

Not sure if it's the same on a 91 as it is on my 89, but, the original setup is an electric wiper motor with a mechanical pump that attaches to it. Pressing the wash button causes the pump to engage with the wiper motor as it spins and makes it pump.

Mine burnt out and i had to get SEVERAL replacements because they all were of terrible quality. If you replace it, you get a completely electrical pump that operates on it's own, yet still attaches in the same manner to the wiper motor.

Before you go to replace the pump, I'd try and check the lines for obstructions, take the hoses off, maybe blow some compressed air if you can.

If someone ran straight water, then mineral deposits may have clogged up the sprayer jets. This is why the manual explicitly states to use purified cleaner only. Same way with coolant; ya gotta use distilled water else those deposits will clog everything up. Good luck with it! :thumbsup:

Greg

Thanks for the replies guys. Yeas, I was wondering if it's just got crud in the system as I am getting some sort of flow at the one jet. I figured that something was happening at least.
The resevoir was full of blue liquid when I bought the car but obviously I don't know if the car has always had proper fluid in or not. It was one owner and main-dealer serviced but you never know do you?

I guess I'll just have to go through it methodically starting at the jets themselves.

Martin.

My 92 had an electric replacement on it that croaked. My mechanic replaced it with an OEM style mechanical unit and so far so good. If you want i can dig up some info in my service manual about it.

That would be dead cool if you could sort out some info. I have a Haynes manual but it has zero info on the washer system :bigroll: I would just like to understand the operating system because it makes troubleshooting it so much easier.

Martin.

I just replaced the whole wiper motor and washer and it still doesn't work. When I press the washer switch the washer fluid lights up. The tank is full with no clogs.