screenwasher jets

[williamwright]

The screenwasher jets on the motorhome were blocked. Usually I can unblock them easily with a bit of wire. This time was different. Usually there is a bit of a dribble, which shows that the pump is working. This time there was no dribble even though I could hear the pump. I removed the nozzles, hoping I'd be able to push a wire in from the back. I could do that, but it didn't work. I tried hard. I put the nozzles in hot water and Flash and left them all afternoon. They were still bunged up solid. I tried blowing air through them with a little compressor. I tried forcing tap water though them. I wiggled wire in them some more. Nothing worked. I put them back in water for two more hours. When I took them out and ran water into them they were perfectly clear. I was surprised!

Bill

[Andrew]

An old-fashioned needlework pin with a nice round head at the blunt end (allowing a firm grip) is an effective weapon for clearing blocked windscreen wiper jets IMHO. However this may happen because you have been putting stuff in the reservoir that turns gungy. The only solution is sometimes to remove the reservoir and pump and wash it out thoroughly.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Sounds like the screen washer equivalent of a kidney stone. Brian

[Steve Walker]

Don't mention those. My wife is suffering at the moment - extreme pain (worse than labour - and she tore her uterus in labour!), kidney infection and (now relieved) back-up of urine to the kidney. Just discharged from hospital (only got out because it moved a bit and the IV antibiotics had done their stuff) and due back in a fortnight for surgery if it doesn't come out by then sooner if the pain increases or the fever comes back.

[GB]

Are the washer jets heated on the motorhome?

[williamwright]

Nothing is heated on the motorhome including the driver.

Bill

[mm0fmf]

This. Previous car had heated washer jets and was also wonderfully aerodynamic. The result was little crap on the windscreen especially flies so you hardly ever needed to wash it. Result was the jets regularly were blocked solid. If it wasn't for automatic headlamp washers a bottle of windscreen fluid would have lasted a few years.

Newer car has much more raked screen and is a bug magnet and so I'm always washing screen. Bottle needs filling more often and whilst heated, they've not blocked yet.

[Pamela]

He's hot headed sometimes, or so I'm told! :)

[Pamela]

My sympathies go out to her. I had the same. A kidney infection like that could have permanently damaged the kidneys.

Hopefully she's back on NSAID painkillers, which may have been withheld whilst there's an infection, or opiates.

[newshound]

+1

These days I tend to use supermarket "concentrated" screen washer liquid but at perhaps double the recommended concentration. I have not had the gunge problem for many years. (The gunge is biological growth, bacteria, yeast, algae, or whatever; a high enough alcohol concentration should suppress it).

[ARW]

My vans washer bottle water went creamy and white. I cleaned it with milton fluid. God knows what the apprentices filled it with:-)

[Steve Walker]

She's got painkillers and part of the stone has passed, so she's getting by thanks, but the main problem now is that she's in serious pain in every joint - as she has Rheumatoid Arthritis and has been taken off all her meds for that and won't be put back on them until she's had another blood test and a consultation in Rheumatology ... so not soon.

[Pamela]

That's an unwanted complication. All this must be lowering her threshold at which pain breaks through and so causing everything to feel worse. It must be awful.

[Steve Walker]

RA is an awful disease. Even when on meds, she has constant (but usually bearable) pain and ongoing exhaustion (usually managing to wake up, read for a bit, sleep a bit more and so on, only getting up for around 6 hours a day).