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Washer Jets

I was going to mention the vodka :) That'll be going in mine soon, and always helps if you get stuck :dance: - you won't get thirsty :whistle: :doh:
 
Was gonna use vodka but even the cheap stuff is a bit pricey and there is plenty of isopropyl alcohol at work...
 
Hah! It works. OK a bit of a lash up for the second. But it took me 5 mins, some pipe from Halfwits and it was done. Chas I did try the tea heater in the washer bottle and it worked really well. It's pretty old and the wires are shot, but within a short space of time it had melted the ice in the motor. You could certainly seal it up somehow and make it a permanent fixture in the wash bottle. The heat does permeate along the pipes, you can feel them get warm. And yes, it DID defrost the jets. There is visible 'steam' The juice in the pipe does cool off of course, but you get a good deal in the coils which is pretty warm.

It can only be improved upon, I am sure. Warm fluid does clean the glass better.

Heatexchanger.jpg



Chris
 
Some good ideas coming out now :thumbup:

My jets blocked the first day of snow so i got the kettle out to get them working again and then drained out what was in left in the bottle, then put in neat screenwash and so far no probs but i guess as mentioned earlier it all depends on the quality of screen wash.

Joe
 
awesome job chris, as always

i cut some holes in the fire blanket under the washer jets to let some engine heat get at them - mine kept freezing on the motorway and unfreezing after i slowed down. seems to have helped a bit - but am liking your solution too.
 
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Costs nowt Adrian and is entirely reversible in seconds. I bought a little one way valve at the same time to connect the end of the pipe to the original but I think the resistance is too high and saps some of the power of the jets. I shall stick a drill through it tomorrow. I would perhaps get this stuff from B&Q as they have proper joiners there not this valve thing. The pipe I used is 4.7mm

Come one Rob, this has to be up your street. Let's have a bit of inventing power. I did think about putting some pipe lagging over the coils to keep it nice and toasty.

Professor Dingbat
 
Just been out and done it as well. found one connecter in my plastic bits bin, and some piping from the last HHO units i made. does not look quite as tidy as yours (hands turned to frozen claws after about 20 minutes).

Pulled the black pipe of the point it turns through the bonnet and ran that towards the heater pipe. then added the new run of piping in the coil arrangement and ran that back in parallel under the washer motor, through the black clip and up into the bonnet.

Lets see how it runs tomorrow - gotta run to a party in Liverpool in the afternoon.

Thanks for the top tip.
 
Chris said:
Hah! It works. OK a bit of a lash up for the second. But it took me 5 mins, some pipe from Halfwits and it was done. Chas I did try the tea heater in the washer bottle and it worked really well. It's pretty old and the wires are shot, but within a short space of time it had melted the ice in the motor. You could certainly seal it up somehow and make it a permanent fixture in the wash bottle. The heat does permeate along the pipes, you can feel them get warm. And yes, it DID defrost the jets. There is visible 'steam' The juice in the pipe does cool off of course, but you get a good deal in the coils which is pretty warm.It can only be improved upon, I am sure. Warm fluid does clean the glass better.Chris
Click to expand...
Thanks for being the guinea pig on that :thumbup: , it's a definite job for me now 8-)
 
Chris if the system works then it works, there isnt much that could be done to make it better without spending money. The only issue i can see with that is when the cheap diluted washer fluid that you have been using because of this heating system hits the windscreen it will freeze before the wipers will be able to clear it. I have used cheap stuff in the volvo and the washers never freeze for some reason, it only freezes on the windscreen (especially at high speeds). So you still may have to use decent quality washer fluid.

Also will heating the tubes not evaporate all the alcohol, maybe even the liquid, meaning you will get through it faster?
 
Who said I was using cheap diluted stuff? It's actually neat concentrate. Still been freezing. We have been having temps of -15 at night and with wind chill they have been freezing whilst driving.

I don't think it will evaporate Rob, it really doesn't have anywhere go to. The fluid isn't hot, just warm.

I know that it works as it is, but it would be nice to tidy it up a bit. I do like the idea of incorporating the heating element into the washer bottle. Karl, have you got an old washer bottle that I can experiment on?

Chris
 
Rob said:
Also will heating the tubes not evaporate all the alcohol, maybe even the liquid, meaning you will get through it faster?
Click to expand...
As the liquid is in a closed environment I don't think there would be any evaporation as it couldn't evaporate until it was exposed to the air. I think :think:
 
the washer bottle is not a closed system, its get a small vent at the top. i found this out when it started foaming after steep ascents and descents off road.

with regards to wind shill, it won't make the contents of your washer bottle any colder (well technically it will cool it quicker now if you're heating it), but if the air temperature is -15, you won't get any colder than that because of the wind.

also, be wary of relying on something being sold as concentrate. i walked past a halfords the other day with crates full of 'concentrate' outside. it was only rated to -5, so pretty much useless. if it had been further from the shop door, it would all have frozen.
 
Callum, we are heating the pipes not the tank. There's little chance of evaporating that. Honestly. It's not a reactor vessel, just a bit of small bore plastic pipe..

You'll use the fluid up far faster then losing it.

Now, I may progress to heating the tank in order to defrost it if it's solid. But that's a different modification.

Fluid is NOT from Halfords.

Chris
 
I have to say on this one (and I normally don't complain about any of the design features on the LC) but putting the washer bottle at the front where it gets the full force of the icy blast ranks right up there with the rectangular steeing wheel on the Allegro.

Even with 50% concentrate, my washer bottle froze solid over a week ago and hasn't thawed out since.

So my approach to this is going to be in a few ways.

1. Get a heated washer bottle element and fit it.
2. wrap the bottle itself in some insulating material
3. Get heated washer jets - either of Rover, Saab, BMW, depending on what I can pick up on ebay and looks like it will fit.
4. do the same trick as Chris with the wraps of washer tubing round the heater hose.

With all the technology in the 100 series and the fact that in every other way it has been absolutely brilliant and unstoppable on the snow, I still had to resort to carrying a can of de-icer in the car and every now and then leaning opening my side window and spraying it onto the screen to clean it.

Can't really understand that a vehicle that will work at the ends of the earth and has not given a problem starting or driving at all since the new batteries, has such a basic thing missing - especially when it is available on vehicles at a fraction of the cost of the 100 series when new.
 
Andy, I stuck one of these int he bottle yesterday for a few mins and it melted all the ice in there and the motor. I guess that it takes less energy to unfreeze antifreeze than it does pure water, eh?
I reckon that you could unwire this thing, glue it safely into the bottle then run a switch inside the car. That's what I might try. OK we only have a small amount of really cold weather every year, but I like the odd gadget. They get really hot. Maybe use a timer switch.

http://www.gbdriver.co.uk/index.php?mai ... 1c15ce71d3

Chris
 
Come on Joe, where's the fun in that! Waaaay too obvious.

Let's try and fail, not just do it properly in the first place. We're British, dammit. :flags-wavegreatbritain:

C
 
Damn, just goes to show a bit of prior planning solves a lot of problems - if only I'd had a decent fluid in the bottle before it froze :doh:
 
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