What are the odds that your windshield wiper motor will give up the ghost while it's raining or moments after being doused by an oncoming tractor trailer's puddle wake?
If you are like me and Murphy considers you his close personal friend, then the answer is somewhere close to a whopping 100%.
This can be dangerous.
There needs to be a redundancy built into every automobile that allows the driver to activate manual control of the wipers. I am thinking that a recessed pull lever which pops out of the dash at the push of a button would let the driver clear the windshield long enough to at least get safely to a pullout or the nearest service station.
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and another thing...bring back the hand crank engine start for when the starter motor dies. I mean really, is it too much to ask?-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 22 2007 Rambler Rogue http://memimage.car...317999/317168_1.jpg [normzone, Sep 23 2007] commonly known as Man U. probably the best known british football team... http://www.manutd.com/...certainly after a plane crash wiped out most of them in the 60's [po, Sep 23 2007] The Busby babes http://en.wikipedia...Munich_air_disaster [po, Sep 23 2007] Wiper internals http://auto.howstuffworks.com/wiper1.htmGrab it, wag it, bust it [lurch, Sep 28 2007] nothing to do with football then?-- po, Sep 22 2007 I'm almost positive old Jeeps circa WW2 used to have just this device, a little crank attached to the motor's shaft and accessible from the front seats. I think it was probably more for pushing off show and stuff that the motor couldn't handle or to get the thing unstuck.
Maybe Ijust dreamed it though. If so, I need to start having more exciting dreams.
I'm giving a bun for the revival of the hand cranked engine though. Just cause I'm feeling bunly.-- doctorremulac3, Sep 22 2007 I thought this was going to be a masculine type of baby-wipe. [-]-- nuclear hobo, Sep 22 2007 Sandpaper was already baked.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 22 2007 Stop it, people - This is a very sensible idea - hence the caps...-- po, Sep 22 2007 You could make the whole thing electrical and running off a backup battery. Murphy can go stick it if this isn't good enough.-- daseva, Sep 22 2007 [doctorremulac3], you do remember correctly. The Willys CJ2A Jeep had a vacuum powered wiper motor for the driver, and the passenger just had a hand-operated wiper. Trouble was, the intake manifold vacuum could be pretty weedy at low speed, so there was a short little "assist" arm you could use to give it a nudge. The CJ3 solved the problem with a double-acting fuel pump - 'twas a vacuum pump on the other side of the diaphragm. They used the same wiper motor, though, so the assist arm was still there - for in case you had a broken vacuum line or some such.
I (as a 10-year old) had occasion to operate the blasted little thing left-handed for two hours in a freak June blizzard while my Pa drove us down off the mountain. Trust me, you want a bit bigger handle than that.-- lurch, Sep 22 2007 hey guys land rovers has manual assist on wipers motors upto the series 3 model i think and they also had a hand crank too but i never used it i always jump it lol stupid sh1te batteries lol
thanks Nick-- randylandy666, Sep 23 2007 Rambler Rogue, dead wipers, I tied string between the wipers, and a loop from the right wiper through the right wing window across and out the left wing window and to the left wiper.
Worked it with my right hand and steered with my left for about fifty miles in a bad storm. Got home alright.-- normzone, Sep 23 2007 One time I was driving in a downpour, wipers going full blast, and the driver side wiper launched itself off and over my car. Luckily I was only like a block from my destination so I just leaned over and looked through the passenger side.-- rascalraidex, Sep 23 2007 I don't understand the football reference [po], care to enlighten moi??-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 23 2007 My father used to tell a story about the wipers failing in his father's old pickup truck. They tied their shoelaces together and used them to manually drag the wipers across the windshield.-- nuclear hobo, Sep 23 2007 That's a horrible story, and I appreciate the Caps [po]. It's the little things that let me know you care.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 23 2007 Re [po]'s football reference (it's what I was thinking of too) - could it be what they call the toilet paper at Old Trafford?
I have an ancient series 3 land-rover (c 1968) who's windscreen-wiper operates precisely on this principle.
It is motorised, but I guess that must have been an after-thought, because if you're not careful, it will have your fingers off as the interior handle can't be disengaged from the (wildly oscillating) mechanism.-- zen_tom, Sep 24 2007 Having accidently turned off my wipers when actually meaning to turn them up... I'm going to give this a bun.-- flynn, Sep 26 2007 Baked: I have a more ancient series 2 landrover (1966) which has seperate wiper motors for each side, each of which has a manual override lever. The vehicle also has a hand starter, which I frequently use, just because I like to.-- Twizz, Sep 26 2007 You have wipers on both sides? Luxury!
You've got to love those old land-rovers.-- zen_tom, Sep 26 2007 I think the author acknowledges the existence of this on earlier models and is calling for a resurrection of it in current production models, which gets my [+], I've had starters die on me several times and eventually whacking it with a tire iron stops working :(.
But, since this is widely known to exist, it might qualify for an [M-F-D]-- bleh, Sep 26 2007 I don't think it really falls foul of prior art. Yes, the older vehicles allowed manual operation of the wipers. But since the newfangled electric drive wipers came to dominate the market, there exists the problem of the worm drive: if you manually move the wiper arm, you are going to either a) strip the wiper arm or shaft serrations, b) break the linkage, or c) break the worm or spur gear. (Murphy's involvement preferentially endangers the most expensive part.)
I don't see anything that indicates that manual override for electric-driven wipers is, or has been, available.-- lurch, Sep 28 2007 random, halfbakery