Wiper cable issues

There are already plenty of threads on here about wiper box and cable renewals. A few months ago I followed Busters "how to" thread and replaced mine in my 1996 defender 90 and it was a huge help. Cheers Buster.

Now, I ordered my parts on fleabay. Fitted the wheel boxes no problem. The cable turned out to be Britpart. It was too long. It was going to foul if fitted as it was, so I cut it down using aviation snips.

Yesterday the drivers side (which is nearest to the snipped end) started slapping the bulk head / screen wash jets quite severely. Earlier today it was a bit floppy..... and my windscreen wiper wasn't much better.

Now it is next to useless (the wiper).

I realise that I've made a school boy error in cutting the cable down and that the spiral is probably stretching off the free end of the cable.

So, I'm going to order a new cable and replace it. I'm going to try to do it by removing the wipers and motor and pulling the cable out then feeding the new cable in.

My questions are:-
1. Are there different lengths of cable, and if so what is the part number I should order for the shorter one?
2. Does feeding the cable through the tubes and wheel boxes work?

Cheers,
Doey

1. Don't know, but 2. yes, I'm not sure if it's the best way, but I've done it before.

wattfield said:

1. Don't know, but 2. yes, I'm not sure if it's the best way, but I've done it before.

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Thanks for that Wattfield. If you've managed it before I'll give it a go. I don't really fancy taking the dash out again.
Does anyone else know if there are different lengths of cable, or should I just avoid Britpart ones?

There are 2 lengths, I think they changed at TD5?
I got a britpart one and it just jammed up, the 'spiral' drive wasn't consistently formed! Genuine was not available I was told so got another one from a different Indy and it worked fine.
As said, just slide the new one up the tube, I didn't even take the arms off just held them away from the screen with a helper
Sorry, I cannot remember the manufacturer of mine only that the britpart one was useless. You need the longer one I would think, td5 one was too short for mine. Best take your old one along for comparison or at least measure it.

Flossie said:

There are 2 lengths, I think they changed at TD5?
I got a britpart one and it just jammed up, the 'spiral' drive wasn't consistently formed! Genuine was not available I was told so got another one from a different Indy and it worked fine.
As said, just slide the new one up the tube, I didn't even take the arms off just held them away from the screen with a helper
Sorry, I cannot remember the manufacturer of mine only that the britpart one was useless. You need the longer one I would think, td5 one was too short for mine. Best take your old one along for comparison or at least measure it.

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Thanks Flossie. The Britpart one I got was too long so I'm still a bit confused about which I need. I'll steer away from the Britpart one. I'll put a call in to my local indy dealer and see what they say. Like you said it may be better t take the cable out and measure it. Thanks again.

How did this thread end? I am almost tearing my hair out 'cos I ordered both cable and gear parts from LR.net thinking they were genuine LR parts (as their website says if Googled) but they were Britparts and one of the drive boxes was made with a hammer and the cable was about 30 cms too long.
I returned all parts to LR and paid extra for genuine parts. Drive boxes look great now but cable is still too long.
After talking to LR parts they measured their cables and they said all same length; ie longer than mine.
Is it that LR spares only make one length now? But which model needs a cable 30 cms longer as width of Defenders hasn't changed??
If I cut part to length do I end up with problem that Doey68 had of spiral unwinding?
My vehicle is a 2000MY TD5.

Hello Morganholidayman,

I'm pulling (or would be if I had any) my hair out because I can't see the follow up to your Jan 17th note!

I'm having the same issue with mt year 2000 Td5 windscreen wipers. I'm now on my third motor purchase which hasn't yet arrived but is in transit and now a genuine LR part from local main dealer.

The current problem motor is a spurious one from Britpart. The motor runs but just isn't powerful enough to consistently drive the blades across the screen . They will work on the odd occasion if they're in the right frame of mind, but not necessarily when it's raining and almost certainly not when I go for the Irish NCT!

The first replacement was a second hand motor which was good for two years the third the new Britpart. Now I am trying the genuine item. Three times the price but cheaper if it works.

My question relates to what to do about cutting off any surplus worm cable which I did when I fitted the last Britpart cable.

I'm very interested to learn if you have any more feedback after your own posting?

I'm also now confused as to weather I bought genuine drive boxes or Britpart. I can't trace an invoice to determine one way or another.

Can you add anything to my dilemma?

Regards

Alan

Sorry for the lack of update, I didn't realise there was any further posts in this thread. It would appear that the cable always needs cutting down. I just made sure that there was as much left on as possible without risk of fouling. I'm still having trouble with my drivers side wiper over travelling and slapping the bulk head but i believe that this is due to a Bearmach wheel box not being up to the job. My passenger side is behaving itself and it is a Britpart wheelbox. It is however the G variant that is allegedly made to the oem spec. I had two none G Britpart Wheel boxes and they failed as soon as they were used. I'm going to get another Britpart wheel box for the drivers side but make sure that the part number ends in G

My lesson learnt is any functioning part buy original LR! The Wiper boxes were crap from Britpart. Also OEM supplier doesn't nessarily mean the part you are actually buying is/was supplied to LR, only that they do/did supply parts to LR, but maybe not THAT part.

On my 1989 110 all I did was turn the gears round 180 degrees as I was inserting the old spiral cable. She is still running the originals!

However, I did have a motor problem in the the circlip which holds the gearbox shaft in place had worn out and dropped off, which meant that the wipers only worked intermittently! It trook a few months to trace the problem, which was fixed in a matter of seconds, so I'd check that as well.