Scroll down to BigJim's next post for a short summary of this detailed post.
I learned a bit today while tracking down my inop washers and thought I would pass it along. My problem turned out to be simply a plugged check valve and all is well now.
When they quit working I could not hear the washer pump working and I feared that I may need to replace the pump. Feared even more when I checked the shop manual and found that their instructions say to pull the front bumper off for access.
I found that I could get access to the point where the washer hose attaches to the bottle from under the car. In my case, I needed to remove two of the screws that hold the belly pan in place. Some newer Contiques don't have belly pans so access may be either easier or slightly different. I ended up not needing to gain access to the pump, but before pulling the bumper I would have explored removing the fender liner for access.
With the hose off, washer fluid flowed out of the bottle, but before it was empty, I had an assistant activate the washers from the switch and confirmed that the pump was working.
The next step was to try blowing into the hose, and I found that the line was plugged. Next I traced the hose to bracket and short plastic pipe at the right hood hinge. This short pipe is used to negotiate the hood hinge. To trace it to this point, I needed to unbolt the coolant bottle and the power steering resivoir to track the line, but you will not need to since your already know where it is going.
I blew into the hose again from the washer bottle end and it was free. I reconnected the hose and removed the hose from the other end of the plastic pipe and found that the line was still unrestricted.
My car had a hood liner (hood blanket). At this point, the hood liner needed to come down for access to the rest of the water circuit. I tried just removing the clips at the back and reaching up, but unless you know just what is there you can't do much by brail. So the hood liner had to come all the way off, and it did not survive the trip in very good condition. Unfortunitely, it is now in the trash can.
Once the hood liner is down (and many of you have cars that do not have one) it is easy to trace the line to the bottom of the washer nozzles. I pulled down the entire line from the hood hinge to both nozzels, and tried to blow through the line and found it plugged. Where the right nozzle attaches, there is a "T" fitting with the other side going on the the left nozzle.
Where the hose enters the "T" fitting, there is what looks like just a plastic streight fitting, but the fitting has a check ball and spring built into it. That is where my restriction was. The plastic broke when I tried to pull it off, so I could see how it was made.
I don't know how easy it would be to find that check valve or what a part number may be, but it would be worth looking through the section of a parts store where the washer hose and other windshield washer parts are sold. The purpose of the check valve is to keep from having your washer bottle emptied while driving by having the wind continue pull water out after squirting the windshield.
I found a vacuum check valve in my tool box left over from smog devices from the 70's. It seems to work fine.
Hopefully this post will save someone else some time in tracing down a similat problem.
Last edited by horseydug; 08/22/04 09:52 AM.
