Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Plus Four, Supersport & Plus Six (CX & CXV Generation Vehicles) Plus Six wiper judder - advice requested

The results so far.. a bit of a saga for a windscreen judder.

AA: A set of three latest revision ( 2023-24 ) wiper blades arrived for the Plus Six. They are all slightly different lengths and are specific to position, details as follows. Note the part numbers and locators are for a right hand drive car.

Y361048 31077-SWA-SC Marked as no 1 on reverse of blade and goes on the offside spindle.
Y361049 30941-SWA-SC Marked as no 2 on reverse of blade and goes on the middle spindle.
Y361050 31044-SWA-SC Marked as no 3 on reverse of blade and goes on the nearside spindle.

The blade width of the arm is very very slightly reduced from the previous arm version where it enters the wiper blade, they fitted the present aftermarket wiper blades fine with a slight bit of crimp needed where the arm locates, using parallel pliers on the wiper blade, being stainless this can not be seen.

The new arms are slightly changed to the previous version or are from a different manufacturer. Please see following photo showing the underside..



There is now a fixed guard over the spring. The clamping screw appears to be a larger diameter, also on the reverse the counter sunk head of the same screw is larger, I assume for better force ( tightness ) distribution across its securing cap.
Note: In the photo of the old arm ( left in picture ) you can plainly see the retaining cap that goes over the spindle has become oval!, the new ones are round. This has happened on all three of the old arms and partialy explains why it was a poor fit on the wiper spindle.

Once fitted the spring tension of the replacement wiper arms was exactly the same as the old arms being 1.5 lbs.

The new arms eliminated the play seen on the old wiper arms at the fulcrum pin. However, all three new arms needed a slight tweak of angle undertaken on the arms to make sure the wiper blade rubber sat at 90 deg to the screen.

They did not hugely improve the judder. I removed all the arms and refitted one at a time. Each arm would judder in any of the three positions and as each of the remaining arms were then connected the judder stayed fairly the same across all arms..

BB: Windscreen clean. Firstly with a clay bar ( very little dirt picked off the screen ) than with a proprietary screen cleaner, then with a windscreen polish, this was repeated 4 times. The result was a very very clean and smooth screen with no residule coating left on the screen. I chose both a cleaner and a polish that guaranteed to leave no residue or coating behind. ( choose carefully on this, as some do )

All the judder tests were undertaken by using the wipers with a water mist

All the wipers still judder slightly, but nowhere near as violently as previously, much smoother in operation...

Conclusion so far, by far the biggest difference was by both cleaning and then hand polishing the windscreen, making the surface as smooth as possible and removing the old coating ( The glass polish reduced the judder more than just cleaning ).. This makes some sense as a polished surface would help reduce friction between rubber and glass..

Next Step. I will see if the judder stays at the present level as I could just about live with it as is, alternatively, the wiper arm spring force might be able to be reduced by stretching the wiper arm springs, but this may need careful thought as the new arms have the protective guard over the spring.

Dave

Hi Lorne, thank you for your post and info ref the motor, appreciated. I must have compiled my last msg as you posted yours. The polish and removal of the old screen coating has made a difference, the blades although with a slight judder now flow over the windscreen in a better way and the wiper mechanism does not sound strained. The action is now almost smooth with just the little judder on each blade. If I put the wipers at max speed, I do not see a judder at all, so it is better, just not 100%. It may be that the more I keep polishing the screen the better the result...
Ref contacts at the factory, thank you for trying. It is a bit sad to see that there seems no way for owners who want factory advice to get any easily. As you may recall I used to be a Mech chartered engineer until I walked away from it all..I can understand why the MMC is the way it is, but it could be so much better with lines of communication, other than through dealers that can be hit or miss.

How wonderful! You have just become, at least in this area, a CX guru, and ahead of Factory. They should be informed. Write the young Wells fellow.., or the CEO, who I hear good things about. These fixes save them warranty claims and will go a ways to reverse their image.


Yes. Just imagine what they would have saved them over the last 25 years (let alone the last 3) if they had kept cultivating the warm interaction (Factory/Dealers/Owners) they had before the hard times.

Forgive, me but I have the old community's attitude that we owners/dealers MUST help the company as much as we can in these areas. Demanding that they make products fit-for-purpose or else, is just not realistic without our brutally honest help. There are infinite intellectual resources and skills among owners. You attacked this problem with the logical approach of a professional engineer.A methodology we all can learn of..tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor. I was once a judge. I prefer auto mechanics.

Can you right up your comments into a article?

Lorne

P.S. Next?!

Dave, you could use the 3 older arms with accessible springs to experiment / alter spring tensions ?

Also, bit of speculation...but, despite the manufacturer being based here, I doubt they mfr the drive motor, they are no doubt (driven down to a cost) sought from the Far East in batches & not individually load stress tested, could you have a poor motor ?

Evening Jon, yes I did consider the old arms to experiment with, they would certainly be easier to work on.

Ref motor being poor.. again it is a possibility, the car has always had wiper judder issues since we purchased it with 500 miles on the clock. I have made headway today though, still not 100% but its certainly getting better. The wiper system was surposedly all replaced by the factory, but I only have a verbal dealer conversation on this and I do not know if they meant the motor as well. Nothing in writing to me ref work done for both warranty visits to the factory and I have no way to confirm 100% if the motor was replaced.. The factory seems to be a black hole to owners when it comes to information like this.

Of general interest, as per Lornes posted info. I have acquired a picture of a wiper motor taken from a 2019 Plus Six that was being broken for parts following a fender bender.... this states it is a Britax PSV PSV900-12L wiper motor, the picture shows a big Britas sticker on it with "Tested in the UK" of course this means nothing, as it does not say made and tested in the UK.. also its also possible the factory may have used another brand as my car is almost a year on from the first 2019 production..