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Headlight nozzle repair

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axelleveau
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Headlight nozzle repair

Post by axelleveau » Sat Feb 05, 2022 8:14 pm

Hi all,

I feel like it is another case of "I could buy and swap the part but I have a mixture of being cheap and liking to tinker with things"... So I decided to have a go at fixing a leaky healight washer nozzle. If it works it saves about £70 as I believe the E85/E86 parts are not common so no cheap option :driving:

Taking things appart:
I will skip the part about getting the telescopic nozzle out, whether you take the whole bumper out or not, this is explained online. You also need to remove the nozzles from the end of the piston, you just have to pull on it and you will see a plastic tab that need to be lifted.

At this point the fun begins, it is clear the whole unit is pressed together and could be taken appart by pulling hard enough BUT it is too hard and there is a risk of breaking it. I saw a video online of someone taking a similar unit appart from an E90 by using a hammer on top of the piston but in my case it did not seem to work so here is how I did it:
  • I used a saw and cut 4 reliefs in the external ring to make things easier to pull appart:
    IMG_20220205_150020_1.jpg
    IMG_20220205_150020_1.jpg (116.13 KiB) Viewed 671 times
    It gives enough relief to just have to pull hard on the unit and it comes out. Be careful there is a long spring in there and despite it not being powerful and no small parts risking flying, it could pop in your face.
  • Here is how things look when coming appart:
    IMG_20220205_150029_1.jpg
    IMG_20220205_150029_1.jpg (114.61 KiB) Viewed 671 times
    And the spring out of the unit for reference:
    IMG_20220205_150034.jpg
    IMG_20220205_150034.jpg (142.15 KiB) Viewed 671 times
Here is how the unit is put together and works:
  • There is an outside metal cylinder, pushed into the base and sealed with an o-ring that gets clamped when the whole unit is pressed together. Clearly there is clamping on that o-ring and it is a static part so little risk of leak there:
    IMG_20220205_151850.jpg
    IMG_20220205_151850.jpg (69.63 KiB) Viewed 671 times
  • There is an inside feed and piston which acts as a pressure relief valve. Basically the water comes from the inside white tube, pushes with the help a spring the white piston out UNTIL it runs out of travel and the main piston (the black one that comes out of the bumper) carries on going out and lifts from the seat (circled in red) which lets the water go out and through the nozzles. The rubber seat is also not a leak source as it is purely internal and has spring pressure on it when not in use:
    IMG_20220205_151803.jpg
    IMG_20220205_151803.jpg (68.77 KiB) Viewed 671 times
  • Last and most important is the main piston, the one sticking out from the bumper. It rides on the white internal piston and seal in the metal cylinder with a bush/seal combo like a hydraulic piston. This is where mine what leaking :headbang:
    IMG_20220205_151706.jpg
    IMG_20220205_151706.jpg (104.08 KiB) Viewed 671 times
The fix:
  • Start by cleaning all the parts are there is some dirts. In my case warm water, soap and bursh was enough
  • You use a pair of pliers to take the white bush out and can then take the black hard plastic seal out:
    IMG_20220205_151706bis.jpg
    IMG_20220205_151706bis.jpg (41.01 KiB) Viewed 671 times
  • Clearly that seal is pretty hard to reduce the friction but it means it does not have much give when wearing.
    I tried replacing it with two o-rings stacked as there is lot of room but that was too tight and prevented the unit from functioning properly so I just used a single o-ring which despite having some wiggle room along the axis does get compressed when everything is assembled and it seems to be air and water tight.
    IMG_20220205_163909.jpg
    IMG_20220205_163909.jpg (115.73 KiB) Viewed 671 times
  • You then just have to put everything back together in reverse order. The last thing to deal with is making sure things stay together despite the cuts we made at the start. It does seem to have enough clamping force but just in case I used a zip tie around the ring I cut as a safety measure and will replace it with a hose clamp once I go to the hardware store (forgot to take a picture, will add later if I remember)
To finish with, here is a video of me testing the unit using compressed air and a tire inflator. You can clearly see how a pressure of 1.5 bar fully extends the piston and a pressure of 2 bars makes the relief valve open and the nozzles spit air out. Towards the end of the video I also held air in and even pressed the piston and there was no obvious sign of leak so I am confident it will work.
https://youtu.be/FC0l3-f0mWE

The unit is currently hooked back on the car and seems to work fine. I filled the washer reservoir to the top and will leave the unit over night in a bucket to see if it leaks while not in use :thumbsup: If all goes according to plan I think this HOW TO could be replicated by others!
Last edited by axelleveau on Sat Feb 05, 2022 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ewazix
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Headlight nozzle repair

Post by Ewazix » Sat Feb 05, 2022 8:18 pm

Nice work, fingers crossed it holds :thumbsup:
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Mr Tidy
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Headlight nozzle repair

Post by Mr Tidy » Sat Feb 05, 2022 8:36 pm

That's a useful "How To". :thumbsup:

My car had one leaking when I got it but luckily I managed to get a 2nd hand one on here. Ross at RBM managed to fix it using a combination of bits from the two but I still had to buy a new cap as one of the lugs on mine was broken.

So then I pulled Fuse 40. No more lost caps or streaks up the wings. :)
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