The general consensus from people who have gone through a full rebuild is that one of the first tasks is to fit the various pipes and components within the bulkhead, before access becomes too restricted. So I set to work on the wiper rack. It was working fine but had started to show signs of rust so I decided to smarten it up. Yet again, in my enthusiasm to press on, I forgot to take some decent before photos. The only difficult part during the dismantling was the removal of the rear brackets from the three splined drive assemblies, which needed to be pressed off. The rest of the parts were simply secured by nuts or circlips.

The wiper arm splines on each of the three splined drives weren’t in the best of shape but were still serviceable. Which is just as well as the only replacement I could find was for a fully remanufacturer rack. Due to the shape of the rack, the central drive has a longer shaft than the outer two and so has a spacer fitted between the drive and the rear bracket.

With the exception of the angled bezels and chromed parts, the individual parts followed the now standard cleaning process: immersion in a citric based rust remover overnight, wire brushing, zinc plating/passivation and finally coated with Gtechniq S1. Meanwhile the outer bezels and retaining nuts had been sent off to be chrome plated.

The synchronisation of the rotation of the three splined drives is achieved by two connecting rods, with the central drive also having a connecting rod to the wiper motor to provide the drive. At each rod end is a ball-joint fitting which is secured by a small, horseshoe shaped, snap-lock clip shown below. Unfortunately one of the tiny snap-lock ‘ears’ made a break for freedom and, despite a hands and knees search of the living room carpet, was never to be seen again! The only option available was to purchase a complete socket unit which included the clip and the inevitable robbing by the E-Type parts suppliers!!

The connecting rods are connected to the central wiper drive by a series of spring washers, nylon guides and secured with a circlip. All very straight forward. All that remains is to fit the rack and connect the central drive to the wiper motor. I think it will be necessary to fit the washer jets and tubing before the rack as there’s not a lot of room in the bulkhead.