[T3] Wiper motor

[Jim Adney]

On 20 Apr 2014 at 15:04, Bobsnotch at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 4/20/2014 2:54:27 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
> jadney at vwtype3.org writes:
>  
> I can never remember which wiper seals were which. Which cars got  the 
> 2 grommets and which ones got the 4 flat washers?

> I  believe they all got the 4 flat washers. There's just 2 different sizes 
> of  grommets, early and late.  

No, there were 2 different styles: One style used a grommet 
(essentially a pair of joined flat washers) and the other just used 2 
rubber flat washers. The grommet reduces the size of the hole, so 
I've often wondered if the holes in the body were actually all the 
same size. That might be the case if early cars used the grommets, 
which reduced the hole size, and late ones, which had the larger 
bushing diameters, used the 2 flat washers and made full use of the 
hole in the body.  

Okay, I've gone and checked. The microfilm and parts book agree that 
all years used the same part, a grommet (which they call a ferrule), 
2 per car. Personally, I can't believe this is correct, unless the 
early part was superceeded by a part that wasn't quite right. 
Mistakes and poor supercessions are both possible.

I bought my parts (both styles) from West Coast Metric many years 
ago, when I was placing a large order and wanted to stock up on a 
bunch of things at good prices. Looking back at my old WCM catalog, I 
see that they show several styles for Beetles but only the grommet 
for Type 3s, but they were probably just following the VW parts 
lists.

Personally, I have 2 styles (grommet or flat washers) of those seals 
here and I've always used whichever style was needed, but that need 
has been rare, and I've probably not had one of those apart in the 
last 20 years. So I can't tell you what was actually used in any 
particular year. I've got a couple of complete '71 wiper assemblies 
in the garage that I could look at, but nothing earlier or later.

Has anyone else done this work recently? Dennis?

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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