Wiper motor mount Spitfire 4

[aggie]

Does anyone out there know how to fit new bobbins to the wiper motor mount without breaking them ?  Have tried and tried but only hurt my fingers !!

[Colin Lindsay]

Try softening them in boiling water for a time first.

I had to look up the spec and confirm that it's the same setup as the Herald, but mine for the Herald are quite soft and fit with no problems. The ones on Rimmer's site, for example, look to be very solid and thick rubber.

I don't know if it would be wise to advise cutting them in half; might work in the short term, but no idea if it would affect their longevity.

[aggie]

Yes Colin,     I bought them from Rimmers and they are pretty hard.  The originals, which I still have, are quite soft and fit easily enough but really are past their use by date.  I've tried warming the new ones in the AGA but to no avail.  Funnily enough the very thing I said to my wife this morning was " if I can't solve this today I'm going to cut them in half, put one half either side and glue them together again ".   Perhaps it's a bit like the windscreen rubber I bought from Rimmers.  Tried for days to get it to fit  but couldn't.   When I called them to complain the guy says "we know there's a problem with them, just send it back ".   Infuriating or what?

[Dick Twitchen]

Had the same problem with ones from Canley Classics, and despite the boiling water/lubricant rout ended up opening up the hole in the mount to see if that helped.  It did for one of them, but still distorted it a lot in the process so ended up cutting the others in half.  Seems to work OK but as to longevity, only time will tell.  From Google it would seem to be a widespread issue with no one easy solution given that they probably all come from the same manufacturer.