Last week I began my new 26-part series “Why Do I Never Learn The Cheapskate Lesson.” It will take 26 parts, because I will continue to do this over and over and over.
I kid, I kid.
The issue is avoiding what they call in the marine world Shipwright’s Disease. This is where you go to change a burned-out lightbulb in the cabin, find that the cabin wiring is awful, and before you know it, you’re restoring a boat.
I’m very good at avoiding Shipwright’s Disease. I’m very good at not turning a dirty engine compartment into a four-month engine-compartment restoration. I regard this with no small amount of pride. The whole “do it once, do it right” thing drives me nuts. Short of replacing every part on a car, there is no absolute “right,” no clear shades of black and white. There are only endless choices and shades of gray. How much money? How much time? How close to “good as new”? You make your choices, I’ll make mine: Viva la différence! And if a consequence of this attitude is that once in a while I’m penny-wise and pound-foolish, I’m fine with that.
Nonetheless, last week’s episode replacing the rubber brake hoses on the ’79 Euro 635CSi made me think that perhaps I’d slide the knob half a notch toward “do it right.”
The wipers on the Shark have had this problem of working for a few minutes, then the arm from the big reciprocating assembly—the thing that the wiper arms themselves are attached to—pops off the small arm (the “drive rod”) that goes to the motor. I looked at the system, and it was immediately obvious that the right spindle had way too much play where it went through the hole in the cowl at the base of the windshield; it was literally free to bang around inside the hole. I thought, “Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of rubber grommet in here to take up this play?” I looked on realoem.com and found the exploded parts diagram, but as anyone who has ever done this knows, sometimes it’s less than obvious what’s what, and how it relates to what’s on your car, particularly when you even don’t know if all of the pieces are on your car. It’s not like the parts diagram says, “#6: The fat rubber grommet you’re missing.” In fact, it doesn’t even say which pieces are rubber. (It turned out to be #19: Damper Ring. I suppose it’s almost clear. In retrospect.)
So I did what made sense: I simply ordered all the little pieces shown on both spindles. It looked like there were two sets of seven parts, and they weren’t that expensive. I called up the parts department at Herb Chambers BMW (as I sometimes do), and ordered everything. With my BMW CCA discount, it came to maybe fifty bucks. And because it didn’t need to be shipped to the dealership and then shipped to me, I had it all in two days.
When the parts arrived, I laid the bags out on the floor, matched the part numbers with what I saw on Realoem so I could see the order they went on the spindles, then took apart what was on my car. I found that, in fact, the right side was missing not only the Damper Ring, but also a metal spacer that sits inside it (“17: Ring.” Such a way with language, these parts people have.) And I didn’t even need to remove the entire assembly from the car; I could push each spindle down below its hole, and perform a very small game of ring toss getting the pieces over each spindle.
Once the pieces that had to go on the spindles were, uh, on the spindles, I could bring the spindles up through the holes in the cowl. I patted myself on the back for ordering new nuts, both top and bottom, even though they were the most expensive of all the parts (about $5 each, and there were four). I thought, Yes! I can learn new tricks!
But my favorite parts were the new plastic/rubber covers that snapped over the top nuts. Both of these had been missing, and I didn’t even know they were supposed to be there. They gave the whole thing a nice finished feel.
I put it all together, turned on the wipers, and admired my handiwork.
In a few minutes, the big arm popped right off the drive rod arm again.
Apparently, the problem is not in the $50 worth of little parts I’d just replaced. It’s something in the right-side reciprocating assembly itself. Looking again on Realoem, I saw that the left spindle is a stand-alone piece (“Wipershaft Pivot Left”) and is still available, but the major part of the reciprocating assembly is integral with “Wipershaft Pivot Right,” and it’s listed as “ended” (no longer available).
I guess that, for a while, I’m not going anywhere in the Shark that’s farther than the time it takes a good application of Rain-X to wear off. But hey—at least it saved me from having to “do it right.”—Rob Siegel
Got a question for Rob Siegel, the Hack Mechanic? You can find him in the BMW CCA Forums here!
Rob's book Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic is available through Bentley Publishers, Amazon, and Bavarian Autosport—or you can get a personally inscribed copy through Rob's website: www.robsiegel.com.
