Installing the windscreen wiper mechanism has been a pain in the butt. I knew a long time ago that the old motor assembly was badly water damaged and the threads on the wheelboxes were buggered so bought new ones.
I've seen other people adapt the Mini wiper motor to the Starlet wiring loom, but to be 100% sure it wasn't going to draw too much current, I bench tested the Starlet motor (@13.2 Volts) and it was 1.88A on high speed. I tried the new Mini motor and the motor was not moving. I pulled the motor apart to find that the brush retaining plate was broken and several of the carbon brushes damaged. I had bought it (brand new) over a year ago so no warranty
but I found a new plate and carbon brushes and fixed it.
Once repaired, I tested the Mini wiper motor and the current draw was 2.2 Amps. At only 320mA more than the Starlet motor, this meant the Starlet wiring size should easily be up to the task of running the Mini motor. Using the Mini-to-Starlet wiring details here (
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=65707) I wired up the Mini motor and confirmed all low, high, variable intermittent & park worked via the Starlet switchgear
The problem with the UK-sourced wiper motor ferrule has a thread & shape that is not interchangeable with the Aussie wiper motor assembly or rack so I decided to try something a little challenging and make my own. The old Australian Mini ferrule, the ferrule for the new motor, and custom ferrule I made.
The custom ferrule fits nicely in the new motor housing with the top piece of it designed to (mostly) seal the mechanism
Instead of the usual 3 bolts, the Rover Mini motor uses a saddle, and rubber mounting pad between the motor and bulkhead (I assume for vibration & noise isolation) so I installed two rivnuts for the new saddle.
The next problem was the the rubber bushes that sit on top of the scuttle panel were also old and had gone brittle and broken and the bushes that came with the new wheelboxes were not the right shape (I assume made for the roundnose) and Clubman bushes are no longer available. This photo is of a UK bush, original (broken) Clubman bush and a UK bush I sanded down.
Despite the success in using my belt sander to sand down a new bush, it didn't have that the extra angle at the top of the bush (see the top of the middle bush in photo above) resulting in small 1mm gap in the panel, which would allow water to enter behind the scuttle panel.
I decided to make some new ones out of black HDPE rod on the lathe where it was machined to approx 30mm OD and cut/sanded at the same angle as the original bush. The new one is also ~5mm thicker than the original bushes because the shafts of the new wheelboxes are slightly longer than the original ones. The original Australian bush and new HDPE bush :
I needed a rubber washer to seal the new plastic bushes against the scuttle panel so those had to be made too - from 2mm rubber sheet.
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-Alan
I blame my dad for my love of minis. I think I was conceived in the back seat of one
I also blame my Dad for me being 6' 1" - not really the optimum height for driving a Mini.