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Can anyone advise with regard to
1) Changing the rubber seal between the cockpit windscreen and the removable lid-like roof? When I have the roof off, which transforms Chihili Q (119) into a rather racey alter ego, the sail becomes blackened when dropped and draped briefly over the top of the windscreen before being tidied away. Besides which the seal leaks; is this a standard type automotive fitting?
2) Changing windscreen wipers? My wiper stopped working, and when I removed the Hepworth Marine drive motor and cracked the body open a lot of water fell out and I found the grease had crystallized in mysterious fashion. I contacted Hepworth Marine; the model was of course defunct and devoid of any documentation. The available replacements have different spindle sizes and spacing etc, but I think I can accomodate the 20Nm version if I enlarge one or both spindle holes eccentrically. Has anyone changed a spindle hole size in a Nic 38 windscreen in this way before?
Regards, Adrian.
Hi Adrian
I had the windscreen off during the fit out of La Torchee, I thought about replacing the rubber seals and was going to use automotive window rubber which is avaliable at auto trim suppliers.
Richard
1). We found some P-section rubber which we glued to the top of the screen and then dropped the lid onto it. This made a really good seal and has not leaked (or seen the light of day) since we fitted it in 2002. And an awful lot of water has hit it in the meantime! If you get stuck I can probably find the suppliers name from our records.
2). I should be really careful about machining out the spindle hole if it goes through the glass! Or does it go above the glass?
1) Thanks; I shall get a close up photo of a cross section of the windscreen and take it along to some auto people in due course, but this is relatively low priority!
2) I have got the windscreen wiper motor and spindles off the windscreen and filled the two holes (which along with some of the surround are sandwiched between aluminium plates) as a temporary measure. When you advise caution, presumably the risk is a shattered windscreen?!
Adrian,
When we had the top off our Nick 38 we replaced the gasket with a garage door seal. Sorry I can’t remember the sealer I used on bottom of the gasket. No leaks in the past few years.Hi Adrian,
I changed the old defunct original wiper unit for a new similiarly sized Vetus, along with new st/st double-wiper arm.
The old one was going to cost so much to re-furbish that I just bit-the-bullet & splurged on a new unit.
What I agonized about, before I got the old one off, was that in the Vetus catalogue I could see the two shaft-centres were different, & that I was going to have to re-drill the windscreen to suit.
I was slightly apprehensive about doing this as I’d never drilled glass, or a precious windscreen.!
Well, when I took off the inner & outer windscreen backing plates for the wiper unit I discovered that there is a recessed shallow cut-out in the top of the windscreen that will accomodate different sized shafts, & my new unit JUST fitted. Much relief I can tell you.! Had to make an alloy bracket to fix to the cockpit roof edge to stop the new unit from revolving, as new unit didn’t have a stabilizing/adjustment arm like the original, but problem now solved & quite chuffed with myself on this one.!
JeffJeff- that’s interesting about the wiper unit. Do you recall which Vetus unit you bought? Their catalog has several to choose from. Your comment about the two shafts makes me think its the HDMC, but that’s their heavy duty (read most expensive) motor – US$700. For just the motor. Ouch!
Rainshadow’s entire wiper unit and control are missing so I have nothing to compare for sizing. The PO said the wiper just smeared around the salt, and he preferred to use a squeegee. I’m thinking a wiper would be a lot easier than climbing out of the cockpit each time the windshield gets blurry.
If anyone wants to know what the bracket looks like once you take off the motor and arms, I can post a photo.
MarilynAdrian & Marilyn…
Just dug out my invoices for the new w/screen motor & arm etc as it’s 14 mths since I fitted mine.
Try & download the 2010 VETUS catalogue & it’s all on pages 54-55.
Nearest match is DIN type 12v motor with 50mm long tapered drive-shaft. (I paid £64.11 through the Chandlery here)
Also new st/steel wiper arm set (DINS-D)double linked-arm:£86, & wiper blade WBS-41, £8.81 +plastic cover for the motor was almost £20, + 3x way switch was £12.30-all VAT included.
I had to make up 2x new alloy backing plates for inside & outside the windscreen, with a matching 16mm hole for the drive-shaft threaded sleeve, as it wasn’t really practicable to re-use the original mounting plates. Also, got hold of some 3mm gasket rubber & cut 2x new matching sections to fit under the alloy mounting plates to seal against the w/screen. I haven’t bothered to put any sealant round the edges yet & seems to be watertight so far.
Altogether it cost me £190 to do it myself, but I’m happy with the finished result.
If I knew how to post a couple of photos I’d show you how it looks.Another little job you have to do is…these small units have no stabilizing arm like the original units so you have to make up an arm to fit on the outer end of the motor, where there is already a fixing bracket attached. I found that the only place I could attach to was directly underneath the lower lip of the cockpit roof, with a little backing plate on the upper side of the lip.
The new unit HAS to be anchored at the other end as, being a heavy duty unit, it’s got quite a bit of torque & no matter how much you tighten it down onto the windscreen outside, the motor will still try to revolve.
Regards..JeffMany thanks Jeff. I shall be interested to see what lies beneath my own backing plates, but your report sounds most encouraging. A little tinkering first with my old motor should establish that it really is broken and not just seized with solidified grease. I was making some preliminary enquiries at http://www.b-hepworth.com (Hepworth Marine) where the 20nM motor with stabilizer arm looked quite suitable to drive an arm up to 24″ and I think I was quoted a total price of about £180 (but can’t find my scribbles). Your Vetus may be preferable adn I shall investigate further!
Regards, Adrian.Hi Adrian,
You’ll probably find that, just like mine, the gearing inside shows no signs of wear whatsoever, & plenty of grease around. These units were really built to last.!
My problem was the motor was burnt out & seized up, so I couldn’t turn any of the gearing at all.
I decided not to take the motor itself out of the casing, but got some quotes for re-furbishing it, i.e…installing a new motor/windings into the unit.
Therein lies the problem.!
Everyone wanted £40 pHr to look at it, etc, etc…& as they’ll spend 3/4/5 hrs on it(or I should say-they’ll Invoice you for at least 4 Hrs anyway,+ the new windings)you’re as well putting a new unit in.My old unit looked so bad, with paint coming off, rusty spots, etc, that it wasn’t worth spending so much on & then re-mounting the same scrappy looking piece of kit.
JeffHi Jeff, yesterday I took the barrel of the motor off after removing the two little nuts on the end where the power lead enters, and although smelly (as if overheated) I could find no burned bits; when I turned the shaft of the motor I was just able to turn the gears a little. After filling the gear box with WD40, then petrol, then hot water to dissolve any salt, and air blasting it clean I can now spin the motor freely (more so connected up to a drill) and I find connected to power it works! So I shall need to fashion a new gasket, and fill the unit with suitable oil or thin grease I suppose. Seem to have saved myself some ££’s on this rare occasion!
As regards the usefulness of a windscreen wiper, I have to agree a squeegee does a better job but in heavy rain or spray my wiper no doubt usefully improves forward visibility.
Adrian.
Jeff provided me some photos, which you can see on my Flickr page at Windscreen wiper project on Sea Eagle
If Jeff can confirm I think this is the wiper motor in the Vetus catalouge my pages are different go to
http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/fd2b8fee#/fd2b8fee/1
page 196 /197
http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/fd2b8fee#/fd2b8fee/196Regards Richard
Hi Richard,
“If Jeff can confirm I think this is the wiper…”Yes, this is the same kit, all my new kit came from those 2 pages & they’re just in a different position in that catalogue.
Regards…JeffJeff, you don’t have your original windscreen wiper assembly still in your bin do you? I overlooked the fact that the threaded brass cylinder through which my wiper shaft projects has broken! I have asked “Bearing Man” whether they can put a sleeve of some sort around it, or replace the original but expect to be disappointed. May yet have to resort to Vetus.
Adrian.
Continuing the thread from last year, Voltair’s screen wiper motor is working fine, but the mazak casting in the arm which locates onto the splined drive has broken in half. Has anyone got a redundant Hepworths-type arm we could have/buy? Or just the casting since we actually have a functional arm, just the female splined bit has bust (approx 13.5mm I/D and it looks like parallel rather than tapered splines). I’d have expected there to be a nut on the end of the spindle to retain it all, but ours has a allen-type grub screw in the side which bears on the male drive.
Bearing Man finally came up trumps and produced another threaded brass cylinder for me so my original Hepworth motor is back in action. This drives a completely smooth shaft onto which the wiper grips and operates perfectly adequately without splines, so I wonder if a more ordinay wiper assembly would suffice for you? Not that I have one for you!
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