Wiper motor gear

People can have slow leaks the key is check them regularly.

Have you looked under a 4wd one? They most certainly do have one. Not the big sturdy high/low type one on proper 4wd. But they have one that engages the rear wheels.
Well I put the oil in somewhere.
 
Koleos magic box. Otherwise known as a transfer case.
 

Attachments

  • Koleos transfer case.jpg
    Koleos transfer case.jpg
    426.6 KB · Views: 137
Now, for those who haven't yet twigged that the running gear on a Koleos is identical to that on a similar year X-Trail let me present some light after breakfast reading for your general delectation and it is to be found here: http://baustralianxtrail.runboard.com/f38,offset=0

Those of us who take the time to pore over it's content will find remarkably few mentions of blown diffs over the last 17 years! The one rule that all 4WD Koleos (and X-Trail) owners should make sure that they follow is the handbook instruction to never flat tow a Koleos/X-Trail, they should only be moved on a tilt tray vehicle or similar with all wheels off the ground. One punter says his vehicle was towed 30 km with the back wheels on the road and that was sufficient to completely stuff the rear diff. One wonders how many more diff failures have been caused by un-knowing towies and/or owners?
 
I wonder why that happens though. A run of the mill diff should not have nay problems being towed like that. Probably billions of RWD cars of yesteryear have been towed like that with no adverse effect. Maybe the Koleos/modern cars have some electrics that lock something in the diff and that is then forced? Has anyone opened a Koleos diff?
 
bit off topic but my Dacia aro10 has a transfer box bolted to rear of gearbox to transfer drive to both front and wheels, my 2013 koleos 4x4 must have as Dave has shown a transfer box bolted to transmission to transfer drive to front and rear wheels, so i guess your both right as interpretation of transfer box may vary but both do transfer drive as is their function. as for flat towing rwd vehicles without removing tailshaft,do so at own detriment. imagine driving your vehicle at 70/80kph in first gear, and this would be with engine revving it's tits off, engine not running no input shaft rotation when towing, output shaft at 70/80kph speed (say 3.7diff ratio tailshaft spinning at 3.7times wheel speed). first rule most toques do is to pull tailshaft to negate any trans damage. although in bus industry we had some toques who pulled an axle, i tried to explain to a couple of them that it was going to cause possible damage to duff as remaining side would be spinning side gears and not duff carrier/crownwheel,fell on deaf ears so gave up.... just my thoughts..... jim
 
With the gear in neutral?

There should be no movement transmitted up the chain in a manual 'box, not sure about automatics but I imagine it shouldn't either (otherwise what's the point of neutral?).

Yes, you would be spinning the diff, and yes you would be spinning the secondary shaft in the 'box, but that's it. No gears should move.

Yes, the diff crown/final drive would be spun the "wrong" way around (i.e. the diff crown spins the final drive instead of viceversa), and I guess that is where the problems might happen because I think hypoid gears don't like doing things the wrong way around. I think we found it.
 
Last edited:
With the gear in neutral?

There should be no movement transmitted up the chain in a manual 'box, not sure about automatics but I imagine it shouldn't either (otherwise what's the point of neutral?).

Yes, you would be spinning the diff, and yes you would be spinning the secondary shaft in the 'box, but that's it. No gears should move.

Yes, the diff crown/final drive would be spun the "wrong" way around (i.e. the diff crown spins the final drive instead of viceversa), and I guess that is where the problems might happen because I think hypoid gears don't like doing things the wrong way around. I think we found it.

There were only a handful of manual diesel Koleos sold here. All the others were autos, either CVT or 6 speed slushbox......
 
i wasn,t meaning any gears were engaged or spinning as i realise they are driven via input shaft gear down to countershaft and through to each gear which is engaged by synchro ring and cones which are locked onto output shaft which as you say will be driven by tailshaft via diff.what i was trying to explain was excessive shaft speed differences between input and output shaft speeds when flat towing,more so with vehicles with diff ratios above say 4to1,hence towies towing trucks erring on safe side by removing tailshafts....... jim
 
I see, but still, your explanation would suggest the damage is more likely to be inflicted on the g'box rather than the diff.

I do accept that the g'box might suffer from that rotational speed difference between input and output shafts you mention even though I wouldn't be able to explain why. Imagine this. You're doing 100km/h and you take the car out of gear and coast. The wheels are still spinning at 100km/h but the engine is doing now what? idle speed? 1000RPM or so? So you have the input shaft going at 1000RPM and the output going (say 4:1 diff ratio and wheels say 195/55R15 about what? 2m circumference? let's take it at that, that means the wheels are spinning at 100000/2*60=800+RPM, hence the secondary shaft is doing 800*4=3200RPM, that's more than three times as fast as the primary. Now I don't know much about car manufacturing but I would hazard a guess situations like these are accounted for in car design.

And I can imagine another scenario. Let's say you're doing 100km/h and now you take it out of gear and switch the engine off. Now that is exactly the same situation as being towed (though I don't think I've seen cars being towed at 100km/h but let's assume it happens). Now the difference in rotation between the g'box shafts is 3200RPM to zero. Should I expect the diff or the g'box will explode? I would like to hope not but then again, coasting even from 100km/h is not going to last for say more than 1km or so engine on or off. Not sure if you keep going for say 10km.

Also Kim, the more I think about it the more I am of the opinion that auto g'boxes should be even better protected by design than manuals. As Jim suggested, there may be some problem with spinning the shafts in the g'box at hugely different speeds, but the damage happens in the diff.

Which I suggest it may have to do with the way hypoid gears are supposed to work (or not).
 
sorry to re-hyjack the thread ;) thought I would share what I finally managed to do

I gave up on the other motor the wiring somehow caused my battery to go flat. I think the standard motor has relays internally and externally and if you don't have the right motor with the right relay combination some of the external relays remain actiove and cause a slow drain on the battery.

I ended up 3d printing a new gear for the wipoer motor, basically by taking measurements and a bit of trial and error. I found that the standard printing filament wasn't good enough and it stripped out after a while. I also noticed that the my worm drive had a chip that no doubt 'chewed' through the 1st plastic gear as it turned. Luckily I had a second motor, also with a stripped gear, but a good worm drive. It was interesting because the different motors I tried had a slight difference in gear diameter but my printed part fitted in ok, possibly a bit tight but it didn't/hasn't failed yet. I also upgraded to some carbon filament and printed the gear with that and it's been going ok for the past 6 months.

I contemplated printing off a stack and seeing how they went on ebay but never bothered with it as it was a pretty monumental effort to change the gear. To replace the gear I had to heat the metal shaft to extract it from the original gear to be able to reuse it. and then reheat and use a press to reinsert to make sure it was aligned

I suspect over all the original issue was a bad gasket on the top plate which then allows water in. Then the worm drive rusts and chews out the plastic until it fails. I gave mine a good polish with a brass wire brush to remove any existing rust. I have added some extra waterproofing before I reinstalled to prevent future failures.

thansk all for you input, offers and efforts, it's also been good to get some ideas on other problem areas. Feel free to keep going with the updates!!
 
If it is ABS, that's a very popular 3D printing material and I have a reel of nice grey filament. The trick will be to do lots of precise measurements to replicate it in CAD (or find engineering specs online), then the printing is the easy part. You seem to be in luck with Schlitzaugen's offer to machine, anyway.

EDIT

Ah, it pays to read the last post in a thread!
The 'standard' stuff you mentioned is no doubt PLA, THE most popular 3D printing material (I think I have 6 reels in different colours right now). Glad you got it resolved. There's little more satisfying than getting out the calipers and devising the most elegant way to 3D print a solution. I enjoy the designing more than the printing but our home is already a tribute to 3D innovation in all sorts of fixes.
Have fun with it.
 
Last edited:
Hi,
I had the same problem on my Koleos and I designed a replacement gear for it. I'm selling them on ebay if anyone wants one, just search renault koleos wiper motor gear replacement. Took me about 2 hours to replace, gear is stronger than the original and wipers have been working solid for 6 months now.

It sucks Valeo don't sell the motors by themselves, I looked everywhere for a new replacement motor from china but couldn't find any so it was easier to design a new gear. Hope it helps anyone in the same situation, it took me a week to measure/draw it up
 
That looks nicely done, albeit a bit expensive.

Still a bargain, compared to 1k for the whole thing from Renault (are they even available? Or is it anther one of those "you pay your money and we'll call you when we get them" deals?).

What I found surprising was how thin the motor shaft is at the worm end. I am talking about the root of the worm. Makes you wonder if the plastic gear doesn't break, is the motor shaft going to?
 
I think they order the wiper assembly in from europe once you've paid your money but not 100% sure. When they told me the part was $1,000 and i couldnt just buy the motor i was like "stuff that" lol.

It is expensive but printing it costs $50 and ebay take 20% cut ($30) so i only make $70. Took me 16 hours to model it getting everything measured to within 0.05mm.

I was surprised about the whole design, seems crazy to use a plastic gear with a metal worm drive. The shaft of the worm gear is driven directly from the motor so not a huge torque, it mainly takes a compression load from the gear pushing against it.
 
I understand very well your considerations about price. I have no qualms with it. I myself thought of making them, but I would cut them on a milling machine out of whatever material I would think of. Not sure they would be cheaper but I thought of it this way. If I sell this thing who's gonna buy it? Well, someone who doesn't want to pay 1k for a new motor. That's all fine and dandy. But now, this someone has a new problem. Who is going to install the gear? If they have the skills to do it, that's fine, they are my target market. But if they don't, they'll be at the mercy of some shop where they have to take the car, explain the job to the mechanic, and the mechanic then has to agree to do it. Now, if you find a good mechanic, that's great, you are too my target market. But if you don't, you're still without a working wiper motor.

And then I looked at these ideas and I thought, hmm. Someone who can do the job is probably skilled, experienced, quite likely has some tools, even machines like me, they will probably think twice if the price was too high.

Someone who relies on the shop will hesitate. The higher the price, the more they will hesitate. They may actually try to find a shop first to make sure they don't end up with a gear nobody can replace for them and perhaps try to get a price for the labour. At least that is what I would do. Which means let's say a 50-50 chance they'll find a shop (in fact I would put money it's a lot lower than that, for all sorts of reasons, but let's go with it). So only half (or less) of these people might actually buy.

People with money are not in this market. They go to the dealership, leave the car, pick it up later, pay the price.

So it's a small market. If you want to maximise this market you can't lose any of these potential customers. To persuade the guys with skills, you need to give them such a low price that they would think, heck, it would cost me more in time invested to make this, let's just buy it. To persuade the guys relying on someone else, you need to give them a really low price because they still have to pay for the labour.

Tricky.

But you are in a very good position. You have done all the work you had to do for yourself. To make another one, and another one and so on, all it cost you is another click of the mouse. For me, every gear made would cost the same amount of time again and again.

I am very interested in the outcome of this experiment in manufacturing. In fact I would suggest you put your gears on the international ebay site, so you can get orders from overseas too.

Regarding the motor shaft, if you play with these things a bit you will find that the stronger the gear, and the stronger the strain, the more the shaft flexes sideways as if it is trying to jump out of mesh. It may flex enough that it comes out of the bearing at the end or it may flex enough that it may snap. We don't know until someone goes through the experiment.

Best of luck and keep us updated if you don't mind. I have my fingers crossed for you.
 
Thanks schlitzaugen, yeah ill keep you up to date with how it goes.
Regarding the difficulty to change the gear, i made a little youtube video to show people how i did it because it does seem a bit daunting. The link is in the ebay item description too

Yeah i understand your predicament about machining new gears each time, it does make it hard to make it worthwhile.

I went with a high strength nylon with a sls machine, its pretty much the best 3D print you can get in australia so if it doesnt do the job im not sure what will.
Maybe after a year of having the gear in service ill pull it out, take some photos of it and post here. Im keen to see how it wears, when i looked after 6 months it looked fine.
 
Top