Hello All.

I went from having fluid one moment of the day to the next moment having only a dribble. Barely anything to come out of either side/wiper.

I’m thinking the problem must be a blockage within the reservoir itself? Something must’ve settled? Never a problem previously, they used to shoot like a geyser. Owned the car 8+ years. The cap has always been on the washer fluid. Should not have happened.

Stupidly I made the mistake of adding even more fluid for some reason so that if I needed to drain it from the top, this will be made worse, more fluid. Definitely was not a loose fluid problem, no warning light. But the fluid is a soapy, summer blend. Something bought in Poland and brought back with me. Had no trouble back then but then it sat in the car for nearly 2 years, maybe it settled and hunker

 

Maybe something in the fluid settled and gunked up the outflow? Suggest vinegar maybe to be added? Try to remove as much fluid as I can from inside the reservoir? I don’t have any techie skill to go dismantling stuff, and my degenerative disc in the back means after about 30 seconds hunched over I’ll be done. I would be limited in my options. Probably a turkey baster or something to try sucking out the fluid or just keep using it as long as possible and add regular vinegar along the way.

 

I had similar problem when I got my cat. I thought I had bad pump. I could hear whindshill pump wirling, but no fluid was coming out.
Pulld the water pump out readu to replace it and the filter that is integrated into the gromet was completely gunked up.
Reaplced that filter and everthing begun working like supposed to.

 

Interesting. Ok, thanks. I'm assuming that the cruddy summer fluid that I used and let sit in there all this time is the culprit.

So this #12 on the diagram is connected within this pump? I just pulled up a quick video on Youtube from an XF... it's showing all of this as being behind the front wheel well which would mean getting the front tire off, exposing the wheel well, opening that area up, etc.. Theoretically yes, I could do this but I have no quipment to do it. I think my only hope would be to just drain as much of it out as possible and fill/flush with vinegar or at least with super hot/distilled water and attempt to flush the filter that is installed. Thankfully I still get a little bit out, but barely. If it gets completely obstructed, then I'm into full fix mode but it will have to go to my mechanic. I can't get behind the wheel well myself. I don't have the ability.

 

On mine 2004 XJ8 it is in front of front right wheel, behind bumper. on later models it was moved into space BEHIND front left wheel.
The opening you fill windhield washer is indicating where your whindshield washer bottle is.

 

Yep. Mine is tucked on the left rear, behind the left front wheel. So it would mean removing that wheel and stuff.

I’ll try the minimalist method first and see if I can blow the gunk out of the filter first. If that fails then the filter will need to be removed and cleaned or replaced. Did you replace or clean the one you had originally?

 

That was my first approach as well:
I disconnected lines from wipers, if crud is in line, I did not want to block sprinklers, and in the middle (on mine) and bleu air in both directions. I could hear bubles coming inthe bottle, but it did not help. That was reason I concluded, wronglfully, that shaft on water pump either brocke or impeller came loose on shaft.
I do not know about your car arrangements, on mine I had to remove plastic fender covering together with wheel. I am pretty sure, same will needs to be done on your car. Not difficult at all. Whater pimp has tight fit into gromet and bottle, just pry ot off evenly on all sides and it will come out. That is when it will become messy if there is liquid is still in the bottle!
Good luck

 

Yeah, I won’t be able to do it with my back. I will be on the floor before I could even get the jack out of the trunk/boot.

I am paranoid about fiddling with the wheel covering stuff and then either breaking something or not being able to reattach it. It should be virtually the same as what you dealt with though just a different position.

Currently I get fluid from both sides just not nearly as much as two days ago. I’m almost thinking that the fluid I used congealed into a ball of soapy mass somewhere inside the reservoir and has partially blocked it. Maybe as the car drives around it breaks up a bit or moves to either block or unblock. Time will tell I suppose. I could see trying near boiling water to dislodge anything that has solidified inside or else maybe a better option would be (hot) vinegar.

 

Sorry to hear that!

I would be hesitant to put into washer bottle anything other than whater or windshield washer fluid. Vinegar? I do not know what it will do to exterior paint... May be nothing...

 

Generally vinegar is so weak is should be fine. Just regular table vinegar. Something to try to break down the soap that might’ve formed a big clump at the bottom of the bottle.

 

If the screen wash has been in the car for 2 years than that is your problem. I would say you have had some sort of biological action going on in the washer tank. Ive had screen wash that I keep in the van go off after only a few months and it turns into a revolting jelly mess. I just keep water now. Does the screen was smell funny? I've also had that and it was a nasty fermented smell. blergh
Easy to get to the tank through the wheel arch liner, getting the fittings out is usually the hard bit as they rust up, then you can pull off washer pump off and let it all out.

 

Surprisingly no. I still have part of the same bottle of washer fluid. Straight from Poland. No change in it at all. It is quite soapy, there is an additive in it I do believe. I should have taken a photo of the ingredients although everything is probably in Polish. But it had a nice scent. I just figured maybe it had settled to the bottom a bit since the car wasn't moving and congealed into a lump.

But now again magically everything is working again as it should! Just took the car out on a roadtrip 4 hours and have been using the washers without any trouble again. Full power to the jets on both sides. The thing fixed itself. Just like the cruise control. It went from working, to all the sudden saying 'CRUISE UNAVAILBLE'. Then I stopped at a rest area, and once the car was turned back on, the cruise worked again. Jaag gremlins

 

Not uncommon where squirters might sit idle for long periods.

All I did - ages ago - was pull the spray heads at each wiper blade so the fluid was simply dumped onto the glass as large blobs out of the unobstructed tubing. Moving wiper blades do the rest.

"Wasteful?" Assuredly.

But works well-enough if-only because NOW there is ALWAYS fluid when called for.

 

This is what was bizarre. Because it literally went from working in the early afternoon when a bird decided to take a massive dump all over the windshield/screen and I cleaned everything off just fine with copious quantities of fluid on both sides to 1-2 hours later having this problem.

But as soon as I posted to the forum and went brute force method on it out eventually cleared. Either a big glob of sh&t was at the bottom of the reservoir that needed to break up and pass through or something similar in the main line before the bifurcation since both sides were relatively equally blocked up.

Saved a visit to my “man” and definitely no tinkering from me, since I can’t even slightly bend my back just while filling the tank from Jerry cans of fuel without being in pain within 30 seconds from the degenerative disc. I was worried I’d have to take a different car, 03 Ford Thunderbird, on my trip yesterday which is ok for lazy drives but the absence of a sixth gear means highway driving above 100kph is less economical than driving the 4,2 Jaaag. I managed 10,5/100 on the trip. 366,4km round trip and more than 350km was highway. The Thunderbird is giving me usually no better than 18-19 US MPG) 12L/100km as it’s only a five speed.

 

Sounds as it the TurkeyBird is overdue for a wash & brush-up, underhood?

Ratio-count shouldn't matter as much as driving style..unless your route was through les diablerets, the Pyrenees, or chasing your own tail around the rim of Sicilia @ 8/10ths or better?

The (Lima, Ohio) Ford AJ35 V8's transmission and engine control modules are just optimized differently from a comparable Model-Year, different displacement, (Bridgeford, Wales) Jaguar V8.

An expert "attuned" to the personality of each, and not expecting 100% interchangeable behaviour, could probably deliver near-as-dammit same MPG, same route.. just driven a skosh differently.

 

The Bird ECU has not been touched and to get the car really moving you have to get it to probably 3k rpm from a standing start otherwise she’s definitely a lazy cruiser. The Jaaag was tuned in Poland, car is super eager from the line. I still have it jumping at the green lights. The torque being everything. Comparison of the rpms at highway speeds will confirm the importance of the torque from the Jaaag over the 4L in the Bird. I’m just under 2k at 140kph in the Jaaag but in the Thunderbird I will be around 2,3k at 120kph. There must be something to be said for the absence for the sixth gear/overdrive.

Very very different cars of course. The Jaaag is complete rocket ship now. Since the tuning company out of Kraków had never done an XJR at that time I was the guinea pig. They didn’t manage to break the limiter unfortunately, neither did switching from D to 5 on the J-Gate. I’ve tried out several times on the autobahn. The car always stuck to 255-258kph on GPS.

 

~ 160 MPH, so yah.. fast enough to outrun human reflexes is the problem.

Back in the day the F101 Voodoo AKA "One-Oh-Wonder" was still a primo Air Defense Interceptor, as Weapons Director, one had to be ever-mindful the fast bugger needed 200 miles to execute a "standard rate" turn, and the most important comms with the jockey was:

"**, ****, say pounds fuel remaining?"

OTOH, Gabreski's 52d Fighter Wing out of Suffolk County didn't have to contend with mini-SUV's dodging in and out around double-header Dutch and Swedish trucks in their airspace!

 

The problem wasn't my reflexes but the lack of attention or courtesy of the drivers ahead. Coming out of NW Poland towards Berlin on the A11, you'd have lollygaggers that would be absentmindedly changing into the left lane without looking in their rearview mirrors to check for faster traffic coming from behind. German law has it that collisions on the autobahn are the fault of the driver in front if they fail to give way to vehicles that are overtaking at speed in derestricted zones. The German drivers have excellent lane-keeping behavior but the Polish, not so much. They are not trained for it. Any time it was ever an issue, it was never a German-plated car. Cooked the brakes in an Audi A5 3L diesel back in 2013 on a vacation for the same reason. Went from top speed, something like 240kph down to 110 and could smell the brakes inside the car very easily. Once you would enter Brandenburg state, it was rare to be able to exceed 200kph, because of overall traffic volume, maybe some sections of the Berlin Ring were more open than others and could go faster, like the parts going down towards Dresden.

A large section of the A11 autobahn from Szczecin to Berlin however is still 120kph in the Chorin 'bioreserve' and the federal police will patrol and were stopping me regularly on 'KONTROLL' either at the border or on the highway for no reason. One time, they followed me and when the area went from 120 to derestricted I opened it up to 240kph and by the time they finally caught up in their piteous Opel Zafira they fried to accuse me of speeding within the 120 zone itself. I told them no, they just had no idea how fast I was actually going when there was no limit.

For the most part, that part of NE Germany is relatively low traffic, especially the A20 going to Rostock or the A11 from the border down towards Berlin. Plenty of flat and wide open areas to let the car wide open throttle to the floor. Completely safe; don't even have to worry about blow outs because there are guard rails on both sides of the road. It was a good time except for fuel being double the price .

 

Never HEARD of sech a thing? I lie. Sound like Montreal?

ROFLMAO!!!

That IS why we NEED "deeper look-ahead" and better reflexes than the average bear, and why brakes and handling matter more than BFBI acceleration!!

Far worse drivers to be found on the Continent than Poles, BTW!

 

Have you meant extrasensory perseption skills/devices? My driving instructor, I stil remember him, tought us to think for other folks around you on the road and... "..YES, YES! THAT IDIOT TOO...:!"