Aiming windshield washer nozzles

For the first time since I have owned my car, I got caught out in the rain. I discovered that the driver's side windshield washer nozzle is aimed about 3" above the base of the windshield. Not particularly useful. On other cars that I have owned the nozzles could be aimed by adjusting / bending the nozzle itself. Its not obvious that you can do that on the NSX. I had a look in both the owners manual and the service manual and can find nothing covering aiming of the nozzles. Does anybody know whether you can adjust the nozzles and if they can be adjusted, how it is done?

Thanks.

I used a sewing needle to re-aim mine. Just stick the needle into the nozzle and pivot it, as needed. It takes some trial and error to get it right

Thanks

Do the individual nozzles in each sprayer actually pivot or do you need to bend them a little bit? I am just trying to gauge how much force might be required to get them to move. I don't want to risk snapping the needle off in the nozzle.

On most Hondas the nozzles pivot. I haven't needed to adjust the ones on the NSX however. If they have not be moved for a long time, a dab of penetrant might be a good idea.

I got into a spray of juicy bugs and had to use mine for the first time recently. In addition to being poorly aimed, they were mostly plugged with wax. The needle broke the wax loose too. The nozzles pivot individually.

Everything was going fine until I decided to make one last little adjustment to get one of the nozzles perfect ....... and the end of the sewing needle broke off in the nozzle. Oh f....

If anybody is going to give this a try, I suggest that you make sure that you use the largest needle that will fit in the nozzle hole to avoid repeating my error. Tomorrow its fire up the air compressor and see if I can blow the remains of the needle out. The needle was not a tight fit in the nozzle so I am hoping that a little more pressure than the washer pump can supply will pop it out.

Old Guy said:

Everything was going fine until I decided to make one last little adjustment to get one of the nozzles perfect ....... and the end of the sewing needle broke off in the nozzle. Oh f....

If anybody is going to give this a try, I suggest that you make sure that you use the largest needle that will fit in the nozzle hole to avoid repeating my error. Tomorrow its fire up the air compressor and see if I can blow the remains of the needle out. The needle was not a tight fit in the nozzle so I am hoping that a little more pressure than the washer pump can supply will pop it out.

Click to expand...

MAKE SURE YOU PUT ON SAFETY GOGGLES. Also block the nozzle that is clear, to get all the pressure on the side that is clogged.

A push-pin works great for adjusting - hefty enough and you get a little handle too.

Wavey1 said:

A push-pin works great for adjusting - hefty enough and you get a little handle too.

Click to expand...

very clever

The compressed air was a bust, which in retrospect should not have been a particular surprise. The nozzle diameter is about 0.032 " so with my air compressor peaking out at just over 140 psi, the total force on the broken needle was slightly over 0.1 lbs. Underwhelming.

Popping the nozzle assembly off the hood which allowed for closer inspection shows that the nozzle proper appears to be a metal ball with a hole in it which is mounted in a plastic housing. The ball is free to rotate in the housing allowing for adjustment. My sin appeared to be that I stuck the pin too far into the nozzle and the tip of the needle probably went right through the hole in the ball and caught in the plastic at the back of the housing. I thought that the stiffness in moving the pin was just a sign of a sticky ball. Not so. The ball was actually quite free to rotate (on the unbunged nozzle in the pair). I think the trick is to make sure that you only insert about 2/16 - 3/16 " of whatever you are using to do the adjustment into the nozzle. Much longer and it risks going right through the ball and jamming in the back of the nozzle assembly. I found that the butt end of a #67 drill bit works perfectly for doing the adjustment. It fits the nozzle perfectly and its base is slightly rounded reducing the risk of it getting caught and snapping off.

I have adjusted the remaining nozzle in the pair to give me a centred stream which seems to work just fine. If I want to make it original, this is going to turn out to be a surprisingly expensive little fix. I have one of those low production colours (501 p) and nozzles in that color are out of production. I will have to buy a nozzle in another color and have it sprayed to match.

robbiedawg said:

very clever

Click to expand...

+1, worked great!

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robbiedawg said:

very clever

Click to expand...

+1, worked great!

Old guy, shouldn't your math be the other way around? 140psi fed into a small pipe, then channeled to .032" should be pretty high pressure indeed, no?

boca rat said:

Old guy, shouldn't your math be the other way around? 140psi fed into a small pipe, then channeled to .032" should be pretty high pressure indeed, no?

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140 psi, into any size pipe, with zero flow rate, is 140 psi. Force is pressure times area so the tiny area of a small pipe means very little force on the obstruction.

boca rat said:

Old guy, shouldn't your math be the other way around? 140psi fed into a small pipe, then channeled to .032" should be pretty high pressure indeed, no?

Click to expand...

Force applied = pressure x area. The cross sectional area of the needle is only 0.0008 sq in so 0.0008 sq in x 140 lb/ sq in = .11 lb force! In a previous life I used to do time trials on bicycles and I ran 150 - 160 psi air pressure in tires that had almost paper thin sidewalls. It worked because the tires were 25 mm wide so the cross sectional area that had the pressure applied to it was small with a resultant manageable force. Don't try that on your car tires!

Thanks for the physics lesson, both of you....