Trabant Windshield Wiper Shaft Seal
Description
Trabant... possibly the best car ever made, or at least the easiest to work on... Does your Trabant have windshield wipers? They are actually quite good by vintage car standards, being electrically driven with many having two speeds and two intermittent wipe settings. However, the Trabant wiper system does have a weakness.... time and age will conspire to erode and wear out the windshield wiper shafts which can not only affect operation but allow water to leak into the car. IFA, the manufacturer, thought of this and fitted small plastic seals to the outside of the wiper shafts, which thread onto the hollow 10mm x 0.75mm wiper mounts and seal the 6mm wiper shafts against the elements, keeping water and dirt out and grease in. However, these small plastic seals , "Wischergestänge Kunststoffmutterdegrade" degrade over time and wear out. While they amazingly are still available and cost only 1 Euro each, you might not want to wait the time needed for them to arrive, or you might want to experiment with colors or material.... so I designed these in Fusion360. The originals are black, pictured, and my replacements were printed in white ABS for ease of viewing. The originals on my car are completely worn out but the plastic is still intact, seeming a bit softer than ABS and way harder than TPU. Either would be a good choice so long as it it fairly UV-resistant. Just remove the Wiper Arm, unscrew the old one if it is still there, add some grease to the shaft and slide the new seal down and thread it onto the mount, forcing the grease into the joint. The seal hole is slightly smaller than 6mm to allow for wear. Use a grease that wont's attack plastic, like Super Lube. Happy Motoring!
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