Windshield leak and screwy wiper switch

[archive@porknet.fdns.net]

Hey,

With the wet winter weather having already arrived this year, I have some
questions for you experienced listers.

First of all, I know this has probably been covered (I've read over 2
years of scirocco-l archives :P), but I'm asking for pointers on the
subject of windshield replacement. My windshield was cracked when I
purchased it and has been leaking from the corner (not the crack) of the
windshield gasket all over my fusebox and the inside of my dash. When it
leaks, I can stick my hand up inside my dash (my undercover is off for
some wiring I've been doing), and its SOAKED. If I sit in the car
occasionally I get a drip on my clutch foot. The car is only wet on the
drivers side.

I've checked sunroof drain tubes and my rain tray drains as well as
pouring copious amounts of hot water in the rain tray hoping to have some
lukewarm water show up under the dash, but nope. It appears to be coming
through the windshield gasket. I lifted up the edges of the gasket and it
appears pretty wasted underneath. Silicon juice repair doesn't look too
promising. So I've decided to try getting a new windshield and gasket
installed. My question is, what should I look into before having any old
shop do this? I've been quoted between $200.00 and $383.10, and, not
having a lot of money, I'm inclined to go with the cheap place. One place
said the OEM gasket cost them $162, the cheapest place said they could get
the gasket (most likely not OEM) for $65. I can't really justify $100 more
for an already pricey gasket, especially if they have a lifetime leak
guarantee, but I'd like input from those experienced with this particular
car. Any particular brands of glass or gaskets to shy away from or that
kind of thing. Does the gasket need to be glued or sealed or anything.
Hopefully they will let me watch (oooh!) so I can check for rust around
the edge of the windshield metal as well. Any pointers?

The other thing thats been bothering me is my wiper arm switch stalk
thingy. It works fine, except it is very sensitive to bumping. If I am
running my wipers at 1 or 2 speed, and push the stalk to turn on the
intermittant rear wiper, the front wipers sometimes stop mid-windshield,
and i have to jiggle the wiper arm a little to get them to move again. Its
very frusterating in heavy rain when your wipers stop working and you have
to jiggle it just right to get them to start again. Any ideas on what
could be wrong? My first thought was corrosion buildup in the switch, but
I'm wondering if this is a common problem, or even perhaps the way it was
designed (why!?!).

My windshield washer sprayers aren't working either. When I pull and hold
the wiper stalk it wipers 3 or 4 times and only one or two grain-of-sand
sized beads of water come out the sprayer nozzles. The nozzles aren't
clogged, I can stick a pin inside them. I jumpered the washer pump to the
battery and it ran fine, squirting only from the passenger side washer and
only at a low pressure. Then I measured power to the washer pump while a
friend held the wiper arm. It was 11.63 volts or so with the engine off.
Looked okay to me. There appears to be some sort of cholesterol buildup in
the washer lines, so should I replace these, or the pump, or what?
Eventually I'm gonna replace the washer nipples with the dual-nozzle kind
or maybe even the deluxe mister variety :)

Any feedback would be appreciated...

-Toby

--
'87 Flash Silver Metallic Scirocco 16V

--
Email problems to: scirocco-l-probs@scirocco.org  To unsubscibe send
"unsubscribe scirocco-l" in the message to majordomo@scirocco.org