Focus screen washer pump

IIRC you can reach this pump from under the front

Remove N/S front wheel. If plastic sill cover is fitted, remove front section. Remove wheel arch liner. Pump is a push fit in bottom of container. It has a filter screen on the end which will be blocked.

Having got this far, I personally would remove the container and give it a good clean. It's a bit fiddly getting the filling tube back in, but worth doing.

To avoid having to do this again, always use a good quality screen wash additive. Do not use any household products, especially bleach.

If you fill the Focus screen wash container to the brim, about a litre of it will splash out as you drive through the two breathers at the top. There was a TSB that blocked off one of the breathers, but doesn't help much.

I modified mine by fixing about 100mm of heater hose to the remaining open breather with a jubilee clip, thus raising its height. I've never lost a drop of fluid since I did this eight years ago.

For future reference, there is a NG dedicated to the Focus at alt.autos.ford.focus.

HTH

Chris

Chris, thank you for that comprehensive and illuminating answer. I will dig out the trolley jack and have at it. It's no doubt my fault for using washing up liquid instead of screen wash but I've managed with that quite happily in the past. I suspect older cars don't have such fine filters which block up as easily.

Dave

wu liquid goes to a glue like latex in the reservoir, it also has no anti freeze and contains a lot of salt which damages paintwork

Surely the amount of WU liquid you'd put in a windscreen resevoir - like

Mike P

I'm not sure how much you need to damage paint, but using it as screenwash will definitely encourage the growth of a white slime that will block the pump filter, pipes and nozzles.

Chris

This 'salt in wu liquid damages paint' seems to do the rounds on the usenet every few months. My 1999 Pug 306 that's just done 200K miles has seen almost 10 British winters and the salt encrusted roads, often the salt has crystallised onto the paint surface and the salt/grit has been blasted into the paintwork by the equivalent of an 80mph wind on the motorway. Yet when I take the bucket and sponge to it the [base+lacquer] paint looked like a new pin and I've not polished it for 5 years.

I think it's pure rowlocks, just like not using grease on battery terminals - which harks back to the days when the cases were made from natural rubber.

Julian.

It definitely wrecks paint if you use it to wash the car, my dad wrecked loads of finishes like that !! Mind you that was older paint (cellulose)

Mrcheerful