As we all know, it is very common for our Cherokees to have the rear wiper nipple broken off. As much fun as it is to spray people riding your tail on the interstate, it is also nice to have the ability to clean your rear window. I found a very cheap, easy, and fast way to fix this problem. I'm not sure if anyone else has done this but I figured I'd share this for any of you who are sick and tired of having a nasty salt/mud/dust encrusted rear window.

Materials Needed:

1. Bic Pen
2. Super Glue
3. Drill Bit
4. Scissors





Process:

1. Be sure that your pump works and that it can move fluid. Make sure there are no blockages, and that you have a steady stream when you push "WASH"

2. Let the hole (Where your nipple should be) dry completely from your test

3. Remove the pen cartridge tube from the Bic pen. I found that the clear Bic pen insert tubes have the best and heaviest construction out of about 5 pens I took apart to look at. Cut the end with no ink off now.





4. Find a drill bit that is slightly smaller that the OD of the pen tube you have. (I used the drill bit out of a Dremel set, I'm not sure exactly what size it was)



5. Make sure everything is dry in the hole and drill out the hole, go in about an 3/16'', make sure that you do not drill in parallel with the ground, rather parallel with the housing. You will see what I mean when you are looking at it.








6. Test the pen tube now, make it fits snug without any glue and cut to size at this time. (In my picture I did not cut to size, but I cut off about an 1/8''.





7. Slap some glue on the pen tube, insert into newly drilled hole, let dry, and reconnect your washer fluid tube.





I hope this will help somebody sometime down the road, as I myself struggled with different ideas to reconnect that tube. There is no sense in going out and buying something new if you can fix it for free at home!

 

Nice. If and when mine breaks I am just going to drill out the bezel a little bigger then the hose. Trim the hose that connects into the back of the bezel a bit, get a connector, a length of hose, connect them in the hatch, run the hose through the bezel, up the wiper, and connect it to the sprayer on the wiper. Little RTV to seal and I figure good to go.

 

That's would work just as well.

 

Sorry for the zombie thread, but dude thank you! Just saved me $18 and a week's wait for the factory part.

 

That's what I did on mine, works great.

(And I just noticed I responded to a post that was made years ago. D'oh! )

 

Kinda glad you did though. It occurred to me. Still drill out the hole but maybe glue in the connector I was taking about using to splice the line inside the hatch right into the bezel itself. The glue would seal it up just in case water could get in there. Keep you from having to take everything apart if you just needed to replace the section of hose that runs up the wiper arm down the road.

 

So I ended up drilling the hole a little too big for the bic pen, but I was able to fix it by melting the end of the pen with a soldering iron and flaring it out. Now it's a nice tight press fit, and didn't even need any glue or epoxy to hold it in.

 

By the way my wife got a kick out of this thread being called "nipple replacement" LOL!