About a week ago I parked the car outside and it snowed a decent amount and the temps were around 10 or so. I go to start the car a few days later and the wipers had a bunch on ice and snow under them. I drove with them up like that for alittle now they wont return to the normal position. And instead of the wipers stopping where they normally do it wipes until the front wiper actually goes off the window, basically they are wiping too far.

 

Congratulations, by leaving that built up snow around your wiper blades / arms, you more than likely bent on of the arms which makes up the wiper transmission. refer:



If both of them are doing it, it's most likely #12

P

 

why would leaving snow bend something ? They are in the same position i walked out to them in.

 

Did you turn on the wipers without clearing the snow first?

 

No the windshield was completely clear there was just a little bit like on top of the cowl. I cleaned the entire car right after it stopped snowing. Where the hood meets the windshield if you know where i mean. And they were like that when i went outside, before i even turned them on. I figured there was just some snow under them blocking them from returning completely to the rest position. However after all the snow was cleared they don't want to return. They sit at rest a few inches higher than they should. And the few inches higher that they sit is about the same amount that they over wipe on the windshield.

The only theory i have is that i left the wiper up. Like when you lift them so they don't freeze to the windshield. I did this just in case it snowed a little more so they would freeze to the windshield and i wouldn't have to lift them to clear around that area. Could the high winds that night have bent something ? It sounds far fetched but i guess its possible .........

 

I started a thread a few weeks back about the play in my wipers and I still haven't had a chance to pull the whole mechanism out to look at it. It is a PIA!

 

Believe me, #12 has bent

This is how it works:

Link Rod #11 links the two wiper arm pivots and co-ordinates their working together.
Link Rod #12 connects the wiper motor to the R/S wiper pivot via a lever, thus driving both.
When the Wiper Motor cycles, it's crank arm scribes a circle, pulling the #12 rod back & forth.
When the wiper motor "parks", the crank arm is pointing directly across the plenum, pushing Link Rod #12 as far as it can go to the right / rotating the wipers down to their parking position. When the Wiper Motor cycles and the crank arm is pointing left, it pulls Link Rod #12 as far as it can go left / raising the wiper blades to there highest point.
Now:
If Link Rod#12 is bent, it can't push as far to the right and the wipers don't park as low as they did before. In addition, with it's bent it pulls the wipers too far left - overtraveling the windshield.

P

 

you could have the motor turn off idk hard to explain. take off the wiper arms or Loosen them place them where you want them on the windshield tighten them and it should fix it. It does for me.. leme know how that goes. it happens when you let your wipers freeze to windshield with out braking them free. Try leaving them up off the winshield overnight if your expecting a snow storm.

 

So this would explain my wipers slapping the edge of the a pillar then the cowl at the bottom after I adjusted the arms?

 

but my question is how would i have bent this rod ?

 

Korner,

Over time those bars P mentioned will wear out, I actually just had a discussion with my mechanic about it because I saw he was replacing them. If you have overly exaggerated play in the wipers and they hit either the hood, window trim, or cowl it's due to those bars being messed up.

I believe it's the plastic grommets on the ends that over time will get gunked up rather than the bars being bent.

Replace it yourself though as a shop will rape you for it. The parts are relatively cheap.

 

how hard/easy are they to get at ?

 

Take off the cowl, take out the motor assembly

Not sure how much is involved in doing that but it should get it done, the shop I saw swapped them in under 30 minutes while dicking around chatting with me

 

ok thanks man.

 

You will have to unplug the harness (#22) and pull it through the hole and loosen the 3 mounting bolts and everything will pull out. The biggest pain is removing the cowl covers and fasteners but it is not hard.

 

well i finally have some time to do this now. What else could be causing this ? Is that the only possibility ? Once again they were perfectly fine, i left them up for probably 2 days or so. Those 2 days it was very cold, very windy and snowed a few inches. Is it possible that they bent from the wind ? Because it was only when i put them down i noticed the issue.

 

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remove the nut on each wiper arm and try repositioning the arms so that they move in the correct arc. in doing that you'll be able to tell if you stripped the splines on the studs the arms attatch to. if there's excessive 'play' or 'slop' in both wiper arms or the splines are stripped you will need the wiper transmission assembly that p adams posted the pic of. enjoy.

 

One more vote for repositioning the arms into the park position, then retightening them down, the arms may have just slipped on the spline shaft due to being stuck or jammed by excess snow, it that does not work, then go with P Adams for sure.

 

ok well its fixed. I simply pushed down on the wiper arm with moderate force and it made a click noise, wipers moved down back to their normal position and clear the window correctly.

So what happened ? I fixed these by accident, they had moved up higher on the windshield and i was trying to simple get them back where they were prior and it clicked into place or something.