I have a 1994 Accord and want your opinion on this wierd problem. If I turn on the wipers when the glass is dry, they move slowly, but not too slow. They barely make it to the proper up position and barely make it to the correct down position. If I shut them off they return to home position, but they are about 4 inches up from the correct down position. If its raining and the window is wet, they whump up and hit the left windshield trim then whomp into the down position. So, as your driving you get whump, whomp, whump, whomp, whump, whomp. Further, if your at a light they only whomp on the down stroke and the upstroke is normal, but as soon as I accelerate, its back to being out of control again. Its taken the paint off the edge of the hood and windshield trim, and is super annoying. I've removed the cowl cover and checked all of the linkage. Years ago I had a stupid carwash hand grab them while they were running. This caused one of the actuating rod caps to pop off. I found all of the parts and put it back together. I was thinking maybe this had come loose again. But all of the linkage looks good and firm. If I take one of the wiper arms, and try to move it manually, it will move about 3 or 4 inches up and down pretty easily. Unless I'm just not seeing something with the linkage, can I suspect a dying motor/gearbox?

 

thats odd that it acts up while your driving, it seems as if its not getting the right amount of power, if you think about it, if it were getting minimal to no power, the rubber scraping the windshield would cause friction causing it to slow down and perhaps not set back the way its meant to, then i guess when your driving, perhaps they are getting too much power, i know it sounds weird but the wiper motor might be on the fritz...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Hondaman56 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> If I take one of the wiper arms, and try to move it manually, it will move about 3 or 4 inches up and down pretty easily. </TD></TR></TABLE>
Take off the cowl to get a better look at where the play is. It's usually a loose bushing on one of the rods.

 

This WAS wierd, but hopefully not a common problem. I decided to go to the local salvage yard to purchase a wiper motor. I found a great yard a few miles down the road that had 32 1994/1995 accords! I asked the guy at the counter for a 1994 Accord wiper motor, and asked if I could get the rods that connect the motor to the wiper mounts. He said go with the guy and get what you want. Cool. Hondas definitely rule. We found a nice green 1994 in the yard. We removed the cowl and the whole wiper motor and rods set up is unitized. Three small bolts and the wire harness disconnect and we pulled the entire set up out and walked away with it. Got the entire set up for $50. I made sure everything was nice and solid with no loose connections or other wear or damage, and gladly paid the man. Last night I removed my cowl and when I removed my old unit I could see that the connection of the main rod to the motor swivel ball had some play in it as well as the other end of that same rods connection ball at the passenger side drive spindle. After installing the new unit and testing, it worked perfectly. I then had time to really examine the old one. The amount of play in those loose joints in my mind did not seem enough to cause such eratic operation, so I am still thinking that the motor maybe was going. One thing I did find, was when I looked at the little white caps that snap onto the top of those little swivel *****, the bottoms were completely worn off. They are supposed to have a shoulder on the bottom that seats down into the hole in the rod taking out the play and slop, this shoulder was GONE. With this missing the connections were loose and eating themselves up every time we ran the wipers. I'm glad it was such an easy and inexpensive fix. The old 94 is ready for another 160/K miles! L8R...

 

Thanks for posting this.
I have had the same issue on my 96 for the last two years.
Always figured it was the motor, but never bothered.
Now I think I'll take care of it.