One of my wiper shafts has seized in its bearing, presumably through corrosion. Bentley says the whole lot must come out to be fixed and has it out in six steps. It looks very congested under the dash. Realistically, how difficult is it going to be?
If you can get it moving, the spindle (centre bit) has a short arm with a pop-off connector. Take tiny circlip off the outside and pull it through. No need to take the whole lot out, but if you do (IMHO) it's easiest to remove the windscreen and dash-top. If you have a stereo fitted as you say there isn't much room under there and it's back breaking work.
A bit of a hassle but i have got them out by removing the radio and glove box and if you have a under dash tray that need to come out as well I have been told you can get the dash top off and take it out that way but i have not tried it
^I have. Along with window out, the actual job becomes a piece of cake. Tidy up your wiring while you're about it - that's also very easy with everything laid out in front of you at a comfortable height. I didn't tidy the wiring but I should have. I'll do it one day when I fix the rusy wndow surround...
The shaft is stuck fast in the shaft bearing. Are the circular nuts on the shaft bearing threaded? I was wondering whether it might be possible to pull the bearing (and shaft) into the cab by unwinding the circular nuts off the wiper end of the bearing?
Best to take the whole lot out and clean everything including the innards of the wiper gearbox. A fiddle, but perfectly do-able. Disconnect the battery (important), whip the arms and shaft nuts off. Take out the glovebox. Unplug the motor unit. Remove various bits of antler-horn air trunking. Undo one bolt holding the frame in and pull!
You can if it goes well but you need a special tool really. They're quite weedy, so if they are coroded and don't turn easily, gripping them hard enough also squeezes them making them tighter still - catch-22. I'd be dribbling plusgas down the tube hoping to free it off. Not WD-40 - that's just a water repellant and pretty crap at doing that even if it does smell nice.
And then you can spend the next weekend tracing wiring faults. I do agree though - if it won't free off enough to get the spindle out, taking the whole lot out is the way forward.
I personally found it really easy taking the whole wiper mechanism out. Took me about 15 minutes yesterday to take the complete mechanism out, swap the motor, and put it back in. I removed the glove box and vent pipes, unbolted it (one under dash which you can easily see and get to through the glove box hole, and the two on the outside) and the it just pulls out. Didn't even need to remove my stereo. This was the second time i've done it, and first was just as easy even though I had no clue how to get it out! Nick.
This is the way I do it. I can get the whole lot out in about 10 minutes. Putting it back is a bit harder though as my air trunking has taken a knock at some time.
Meant to say - if you find your spindles are seized, I have a spare mechanism with nicely moving spindles that I'm about to be trying to sell. I originally thought my spindles were seized and so replaced those, but the wipers still didn't work at a sensible speed and so figured it was my motor that wasn't working properly. So I got a second hand whole replacement mechanism and then yesterday swapped the motor from the replacement with mine, and now mine are working really well - so I have a whole mechanism with good spindles spare, but the motor is duff! Nick...
So it took about 15 minutes to get the wiper motor and frame out through the glovebox cutout and the same to put it back again plus a couple of hours to strip and re-grease the motor and gearbox. The seized spindle had some corrosion at the wiper end which was easily removed with sandpaper once it had been pressed out of the bearing. The bearing had lost some of its thread due to rubbing on the frame but by flipping it over there was enough good thread in the important places to be reusable. The only casualty was one of the securing nuts which had to be cut off because its thread was also stripped. Sorting out the parking position for the crank was the most time consuming part. Once again, thanks for the advice.
Good job! Still need to sort my parking position out at some point. It's nearly right but could be better - but as my wipers actually work now the parking position has moved way down the list of jobs!
