Wiper Motor/Blades Alignment? (1 Viewer)

[joxeale]

Hey guys, so my wiper motor died, bought another one from a fellow mudder, it works, it moves the blades BUT.. For the life of me, I can't align the damn thing, meaning, when I turn them on instead of them going up, they go down and hit the cowl and then back into place. I've been trying to search for an answer in the FSM and in here but no luck. Any ideas?

 

[450LX]

Pull the wipers off and realign. The motor is fine.

 

[joxeale]

Pull the wipers off and realign. The motor is fine.

Already tried that like 8-10 times. No good. I did pull off the linkage when I was troubleshooting the old bad one so tomorrow i’m gonna have to disassemble everything again and play with it.

 

[haryv]

Hey guys, so my wiper motor died, bought another one from a fellow mudder, it works, it moves the blades BUT.. For the life of me, I can't align the damn thing, meaning, when I turn them on instead of them going up, they go down and hit the cowl and then back into place. I've been trying to search for an answer in the FSM and in here but no luck. Any ideas?

Yeah isn't this a pain in the ass LOL have you tried to unbolt the windshield wiper blades lift them up off the splines and then rotate them to where the blade is just about an inch above the windshield seal?

 

[lumbee1]

I've replaced my wiper motor twice. Once with a rockauto unit and another time with the original motor after cleaning the commutator and brushes.

If you have pulled the linkage off the motor, you will need to pull the motor again and realign the linkage. If I remember correctly, the arm on the motor should point to the bulge on the end of the wiper motor. When the linkage cycles, it pulls the arms up and returns to its resting position pointing at the bulge. Carefully reinstall the mounting bolts and check that the splinded rods for the arms only spin one way and then the other. IF you see them do anything else, your linkage setup is wrong. Do this before installing the wiper arms or you could have the arms go partially up and then crash into the cowl.

BTW, never purchase a reman from rockauto. The unit melted and eventually started popping fuses.

 

[Enigma]

Well I'm happy I'm not the only one finding this a colossal pain in the ass to align. I had to remove the arm on my old motor to the new rebuilt one, should you be able to manually rotate the motor arm?

 

[Kernal]

I also had trouble initially getting the wiper motor clocked correctly, don't recall all the details as it was eight years ago, however I did pull the linkage completely out (to remove the spindles from their housings) so I could clean and grease the spindles that the wiper arms rotate on.

I pulled the lever arm (with the ball joint thingy) off the back of the motor when I rebuilt the motor and ended up installing it 180' out, so my wipers
ended up hitting the cowl. I figured it out by painting some white dots on the tips of the splined linkage spindles/shafts (where the wiper arms attach) with the wiper arms removed, and found that 180 degrees off at the motor equated to 45 degrees of wiper arc at the wiper arms.

In my situation, because I had removed the lever on the rear of the motor, once I repositioned that lever 180' the wipers clocked correctly.

The photo below shows the final relationship of the lever arm of the motor
to the linkage: linkage was fully extended best as I recall, lever arm pointing to the 9 O'clock position:

 

[Enigma]

All done. Yes the motor arm needs to be pointing towards the bump on the end of the motor. I thought I had assembled the rebuilt assembly like that, but when I first did it everything seemed bound up and would not move. So took it all apart and thought maybe it was a dud motor, but it worked, but now the arm moved to what would be 180 out, assembled it all again, nd it worked but yeah 180 out as the wipers stopped in the upright position. So all apart again, reposition the motor arm, put it all back again, and it works...yippe kai ay.
So some tips:
Do not be a dumb ass like me and after taking the 4x 10mm bolts off the assembly, then wonder how you are supposed to get that bolt off the back of the motor to separate it from the linkage but then thinking; "oh, I can take the cowl off and get back there". No, no you can't.
I finally remembered I have a Chiltons manual which clearly explains its a ball and socket, and just pop it off with a prybar.
Now with the motor assembly in your filthy hands, I did have to take the arm off (several times as mentioned above). It's on a tapered spline and held in place with a 12mm thin nut. I found it easiest to put the motor in my vise and use a small bearing puller, reposition, and then seat it back on with an impact on the 12mm nut.
When trying to put the ball & socket back on, I found it easiest to hold the wiper linkage arm in place with a prybar and just pop it in. Line up one 10mm bolt and thread it in, the wiggle the motor a bit to align the next one.
High speed and standard wiper speed still appear to be about the same, but at least my wipers no longer just stop and refuse to move.

 

[shocktower]

So I am getting a short stroke on my wiper blade, I have never removed them, it seem like all the sudden it, has been doing this, is there something I need to lubricate or replace bushings in the mechanism that moves the arms