Bayce

Raing hard, wipers going, getting slower, slower still, stop! - Right in the middle of the screen. Fuse, perfect. Rain ceased - still no wipers. . . I know I gotta see the Auto Electrician, BUT - before I do - any diagnostics from you experts ??

DONNA

yep,,,,rain had got into the motor area,,,,rusted some gears,dried some grease,,,,took apart, cleaned and applied grease,,,working again,,,

Bayce

Really. . . that easy ? Might try that . . .

peejay

Yes. I have had it happen twice, once for each 1st-gen.

The problem isn't the wiper motor, it's the shafts that the wiper arms bolt to.

What you need to do is remove the wiper transmission (very simple - remove the wiper arms, remove the cowl panel, remove all the bolts/nuts holding the wiper transmission in) and then you get to try to work the wiper shafts free.

Unhook the linkage from each wiper arm shaft (one shaft at a time so you don't get messed up unless you have a good memory of how it goes together) and try to move it. What you will end up doing is using a half can of PB Blaster per frozen shaft and trying to work it back and forth with Vise-Grips on the stub on the bottom of the shaft.

After both shafts turn somewhat freely, remove the C clip at the very top of the shaft, get the shaft out of the threaded sleeve, get ALL the rust out of the sleeve with a rifle-bore type wire brush, wire brush all the rust off of the shaft, then lubricate the shaft/bushing with either silver anti-sieze OR (the secret weapon!!) BLACK brake caliper slide grease. The stuff that is water resistant and sticks to metal even better than anti-sieze. Pop the clip back on (if goes on sooo much easier than it comes off, although you might have to squeeze the clip before putting it back on so it'll be a tight fit.

Then do the other pivot, reverse disassembly, and you're good to go. Just make sure, when you tighten the external wiper shaft hold down nuts (the *big* sheetmetal nuts that thread onto the shaft sleeves) that you don't actually try to tighten them. Just snug 'em until the bodywork starts to distort a little. I ruined a cowl panel by tightening that nut...

Also, no matter how tempting it may look, do not clamp the threaded sleeve in a vise! It's brass or copper or something equally soft and can be distorted very easily.

Bayce

Thanks PeeJay. . . very comprehensive ! - I will give it a go. . . .

peejay

Not a problem.

When you are done, you will not believe how well the wipers work! The wipers will be as fast on low speed as they used to be on the high setting. And here I used to bitch about slow Japanese wipers all the time, turns out it was a mechanical problem not a design flaw.

LongDuck

Peejay is 100% correct - same thing happened on my 84 with the wipers gradually slowing down. I took the rack out of my 80 and swapped it, and lubed up those pivots really well and it fixed the problem. The rack is about $250 from Mazdatrix, IIRC - so giving it a go as Peejay suggests is a much better option.

Pele

iTrader: (28)

Been there... It's a severe bitch to remove the wiper motor and rack assembly from the cowl... It's like trying to get a mattress through the front door... Except worse...

IIRC, if you bump the wipers so that they're not in the parked position and pull the key, or turn the motor with a wrench, the removal is a bit easier since it moves the rack around some... Not sure what position though... Look at the rack as you remove it and you'll see...

Also remember to have a good rubberband or zip tie around... There's a plastic water shield over the motor that has a 18-24 year old rubber band holding it on... I wanna fwap someone for that design.

peejay

LongDuck, Mazdatrix no longer sells the wiper transmission. Can't buy it at *any* price. (And besides, they only sell LHD parts )

Fortunately it's fairly easy to rebuild.

Bayce

Hehehe, the whole removal and replacement sounds like "Fun" - not... but still, better than paying someone else to do it. Will go and pull 'em apart later today, again, thanks for the VALUABLE assistance. peejay - I notice you will "Port for beer" - (lol) How about doing this for Bourbon! ( Oh damn, you in another country!)
Cheers - Craig.

Glazedham42

iTrader: (4)

I have a problem with the adjustment on my wipers. I took out all the linkage and everything, and greased up everything and its all put back in.

For some reason now my wipers stop in the middle of the windshield when they aren't being used. I thought that maybe they were doing this because I had the wipers on the wrong notch when i tightened them down.

I tried adjusting the wiper arms and now they stop in the correct place, but only wipe off half the windshield and then then fall down onto the cowl plate. Is my problem with the actual adjustment of the wipers, or have I installed some of the linkage in the wrong order?

The wipers work really smooth and fast now, but the adjustment is all wrong. :-( Someone please help me figure this thing out so I can continue on with the restoration!

LongDuck

Sounds like you placed the wiper arms on the splined shafts when they were not at a resting state.

First off, take off the wiper arms from the shafts, and run the wipers from inside the car, making sure that the shafts rotate (at all).

From here, turn off the windshield wiper at the control, wait a few seconds for them to find the 'stopped' position, and then remove the keys from the ignition.

NOW, go out to the cowl and install the Driver's side wiper on the splined shaft with the wiper parallel to the bottom edge of the windscreen. Do this side first, and then test that you've got it right by turning the key to ACC and turning on the wipers to the intermittent mode. You'll know right away, since the wiper will likely go it's full span and then return to the 'stopped' position.

Once you've got the driver's side done correctly, use that as an indicator of when they are 'stopped'. Shut the key off, and go do the passenger side. This is a pretty simple process, but if you start at the wrong 'zero', they'll never sweep fully.

Also, be sure that your splined shafts are interfacing well with the wiper arms, as any amount of 'shifting' along the splines (stripping the wiper arm or shaft) will cause problems. Tighten the top 14mm nut just enough to keep the arm in tight contact with the shaft, but not so tight as to bind the mechanism or break the plastic cowling mounts.

Give it a shot and reply back,

Dom

This is great! I don't have to post a question and I don't have to do a search.

I have 'cut and paste' your solution Peejay and I'll do the work... later.

Thanks!

CheddaKing

Archive?

FB II

anyone got a used motor that works? i had this exact problem, but thought it was my wiper motor, took it off and trashed it! AHHHHH DOH! havent gotten one since. i didnt realize till later after looking again the bar had actually broken in half. so i need a wiper motor and the link bar! can anyone help me out?

Bayce

Thanks for the help PEE JAY - and others. . Mine wern't THAT bad it seems, nothing a little cleaning up with CRC and a little grease didnt solve. Awesome action now. . . smooth and FAST wipes...wow, I love using them!!!
Cheers! -

Craig. . .

PS - I also added (3 times) The magic , RAIN-X to the screen, apart from the obvious uses, it makes the action that much smoother. . .

Glazedham42

iTrader: (4)

Still having problems here with the calibration of the wipers. I'm pretty sure at this point that it has nothing to do with the actual zeroing out of the wipers. I zeroed them out like you described and when used, they go halfway up the windshield, and then down onto the cowel plate. Then they return back to a normal position parallel to the bottom of the windshield.

I'm wondering if I hooked up some of the linkage without it being rotated properly? I took the motor apart from the linkage, which makes me wonder if I put it back together correctly. I also took the motor apart and greased it, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing to do with the motor.

The problem seems to be with the shafts for the wiper arms, as they aren't making a correct rotation movement, which I believe is being caused by something in the linkage.

I have attached a picture that I hope will clear up what is going on with my setup.



It's like my "home" position is set to be in the middle of the wiping range. It doesn't matter where I place the wipers, because when off, they are always going to return to the middle of the wiping swath.

Why does it want to stop in the middle of the wiping swath, instead of at far end of the shaft rotation??? Linkage??

Beorex

my guess is that you hooked up the wiper motor to the wiper link so that it wasn't calibrated correctly. i don't know of any way to fix this other than adjusting it until you get it in the right spot. have to take it all apart to fix this.

Glazedham42

iTrader: (4)

Whew! I finally decided just to go out and pull the motor and linkage again and see what was going wrong. Turns out that yes, I had in fact hooked the linkage up to the motor incorrectly.

For anyone that needs to know for future reference, MARK THE POSITION OF THE LINKAGE AND THE MOTOR, BEFORE YOU TAKE THE MOTOR OFF!!

I ran the linkage for a while with it out of the car, and it is actually really easy to see what was wrong. The motor makes a circular path and the linkage follows and ellipse.

You have 360 degrees of play when mounting the linkage to the motor, you just have to find out where the correct spot to mount it.

The easiest way to do this would be to mark it before removal, then you wouldn't have to worry about it.

But all is well know, and I'm ready for the rain!!

Beorex

glad to help