DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

Hey guys -

So, we've been talking about slow wipers and possible fixes for them. I figured I'd take one for the team and try and clean up/rebuild my wiper arms and see what I could learn.

Special tools you'll need -

- 10mm 1/4" drive socket with built-in universal joint
- Sharp pick
- Long 1/4" drive extension

First, get some masking tape and put a piece of tape just above the wiper blades on the windshield. This marks the position, makes it way easier to re-install.

Remove the rubber caps covering the nuts that hold the wiper arms to the rack. Remove the 2 12mm nuts. With the hood closed, flip the wiper arms up to the "clean the windshield" position then wiggle them off.

With the hood still closed, remove the plastic covers over the screws holding the wiper cowl on. There are 2 oval shaped covers on the end and about 6 round ones between. Best method I've found is a small knife blade, get in there and pop it off. Be prepared, many of the tabs will probably break. I believe you can get those covers new from Mazda still. With those off, remove the phillips head screws and ease the wiper cowl out of the way.

On the driver's side is a plastic grill near the point where the driver's wiper arm attaches. Remove it.

Now, the wiper motor. Use your 1/4" 10mm universal socket and long extension, you'll really need it for the bottom 2 bolts. Unplug the connector and remove the 4 bolts. The lower right bolt will need you to slightly move one of the ABS lines down a bit to get on it, you don't have to bend it, just push it down.

Undo the nuts holding the linkage on - there are 2 10mm nuts holding the passenger wiper mechanism on, and 3 10mm nuts on the driver's mechanism. Everything is now loose.

Pull and twist the wiper motor out enough to see where it attaches to the linkage. Use a large flat head screwdriver to pop the ball end of the wiper motor off of the plastic socket end of the linkage.

Work the whole linkage out of the large hole on the driver's side of the car, the one the plastic grill was covering.

OK, rebuild time.....

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

On my wiper linkage, the ball/cup parts of the linkage moved easily and freely. The parts where the wiper arm attaches didn't move as freely, I'm thinking this is what needs service.

Before you go any further, label the linkage with the orientation. It can get real confusing. Maybe take some pictures too.

OK, driver's side pivot point first. This is the one with the 3 studs. Clean the top where the wiper arm bolts on nice and clean. If you look VERY carefully, you can see the world's smallest snap ring holds the assembly together. This is where the sharp pick comes into place. You can JUST see the gap, it's like half a millimeter if that. Push the assembly down, there is a spring washer at the bottom that will give you a little play. Work on that clip, trying to get under it with the pick. Again, you need a FINE, SHARP pick to do this - I have a Craftsman set that did the trick. It will take some time and patience. Be careful once you get it off, don't lose it!

With that off, there's a flat washer under it that slides right up. You can then pull the wiper shaft straight down and out.

Order of parts from top to bottom -

(threaded part where wiper attaches)
tiny snap ring
washer
body of mechanism with O-ring inside
super thin flat washer
spring washer

The O-ring is just inside the top part, mine was in good shape. I imagine a replacement could be found if necessary.

Pull everything apart and clean it all up. WD-40 and a paper towel will probably be all you need. Get the old grease out of there. Run a paper towel through the channel and get it all cleaned up. If you have any corrosion (I didn't) you may need to wet sand with WD-40 and a relatively high grit sandpaper.

Use some good wheel bearing grease on everything and get it all in the shaft hole. Push the shaft through and wipe off any excess.

Stack the whole thing together for reassembly, and get the snap ring on the top in place. Get a 10mm deep well socket and push down, that should push it down into place and set it in its groove. If it has that super tiny .5mm gap, you know you've got it home.

The driver's side is pretty much the same except it has another O-ring at the bottom of the channel.

Reassembly time....

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

Reassembly isn't bad, both the driver and passenger wiper mounts are keyed so they can only go in one way. The passenger has a little tab that fits into a slot above the main hole. Bolt them back in place.

Pull the linkage out through the hole the wiper motor bolts to. You can get the socket the wiper motor fits into out through the hole a bit with the very end resting on the firewall. This makes it easy to pop the wiper motor's ball into the socket. Then, work the wiper motor back into place and bolt it up.

Before re-attaching the wiper arms, turn on the car and make sure everything moves freely and isn't binding up.

This is an excellent time to re-paint the wiper arms and the wiper cowl. The arms look good with a semi-gloss paint, sand them down and clean them up well, hang from a wire, and paint. The wiper cowl needs a flat black paint, I've used spray can "bumper paint" with good results. Black Plasti-Dip would also work well.

The rubber gasket along the top of the cowl is available from Mazda, I think it's $8-10 when I replaced mine ages ago.

The little plastic covers can also be found at the junkyard, many other Mazdas used that same clip. I just get a ton of them. Repaint to match the cowl and there you go.

I've not found if this truly fixed the slow problem, I need to put other stuff back together on the car first. Try this out and see how it works for you!

Dale

t-von

iTrader: (8)

Be carefull with those plastic grease filled white bushings that go in the inner linkage. They break easily and Mazda has discontinued parts. I broke my bushing when I removed my wiper motor to paint my engine bay. I had to buy a wiper arm off a 1st gen miata. That arm had two bushings on it and I tried to remove them. They are a bitch and I broke one. I ended up cutting the new arm with the bushing still attatched and welding it to the existing Rx7 arm.

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

Googling around, there may be alternative plastic cup bushings out there. Might be able to find another source.

There are 2 different styles of cup bushing, one larger and one smaller.

Dale

gracer7-rx7

iTrader: (16)

Great work Dale. Added this to the FAQ sticky.

IRPerformance

iTrader: (41)

Nice writeup Dale.

turboIIrotary

iTrader: (9)

So I broke the white socket is there any way to fix it?

7speed

So did I. Was looking at the 626 linkages online and the bushings look to be the same. Can't comment on if they're the correct size as the ones for ours has one big and one small bushing. Will be going to the wreckers on Monday and reporting back here. Cost is $100 for on the the linkage arms from Mazda. That's the only way to get replacement bushings new from them. Absurd.

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

Supposedly the linkage is NLA, so used is the only way to go.

Dale

RedBaronII

iTrader: (4)

Sorry to revive this 6 months old thread.

Dale, did you ever tried your wipers after cleaning and lubricating the linkage system and the drive shafts???
Did they improved at all???

I did this project today and it seems, that it cured the super slow speed wipers.
After removal and inspection, I found no rust in the drive shafts/linkage, but they were very tight to hand turning.
My impression is, that the grease had dried up with the dirt/dust accumulating for 22 years and it was binding the system.
I cleaned and lubricated all the metal washers, drive shaft, O-rings, motor connector plug and linkage system plastic cups.
The system moves freely now and the slow speed is now usable again, before it wasn't.
This might be the solutions for some, if not most, as these car are getting old, tired, dusty and rusty.
Thanks for the write up, it helped a lot.

FD3S_wanted

iTrader: (5)

Hey Dale, thanks for the great write-up. When reinstalling the linkage to the motor is there an adjustment? My wipers stop in the middle of the windshield now. Am I offset of a few theet or it's not possible I can't remember. Is there any other way to adjust wipers without removing the whole wiper motor because it's a pita with the abs unit.

Thanks

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

I don't think there's any real adjustment or anything in the linkage itself. The only real adjustment is at what point you put the wipers onto the linkage. There may be a limit switch on the wiper motor that it's hitting or something that's wrong. Hard to say, that's a weird issue.

Dale

FD3S_wanted

iTrader: (5)

I tried to set wipers correctly today but it didn't work. I think I'll have to remove the wiper motor to reconnect the linkage correctly. What a pain...

mdp

Just a note, I contacted Ray the other day, the caps that cover the wiper arm bolts are no longer available, so treat them like gold.

FD3S_wanted

iTrader: (5)

For anyone's interest I had to remove to wipers motor, disconnect the linkage and reclock it so the wipers won't stop in the middle of the windshield. I had to repeat the operation a few times to set it correctly.

FD7KiD

iTrader: (8)

Thank you very much; right now, I am experiencing a huge headache as to why my wipers want to wipe down into the cowling and get stuck. I am going to have to look into the linkage. Without the wiper arms installed, I am paying attention to the mounting bolts that the arms attach to, and they begin with starting at the 9 o clock position, then counter clockwise to the 6 o clock position, then clockwise to the 11 o clock position.

The motor was removed when the whole engine bay was removed for paint. I did not need for wipers to be installed and left alone for a clean look since I "was" in California after the car was put back together after a long hiatus. The motor was installed back on the car, and I am now in Florida, and it has been raining on and off, and I need those wipers to work correctly.

I suspect that the linkage was not installed in the correct position.

??? would anyone know the correct position for our linkage to be installed onto the motor itself???

Luckily the ABS was removed, so having access in that area will help. If anyone has any tips, that would be greatly appreciated.

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

There really should only be one way to install the linkage. But you may have the wiper arms not on the splined shaft properly.

Take the wiper arms off (2 12mm nuts) and cycle the wipers a few times, make sure the motor runs and you see the splined shaft turn to wipe then return home. Shut the wipers off and put the arms on, make sure it engages the splines and the nut holding them on is snug. Then try it out.

Dale

FD7KiD

iTrader: (8)

As an update and conclusion to my headache;

I was able to figure it out. The linkage was installed onto the wiper motor incorrectly; when I removed the motor from the firewall, it was a bit tricky, but I could do it without the need to take off the cowling as some would suggest and in accordance with the workshop manual. Since it was installed incorrectly onto the spline of the wiper motor, it "slide-out" with the linkage and noticed a sharpie marking on the spline and the linkage tab that mounts onto it. Sure enough, they were not aligned. So I loosened up the nut and grabbed a flat head to "pop-off" the linkage and repositioned it to aligned the markings, tightened it up with a 12mm, and reinstalled it back onto the firewall. Turned on the wipers, and they are working properly again. Note to anyone who is about to remove said wiper motor for whatever reason, please do yourself a favor and mark the spline and linkage to keep it alined when reinstalling it.

trackjunkie

Thanks for the write up. I took out my linkage today and service them. Wiper working great now. Wished I did this before replacing the wiper motor. I took some pictures and made a short video while I had it apart.

suzukisteve

iTrader: (4)

Here is some picture to get a visual as to what Dale is talking about.

Natey

iTrader: (19)

Thanks for the write up, Dale!

I also did mine awhile ago but didn't take pics. It made a huge difference and I'm sure this will be helpful for years to come.
One thing I recommend is to take a ton of pics as you disassemble. That really helped us to get everything back together correctly. Also, don't forget to mark where they reattach to the car so they're perfectly clocked when you're done.

silverTRD

iTrader: (36)

I’m dealing with this now as well. I took my engine bay apart for a respray and having issue with lining it up correctly. I removed my sharpie mark when I went to town cleaning everything.

Sgtblue

iTrader: (16)

FWIW both sizes of the cowl screw covers are the same on the mid-90’s 2nd Gen. Ford Probes (made by Mazda). They used to be a dime a dozen in the yards but usually in the domestic (Ford) section and get overlooked. Check for the hatch cover hangars (that the cords hook to), plastic interior panel rivets and hood prop rod holders while you’re at it.
Not certain but I’d bet the plastic sockets mentioned above are the same too.

Dupesh

Hello friends I have great news! So if you broke your bushing you can use one made for a Nissan and it fits and works just right. I tried it on mine hoping it would fit after measuring the hole and whatnot and it fits pretty mint. just remember to put grease I hope I at least. helped one of you

Windshield Wiper Linkage Bush Fit Toyota AE100 Hilux LH112 Mitsubishi L200 DRL

Ebay Item ID: 224133064133.