Front Wipers Creeping Up The Screen

[Darchy]

Hi, i seem to have developed a problem, driving to work yesterday i noticed that the left wiper was slowly moving up the screen, eventually followed by the right one, at first i thought it was the wind but when i stopped, it was still doing it (they move up to 5 inches from parked position). switching the wipers on and off parked them ok again but then they started to move (was stationary now) while they are moving, there is a quiet elecrical noise from the motor as if its receiving a sort of poor current from somewhere.

 

after having a quick look, i found what seems to be the intermittant relay in the under dash fuse box, when i took it out, the problem stopped, but obviously I then had to park the wipers myself.

 

thinking of it now, when i first got the car the wipers didnt always work first time, there was a delay of about 10 seconds and then they would start

 

has anyone else had this problem? I'm assuming that it is the relay but I know electrical problems can do some very odd things!

 

thanks in advance

 

 

darchy

[mumof4]

loads of stuff on her about wipers, usually sometimes its due to the scuttle beimg blocked..(i think unless i confused with summit else)...do a search and see what crops up..ours do this...sometimes they stop altogether!! :blink:

[Steven.Langdale]

mumof4, where did you get the new avatar? and is it actually you?? :blink:

[mumof4]

Nah not me...and i pinched it!!!(went thru all members and i found it) :blink:

[Darchy]

hi, thanks for the reply, i think my scuttle is blocked because I have the foggy screen problem, i'm going to try & sort that tomorrow, can this effect the wiper motor electrics? I dont think it rained the night before. it was foggy though!

 

darchy

[Mauser]

Would suggest your pivots are seizing up, very common problem do a search for wipers and you will find loads of posts on this subject.

Just be carefull if you ever try and remove the spine shafts as they can be very tight.

Happy hunting

Simon

[smoggy7]

hi darchy, just done mine as i had the same problem as you are having you have to dismantle the plastic from its clips and after that there should be a few 10 mil nuts to undo take this off and you will see three bolts that holds the wiper linkage on these, pull the whole unit out put on bench and now you have the fun part if they were as seized like mine were, what i done with the left seized one was to hold the pinion in the vice and while squirting wd40 hold the whole arm and pull from side to side slowly to loosen it may take a while but you will get there, once you get the rod out clean the inside of it with wire wool or whatever you can clean it with then regrease and put back together, do the same with the otherside then while you are there clean out the scuttle and also you will never get a bigger chance to put a new filter on as i forgot to do mine as it is harder to get at when the wiper unit is back in place well worth the effort to do the splines as it could cost more in the long run if it is seized good it may blow the motor out best of luck mate took me about an hour or so

 

 

 

smoggy

[Bigjeeze]

Nah not me...and i pinched it!!!(went thru all members and i found it) :blink:

 

 

If you went through all the members I must have missed it!!!! :lol: :P

[mumof4]

took me a while as there are hundreds of pages!! :P

 

vr6 seems transfixed by mammeries so i thought hed like it!!!(and the rest of you!) :blink:

[Masked Marauder]

When the scuttles are blocked it is possible that the wiper motor ends up sat in a pool of water. This does the motor's control unit no good.

 

Check the whole lot has not got soaked through and spray with WD40 to drive out any moisture, wipe off any excess WD40 and spray with ignition sealer to waterproof it.

[Dirtbag]

Hi,

 

Our Sharan had this problem - the windscreen wipers would be OK and then after a while stop working. Then 'X' number of seconds/minutes later they'd work and then stop again.....

 

verdict: new windscreen wiper mechanism required.

 

Do the splines get warm when used? The cutting out was caused by the windscreen wiper motor overheating and this caused it to cut out. It was over heating as the splines on which the wiper arms mount had seized....

 

DB

[Masked Marauder]

The splines are prone to siezing and it is a simple job to fix too. Do a search and you should find instructions.

[Ivor]

.....best of luck mate took me about an hour or so

smoggy

 

 

Well, the inevitable has happened. My wipers started juddering a month or so ago. My Alhambra is now almost 6 years old. I printed out instructions from the forum to remove the mechanism 6 weeks ago but I've been in the states for 4 weeks, only returning this Thursday. The car has been stood for 4 weeks so I didn't dare put the wipers on. It started imediately first flick of the switch :angry: . Anyway, today (Saturday) after watching England beat Paraguay 1-0 I set about the job.

 

It took me an hour to get the mechanism out onto the bench. Both splined shafts have completely siezed.

It took an hour to do one side (the easy side it turns out) and I've spent half an hour tapping out the nearside shaft. I hope it comes out with the linkage in place as it doesn't look like it will. I've tapped it as far as I can so now it's a case of twisting it until it's out. It started to go dark so I've left it soaking in WD40 overnight.

 

Tomorrow I'll finish it off but I reckon it's at least a 4 hour job if they are seized.

 

As with the aux. heater I did lat year, I'll post full step by step photos when I'm done.

 

Cheers

 

Ivor

[funbus]

Just unseized my wipers, the spindles were grinding very slowly in the sleeve, causing the motor to stop, leaving the wipers halfway down the screen until the motor kicked in again about a minute later.

 

One minor mod was to grind a flat onto the spindle, so that it acts as grease reservoir to help avoid this happening again. Packed with marine engine grease, the most water resistant stuff I could find. All working fine now.

 

As an aside someone mentioned changing the pollen filter at this point as it is wedged in behind the wiper mech. Strongly recommend this, mine was black, and now the fans are working twice as strongly as previous. An excellent improvement. Filter was 20quid from local spares bloke in town.

 

Furthermore something else to watch out for is the tops of the suspension mounts - these were filled with water causing the mounting bolts to be totally rusty. So again, packed with marine grease after clearing the water out.

 

total time to fix all this about 2.5hrs. Cheers everyone for the advice in this thread - perfect.

[DocWilliams]

I'm having same problems as many of you with intermittent front wipers. Garage quoted me nearly

[mumof4]

A wiper problem...mmmm...i like them...yup.if i can do it..so can you...pics????i posted loads of them when i did mine...seized spindles can be undone but it takes time and patience,,,,took 3 days to do mine..ok..thats bad as some on here can do it in less..but i didnt break mine. ;) :D ..

 

shall have a gander to find the thread.

 

 

Here you go....have a read... :16: :16: ;)

 

http://www.fordgalaxy.org.uk/ford/index.ph...wtopic=7898&hl=

Edited September 5, 2006 by mumof4

[Guest HairyPlateEater]

Couldnt agree more .... easier enough job for anyone to do with a socket set, mole grips, screwdrivers, WD40 and oil/grease.

 

Took me 3 hours to take mine out regrease them all and refit. Mind you they weren't actually seized, but were intermittantly stopping then starting again halfway up the screen.

 

Still working a treat now.

 

If you need any more pics/diagrams, let me know and I'll post the TIS diagrams for you.

[DocWilliams]

Ok...just finished reading mumof4's saga from last spring...what a thriller! Also, thanks to Ivor for sending me some pics (which he's going to post to the forum).

 

It's threatening rain but I'm going to give it a go....will keep you informed or ring you from the loony bin...

 

Doc

[Ivor]

 

As with the aux. heater I did lat year, I'll post full step by step photos when I'm done.

 

Cheers

 

Ivor

 

Took me a while to get enough motivation to post the piccies, but due to popular request, here they are:

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0052.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0053.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0054.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0055.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0056.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0057.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0058.JPG

 

 

 

More...

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0059.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0060.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0061.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0062.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0063.JPG

 

http://www.stones.uk.net/wipers/PICT0064.JPG

 

 

Hope they are useful

[acombe]

I will say this AGAIN VW built the wiper mech with a design fault one of the cups preventing water is upside down , put a large dollopp of grease on it if it is still running.

 

TIP VW sell the mechanism for a lot less than Ford :D

[NikpV]

Thanks for the pictures - I've put it in suggestions for adding link to the Faq (Neil,Mumof4 :D )

[AVSDOYLE]

Hi to Mother of Four et al. I just spent the yesterday afternoon releasing the linkages of the front wiperss on my 1999 Galaxy (1.9 Tdi, Ghia X).Mother of 4 was an inspiration and I just saved myself hundreds of

[Guest HairyPlateEater]

Feels good doesn't it lol

 

And OMG ... did it really take you nearly 3 years to make your first post .....? :huh:

 

Welcome to the forum ... i guess lol :blink: :o

[Guest greenfingers]

Hi everyone, newbie here, and my first post. :huh:

 

I recently bought a 2001 Sharan 115tdi Sport auto on 67k miles.

Within 2 days I noticed the wipers misbehaving (going slowly, stopping halfway up the screen, or not working at all).

What a shock when I found out the cost of a new motor or linkage! :o

 

I spent ages trying to diagnose the fault. Eventually I discovered that the spindle housing (passenger side) was hot, and realised that friction was the root of my problems. I removed the circlip and o'ring from the top and blasted it with WD40. However, I could not get the spindle out of the housing. I think I was lucky, because after loads more WD40 and 3in1, and manually helping the wipers move while under power, they started working normally again! So far so good, but I know it's only a temporary fix.

 

Then I discovered this forum! and this is where I must say a really big thankyou to all the contributors. It's comforting to know that the Gods aren't just targeting me, and now I know how to do the wiper linkage properley when it siezes up again! I have great admiration for those who make the effort, take the risk, and spend the time for the benefit of others. :D

 

I get the feeling this won't be my last post, as I have had plenty of other issues with this beast, and some still to resolve (heater/aircon smell, thumping in 1st gear from autobox, dodgy spare wheel winder). Don't get me wrong, I like the Sharan as a versatile and economical load lugger that's nice to drive (missus loves it), but I'll have to get used to wearing out front tyres, road noise and all the other flaws. Perhaps coming from BMWs has given me an unrealistic level of expectation? Anyway, I'm in the fold now, and gonna make the best of it! :blink:

[mumof4]

Welcome greenfingers.....sanity is not a requirement for this mad house..in fact...deep pockets ..and the occasional screaming fit are a must! :huh: :o :blink: