Wiper Linkage

[Guest HairyPlateEater]

Glad you're able to sort them ok. doesn't half make a difference with them done.

 

Enough waffle, I just wanted to be the 100th reply! :ph34r:

[Jimbo73]

Right nealry done!!

 

The linkage is well cleaned, regreased and back in the car.

 

Problem

 

I conected the motor up didnt put the wiper arms back turned the wipers on and the linkage was moving - Horray - Turned the wipers off so it would finish in the park position. Attatched wiper arms. turned on and all hell broke loose. The arms didnt know wether they were coming or going.

 

I am sure the arms can only go on one way. Anyway I took them off and had a look if they could of been put on the wrong way - Looks like they will only go back left on left right on right. ( I forgot to label them).

 

When I nudge the wiper selector lever up one it doesnt seem to do intermittent so i thought it may only work when engine is on but - The battery has gone flat now becasue i had the lights on so cant start the car.

 

Leaving it till tomorrow now...... I feel like crying........

 

Any hints please let me know!!

 

All are welcome.......

[mumof4]

noooo..didnt need to touch the wiper stalk!would have done it itself!.Just by turning the key so electrics come on would have set the linkage to park.you do this before reinstalling the linkage in the car..not once installed and before arms on.

[Jimbo73]

DOH!!!

 

Ah well.... To correct the problem then. if I loosen the motor and turn it on the motor will of finished its cycle - Then I need to set the Linkage to park - then tighten the motor up???

 

How long after i get this finished does the BSc with Honours take to arrive??

[mumof4]

Can give it a try...fingers crossed for you.

 

The honours takes about 10 weeks to arrive! :)

[Guest adrimo]

A big hello to everyone on here :D

 

i have a seat alhambra(the misses wanted a galaxy, so i told her it was the same thing) :blink: and for the last 3 months had no wipers and i refused to pay

[mumof4]

your welcome hun..happy the forum could help :blink:

[Jimbo73]

Wehey!!!!

 

They are working properly........ Thanks!!!!!!!

 

Oh my word... That is a weight of my mind.......

 

Just got to get the black undercover thingy back on...... That was hard to get off so i can imagine its harder to get on.....

 

Any ideas on how long it will last for before it need doing again?? i reckon about 2 maybe 3 years... Any thought?

 

But seriously a big thanks to everyone... especially mumof4....... You were my inspiration....

 

Well if the truth be known , each time i said I cant do it.. my wife said what are you, i thought you were a man.... There is a mum of 4 who still has to time to fix her own car..... and oh how she kept on....

 

But there we go.......... :blink: :) :D :) :) :) :)

[mumof4]

Nice one..well done..the sense of achievemant is brilliant isnt it. :blink:

[midhertsgalaxy]

Had to get to post #94 to find someone with the same story as I had. Spent yesterday fixing my part seized linkage. Despite assurances that it wasn't to difficult, I didn't have an easy time. Here are one or two things i found out on the way:

 

1) the shrouds behind the wiperarms just lift off. They don't seem to be attached in any way. I spent some time with a mirror trying to find the hidden bolt.

2) in order to remove the scuttle tray I had to loosen the expansion tank and push it down

3) The wire loom to the motor was hard to remove. Harder still was a plastic cable trough along which the loom passes. This is attached to the mechanism by way of a plastic sleeve over a metal tab. It would not budge and I had to cut the tape securing the loom into the duct and leave the duct on the mechanism arm. Only when I had removed the mechanism did I find that this duct was held in place by a plastic release tab on the UNDERSIDE of the sleeve...Ie where it cant be seen.

4) To get the mechanism out I had to remove the air filter cover (3 screws aroung its edge) and disconnect the large air inlet hose (2 bolts and PULL) and push this out of the way. I also had to disconnect the expansion tank temperature sensor (which has a short lead) and push the expansion tank out of the way.

 

Only then did the mechanism come out of the car - 3 hours

 

The drivers side spindle came out after about 30 mins hitting with a hammer. The passenger side moved about 2 cm in an hours hitting but then wouldn't budge. As the car had to be used later in the day, I ended up cleaning and greasing what I could and then hitting the spindle back into the shaft. Thankfully it was still turning. I shall keep it well oiled with WD 40 in situ and see how it goes.

 

My advise - for what its worth - it if - like mine, the wipers had only slowed, and not siezed, get the wiper blade off, remove the c clip, washer and O ring and get that WD 40 down there. Thats what I shall be doing every few months this winter

 

Thanks for all the advise. I found this thread was SO helpful yesterday and I'm very smug in the thought of the

[mumof4]

Nice one.....it is a bit tricky to get everything out..took me ages..... :blink:

 

But the satisfaction of sorting it out is great..that and the fact that youve just saved a few hundred quid! :D

[PhilT]

The drivers side spindle came out after about 30 mins hitting with a hammer. The passenger side moved about 2 cm in an hours hitting but then wouldn't budge.

 

Just be careful you don't hit it too hard. I did and snapped the end of the bracket off. Fortunately repaired it by getting a friend to braze a straighted-out jubilee clip around and tightening it up.

[mumof4]

Bumped for the newbies.

[Jim]

The wipers on 'er indoor's Gal have been just about going on full speed for a while. Today I finally got around to fixing it.

 

The drivers side spindle came out not problem. Passeneger side required a vice and a bit of pulling and hauling. Once both were out, spraying some WD40 and 2-3 turns they were both moving freely - the real effort seems to be getting the spindles out.

 

Anyhow, a bit of a clean and some copper grease and everything seems to be more or less working normally. It still sticks the odd time on intermittent wash, but the windscreen is bone dry (sun is shining in Belfast today!) so that probably doesn't help.

 

Thanks to all the contributors for their help.

[jccd]

Thanks all. I think I caught mine just in time. None of the pins/bushes were actually seized when looked at but the wipers had slowed right down & stopped altogether on occaisions. Anway all lubed up & back in action. Thanks for your help.

 

As mentioned by someone earlier the top of the front suspension struts were rusty & both sitting in a pool of water so I dried these out, wired bushed the rust off, filled them with grease & also put some simple covers over the top & folded round the top edge made out of a couple of 4" squares of aluminium baking foil to stop any rain getting in.

 

Cheers JCCD

[JADford]

Well I've gone a got a new linkage as the plating on my spindles has all gone and I've had to do this job twice now.

 

Last time I removed the motor and got it back wrong so the wipers tried to cross --- panic. Anyway I solved this by undoing the motor nut and running it then doing it up. Looking at mum of 4's post there is an easier way of turning the motor on before bolting it up and fitting the arms.

 

I struggling to understand this can some one xplain this in simple terms please as I'm going to have take the motor off again.

 

Thanks Rati

[JADford]

Well went OK - Put the motor on as per old linkage. When I bolted it up I switched on wipers so they cam to rest and then put blades on. Hopefully will last at least 5 years.

 

The motor connector is a swine to get off. As is getting the linkage & underboard, but better in good light and dry.

 

Cheers

 

Rati

[Marge]

Out of interest, have you taken the linkage apart and greased again since you posted MO4? Just wondering how long it can be expected to last.

[mumof4]

Out of interest, have you taken the linkage apart and greased again since you posted MO4? Just wondering how long it can be expected to last.

 

The Galaxy i did this on, sadly had to go last year due to marital breakdown amongst other things, but from when i did it, no, never had to do it again.I imagine it should still be going strong.

[Bigjeeze]

Does anyone know where I can get screw in grease nipples? (no jokey answers please!!) I want to put some into the spindles on my wipers so that I can just give them a squirt of grease every 6 months or so. I had to take out my linkages and re grease them a few weeks a go - despite having been done a few years before that. I used ordinary grease the first time but this time I used coppa slip. If I had grease nipples the probelm would go away.!!

[Jazzman]

My wipers had been going slow(on fast) if you know what I mean, for over a year. With the MOT comming up, me and my father in law spent 5 hours last Saturday taking the lankages out and freeing the spindles, which were totally seized up! Greased them and put it all back AS IT WAS --(very, very immportant!), and it's brilliant at last. MOT failed though on anti-roll bars, never mind!

Just a tip though, when my wipers were letting me down, I used Rainex on the screen, virtually no need for wipers then---It's brilliant stuff!

Jon

[msc]

So on Saturday I went there, did it and got the T-shirt. Mine started with a decrease of sweep on the passenger side (LHD) and suddenly seized within two weeks. Being an engineer at heart this is basically a design fault where the suppliers have saved a few bob. The problem is that the cast body where the spindle fits seems to be made of "monkey metal" which has a high zinc content. This part is only bushed top and bottom with phosphor bronze inserts. The part which corrodes is in the middle between these bushes, basically the casting is acting as a sacrificial anode to the other steel components which the vehicle is made of. So it tightens up in the area between the bushes.

It was mentioned somewhere about the mark II having a rubber seal and the problem should be less common. Well after five years and no salt exposure mine had it.

Earlier in this thread someone mentioned fitting a grease nipple, the very same thought I had when I was easing the spindles out. When did you last see one on a modern day vehicle? A retro fit would be difficult as the casting is not very thick so you don't have enough to thread.

One of mine was seized solid and I could just move the other about 15 degrees with force. I read a lot about hammering and banging at these spindles, I decided to take the soft approach. Remove that circlip washer and rubber seal and fill the recess with WD40 (that's what the red pipe is for), if it will move then work it backwards and forwards, making sure you keep the recess supplied with WD40. That will get it out as long as you don't try to get it out in one go. Now to the ones that don't move. Get your blow lamp out and with gloved hands heat the casting up (don't forget to take the rubber mounting grommet out), the WD40 trick is still the same as before but be careful not to ignite it etc. It will burn a bit but that's inevitable. The use of mole grips on the bottom actuating arm will help with the leverage when turning the spindle. A couple of light taps with the nut on the spindle helped encourage it out.

After removal you have to scrape out all the gunge between the two bushings, I used the end of a round file, the spindles themselves were fairly OK and a wire brush and quick once over with a flat file was enough.

Pack it all back together with "copper slip" (Copper ease), why? Because this seems to resist washing off better than normal LM grease, I swear by it. The copper is not going to help much in prevention of the same problem but the grease will keep the water out longer and reduce the risk of the oxidation. I think it will last longer than the original 5 years.

Removal of the whole mechanism? Easy but with a few gotchas already mentioned in this thread and no I hadn't read them all. Hardest bit was removing the wiper arms. I had to squeeze in a cheap two leg puller to pop them off, they were damn tight, also you run the risk of damaging the paintwork. I removed all the three plastic shrouds (some had broken clips) , the motor cover and the scuttle tray. That gave enough space to manoeuvre the whole mechanism out without dismantling anything else. But wait the gotchas, the electrical connector to the wiper motor unless you are familiar with this VW type (which I wasn't) was a bit of a pain to get off and as mentioned earlier in this thread you need to prize off the plastic cable guide with a bladed screwdriver, otherwise you will damage the hidden sensor wire running to the heater pipes behind the motor under the centre of the windscreen. There isn't much play in it and I nearly snapped mine. I could only remove it by levering from the top of the clip, when its off you can see why.

What I should have done and didn't, buy a new pollen filter as it would have been a doddle to fit with all these bits removed.

 

So the moral is use heat, you know it makes sense.

 

Have fun and keep fixing things. This is a good forum!

 

Father of five!

;) :D ;)

[big_kev]

A job well done !

 

 

 

My drivers side has popped out of the ball joint and has been running on laggy bands for several months.

 

I am going to ask mumof4 to pop around and do mine for me..

 

Not that I am incapable of doing it myself.....

 

I just wan't to see her bent over my bonnet... ;)

[G7enn]

:( ...... There was me thinking it was another electrical problem..... :( .... But NO ! This time .... Mechanical... (Linkage failure - seizure on one side)...... I found this article and after trawling through eventually decided to bite the bullet as it were. After an hour or so of taking pieces off and wondering which, if any would be left over when reassembling ??? Eventually the linkage was out... then the FUN began.. You really do need lots of WD40.. Hammers... Grips... a good vice... and possibly if you are really lucky a blow torch. :angry2: After 2 days... You all said it took patience (ARRRRGGHHHHH !!) blood sweat and tears helped... The beast was apart... cleaned (lubed - went with the copper slip - popular concensus) reassembled.. Then terror struck !!! "how the hell do I reconnect the motor into the correct positon? " "ARRGGHHH !!!!" I thought if I connected the motor without the linkage.. turned on the ignition, the motor would set to park.. Ignition on, motor moves... :lol: Ignition Off :) As the motor continues in one direction, I thought that assembling now, reconnecting arms in rest position, turn on ignition and HEY PRESTO !! but alas no... More like (GIVE ME THE HAMMER !!!) The wipers want to travel across the bonnet and wipe the water from that too.... Maybe out of guilt for not wiping the bloody windows for such a long period, but I doubt it.. more likely to be my seriously floored wiper linkage reassembly rest position technique... :( Its raining again....:( and I desperately need to get it sorted... all the patience you all so kindly recommended is rapily running out. Please would someone be so kind and advise how I position the motor back onto the linkage so that it is the correct position when reassembled into the car.... All information would be GREATLY APPRECIATED....

G7enn

[G7enn]

The heavens opened.... the heavens closed... play resumed.....PLAY ??? what did the peopls say ???? Patience....... and patience paid off... A BIG thankyou once again to all who have contributed especially the lady MUMOF4... without whom... I wouldnt have started the adventure. So to conclude, to align linkage, I removed wiper arms, removed plastic trim as before......replaced the wiper arms at this stage without trim, Oh what a joy.. at this stage it is possible to undo the centre connection of the motor to the linkage. physically move the wiper blades / linkage to the correct rest position and reconnect the motor to the linkage, removed arms, replaced trim, Finally reconnected arms and this time it really was..... HEY PRESTO........... A saving of