Wiper Arm Assembly Replacement (Post #544) 9/21/2015

This is not a super fun repair. It requires the removal of the bonnet (hood) and the cowling. But every time it rained this year and it was A LOT OF RAIN I watched my wipers go across the wind screen and wondered if the mechanism would hold out until I got home.

Disintegrated.

You can see from this picture that the support shaft is completely gone. Those are chunks of metal that represented what was once the support shaft carrying the shaft that the wiper arm is connected to.

All the pieces in place.
Rubber bits removed. Pitting rust.

This is a picture of the replacement. I have removed the rubber mount and rubber shaft. As you can see this is completely untreated metal. The rubber shaft was designed to keep water out (maybe) but only served to hold water against the untreated metal.

Bare metal

I used my sand blasting cabinet and blasted nearly all of the rust off. I then painted the naked steel with acid etching primer. While I’m not completely confident in the paint job. It’s better than NO PAINT.

As I mentioned, you have to remove the bonnet and the cowling. You’ll need some help with the bonnet it is surprisingly heavy. I got Mr. Fisher to assist in the reassembly.

Difficult to get to bolt under cowling.

I used cargo tie downs to hold the hood arms down while I removed the cowl.

One for each side.

These worked surprisingly well. I attempted to first find my cheater pipe. But unfortunately I organized my garage and now cannot find it. The straps worked great. You only need to get all the bolts removed and then you can lift the cowl up and then relax the straps and remove to get the cowl off the hinges.

Cowl nearly off over the hinge.

The cowling is being pulled off over the hinges. You will need to remove the spring on the side with the electric wiper motor.

This will take a bit of large levers I used a beefy flat head screw driver. I am holding the retaining clip. Once all this is out of the way remove the bolts for the wiper motor bracket and remove it from the dash.

Once out, swap the wiper assemblies. There is a trick to making sure the wiper is at the “home” point when you reassemble the unit. Once you have the arms all in place power up the motor and let it reset to the home point before you install your wiper arms. I managed to screw this up and my wiper arms are incorrectly set.

When you are reassembling the cowling you will need something to get the cowling under the wind screen seal. I used an old tuning tool my dad had. It was made of soft plastic.

I got the cowling back in to place and screwed down. You can see the load strap securing the hood arm in the back.

On the Difficulty Scale I would give this job a 2. It is a lot of work to get the bolts out of the recessed portions of the cowling. I spent 20 minutes on remove and 20 more on assembly with the ratcheting wrench. My fancy rotating socket set arm only worked as well as my arthritis would allow. The space is too cramped for me to turn it.

RovErica and Grandson Lucas

My recently birthed grandson Lucas enjoyed being out in the garage. His mommy RovErica watched me do the work for most of the afternoon. Once my allergies started taking my wind I knew I had to get inside. I completed the assembly on the second day during a miserable allergy attack. Grass and ragweed are at record levels right now with fall just around the corner.

This week I will have to source some new catalytic converters. I can hear mine starting to rattle and I’m almost certain they are causing a backup in pressure in the exhaust that is robbing me of power. The Big White Bus sounds terrible. It time to get it fixed.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.