Rear Wiper Repair Procedure

["Vee Dubb" <Scirious@hotmail.com>]

Hey Wagner and others,
   I just tore into my rear wiper assembly tonight in hopes of finding a
way to repair it.  My motor was totally fried, so it's not fixable, but
Brian (Wagner), you should be able to fix yours based on what I found taking
apart the rest of the assembly.

  The shaft that the wiper arm mounts to is turned by mechanism similar to
the wheels of an old steam locomotive.  The worm gear on the motor turns a
big plastic gear.  Consider this big gear to be like the wheel of the train.
This wheel pushes or pulls a connecting rod, which is connected to the shaft
on which the wiper mounts.   The idea is that the big gear turns 360°, and
the connecting rod turns the shaft through it's maybe 45° path and back.
The problem is that the big gear can't turn 360° because its hitting
something.

   The big plastic gear spins on a steel shaft, the bottom of which is
supposed to be flush with the surface of the big gear.  The connecting rod
passes over this shaft in normal operation.  The problem is that this shaft
is poorly "press" fit into the aluminum housing, and can fall down and get
in the way of the connecting rod.  You need to push the shaft back into
place and make it stay there.

    Look at the "top" side of the assembly.  I'm defining top as the side
that faces the glass.  You can see the outline of the big plastic gear in
the aluminum housing.  It's a 2.75" diameter circle, roughly.  You can also
see the ~.5" diameter recess that holds the questionable shaft, and a tiny
hole in the very top.  The first task is to make a similar tiny hole on the
oppositte "bottom" side of the assembly.

   Looking at the "bottom" of the assembly, you are looking at a sheet steel
plate.  Locate, as best you can, the point on that plate that lies on the
axis of the big gear and its shaft.  That point is the center of the ~2.4",
180° curve in the steel plate.  Drill a hole through the plate at that
point, that is big enough for a small nail or punch.  Try not to get metal
shavings inside the assembly.  Take your nail or punch, insert it in your
new hole, and press on it.  You should be pressing the shaft back into its
place.  It doesn't take a whole lot of force, since the poor fit of this
shaft is what got us into this mess in the first place.  You might want to
flip the assembly over before you do this and squirt a bit of super glue
into the tiny hole on the "top" aluminum side of ths housing before you
press the shaft back into place.  That should be enough to keep the shaft
controlled in the future.  Any excess glue should get forced back out of the
tiny hole when the shaft is pressed back into place.  Your wiper motor
assembly should now be fixed.

   Note:  You should be able to do the whole thing without undoing the wires
to the motor assembly.  If you don't feel the need to put superglue in the
"top" side of the assembly, you could do all of this without ever removing
the motor assembly from it's mounts.

   The problem with mine was that the motor got stuck and overheated,
melting and burning some of it's internal parts.  If you can perform this
repair before that happens you should be in good shape.

   Somebody try this and let me know if it works alright.  I'm quite sure it
will.  Also, if anyone has an old motor I can fix for my own car, I'd
appreciate you letting me know.  This procedure is based on the motor from
my '87 16v Scirocco.  I have no idea what other cars use the same or similar
motors to which this procedure might also apply.

    If any of you think this is a good tech procedure, let me know.  I took
some picures of the insides of the motor assembly, and I will write it all
up in HTML if that's of interest to the group.

Sincerely;

Brian Haygood

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