Defender TD5 Wiper Motor seized

My wipers stopped in the upright position and wouldn't move, even manually, I suspected the motor had seized. I followed the Haynes manual to remove the motor. it says: disconnect the wiring plug (I did although it's connect in the photo), undo the drive tube nut (done) and remove the motor complete with the rack. The motor and rack does not want to come away from the drive tube! I wondered if there's a clip or something I need to remove. I currently stuck

you need to swivel motor around and undo the 1/4 spanner sized bolts to remove the cover plate ,you need to pull out the crank arm to release the cable

jamesmartin said:

you need to swivel motor around and undo the 1/4 spanner sized bolts to remove the cover plate ,you need to pull out the crank arm to release the cable

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Thanks for that, motor removed and working fine, It's the cable that's not moving, I'll continue to remove the cable assembly...

If the rack (actually a flexible cable with a spiral thing wrapped round it) won't move at all, there's a chance it has got stuck somewhere, possibly in one of the wheelboxes. If you take the wiper arms off (so they don't try and go all the way round and foul on the bulkhead) the spindles should turn freely as you pull the rack out. I had my rack jam in one of the wheelboxes recently, causing similar symptoms. I managed to adjust the wheelbox casing with a hammer so as to stop this happening.

The rack was seized, I used WD40 on the wheelboxes, and managed to remove the rack by winding it out. Both wheelboxes appear to have seized, 2 new wheelboxes and a new rack have just been delivered this morning (£85 from Brookwells) so I'll have a crack at replacing these this afternoon. Removing the existing wheelhouses is not straightforward. this post has been useful https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/wiper-boxes-and-cable-renewal.99743 although he was able to remove the wheelboxes with "a bit of wiggling", I'm finding that with my TD5 there's a bit more dashboard to remove to get them out!

Yes, there's certainly a lot more dashboard to remove. Even worse on mine because I've fitted an extra instrument console.

It's a bit of a squeeze getting the wheelboxes in and out as there isn't much room to withdraw the spindles from the bulkhead before they start hitting some of the internal dash substructure. I gently lever the sheet metalwork apart with a large screwdriver and I can just get them in and out.