Rear wiper - fix/workaround...

I took my rear wiper mechanism out today - it was only getting to about 10 O'Clock (from a starting point of 9 O'Clock - you know what I mean).

Getting the thing out was a pain - in the end I had to put the nut back on where the wiper goes and persuade it with a hammer

I took the obviously poorly fitting cover off the motore/winder mechanism to discover it was all caked with gritty/grimy/greasy/rusty slime. I did undo the screws to see the motor but realised it was all nice and clean in there so did it back up again.

I took a can of spray degreaser to the cogs and other moving bits and cleaned it out as best I could.
I covered all the moving parts with lithium grease - I don't know if this was best but it was the only grease I had.
I then put a pair of mole grips on the splines, plugged it back in and put the intermittent wipers going.
It kept getting stuck so I helped it with the mole grips.
After a couple of minutes I realised that it wasn't getting stuck - they were intermittent
So I put it back together and replaced the mechanism in the door - a bit of a palaver but it went in - and put the wiper back on.

But I got the same problem - sticking at 10 O'Clock.

Whilst looking at the mechanism I noticed that the whole thing was twisting before it got stuck.
If I helped twist the supports, the wiper worked.
I then realised that the back window is not flat - it is slightly bowed.
It was getting stuck because the wiper blade was meeting more and more resistance due to the bend in the glass.
So I surmised that my blade had been bent somehow.
I couldn't see a bend or how to unbend it.

Instead I chose to put about 4mm of washers behind the top mounting screw - effectively helping with the twisting.

The wiper now works ok - its not perfect - but it works.

So, if your rear wiper gets stuck at 10 O'Clock - you may just need to what I have done - or find some other way to unbend the blade - or perhaps loosen the spring that holds it to the window - or something like that.

Taking it all apart, cleaning the mechanism, putting it all back together again took me about 2 hours.

Have fun!

If anyone can assure me that lithium grease will be fine for the metal and plastic cogs I'd appreciate it

The problem with the wiper assembly is that the steel shaft rusts into the plastic bush that it mounts to the door through.

So the wiper goes so far and seizes up.

On our one, I gently drilled a hole through the plastic on the inside door position on the bush, and made sure that it went into the shaft a little bit, then filled the hole with engine oil.

Once it had a chance to soak through, I put it back and it has been fine since.

There are moulded ridges in the plastic that help hold a little pool of oil, so if you drill the hole so that it is at 12 O'Clock (vertical) on top of the bush, you can put more oil in later without it going all over the place.

Peter

Ah! Does that manifest itself as seizing at 10 O'Clock too?

With mine there was a definite twisting of the mount - but perhaps that is just normal.

Next time it starts to seize I'll do this - but for now I'm in no rush to remove the darned thing again - its a pain - and I _always_ break loads of the plastic trim fixings