Windshield Wiper Mechanicals/ Maintainence

[ZermattGT]

The other night my brother and I spent an evening under the warm cover of a borrowed garage working on my 1983 Coupe GT. While my mechanically gifted brother sorted out my desire for a newer Ipod compatible radio, he suggested I work on my sluggish wipers.

So... I slowly encouraged the black plastic shielding covering the wiper motor and blower motor. This took a half hour - 40 min. due to extreme fragility. Seriously, the plastic was like a 20 year old Halloween mask from a defunct department store. This shield is NLA. Under this dubious shielding I took of all the bolts and nuts holding the wiper axles, the blower cover, etc. Once the fuse box cover is off you can tip the wiper mechanism out and down towards the fuse panel. Then, carefully take/pop the mechanism's right and left armatures off, and thoroughly degrease ( solution and a toothbrush help) and clean the ball joints, pivots and axles. Be careful not to loose the tiny rubber o-rings just under the c-clips and washers. Keeping all the parts in order, grease all access/moving points and over the o-ring to reseal it. I used a medium bearing grease. After rebuilding and re-installing I found at least a 50% improvement in the ease and smoothness of the wipers movement. With fresh blades, even a little better. Well worth it when compared to finding new parts after a failure due to lack of attention.

The stereo, a 1998 VW now has been magically wired in with a hidden Ipod adapter. My brother has mystical powers I don't possess.