Hello all. Just got my truck registered Monday and of course I've been driving it quite a bit. Novelty thing. I've noticed a piece of sheet metal about 6" long bent 90*, 1" x 1" screwed into the windshield weather strip in the upper drivers corner. There's some lovely scrape marks on the a-pillar and the driver's door in that area. Apparently the wiper blade on the left side decided it didn't want to change direction when it got to the top of the windshield, and just kept going right off the side of the truck. The previous owner decided he'd fix it by putting the sheet metal up there to block it from doing that anymore. While it does seem to work, I feel like maybe there's a more elegant fix I could do. Is there some sort of mechanical stop on the wiper pivot that may have broken? IIRC the motor just drives the linkage in a full rotation. I neve really thought about what makes them decide to stop and go back down again. Any ideas where to look??

 

Welcome to DTR

They stop and return by linkage length on a rotating arm. The swing is controlled by the position of the wiper arm on the splined shaft. If it is over rotating to hit the A pillar, simply take it off and reposition it to come closer to the bottom of the windsheild.

Hard to explain.

 

Hmmm. Sounds reasonable. If the arm had slipped on the gnurled shaft, though, wouldn't the arm's lowest postion in the range of motion be somewhere in the middle of the windshield? It seems to go all the way back down to the bottom. I know I'm being lazy and I just need to look at it, but I won't be able to get to it until the weekend. Just figured I'd see if anyone else had this happen. I did a search, but didn't find much. Mostly parking problems and intermittent wipe issues. Thanks for the reply.

 

Most wiper linkage has a ball joint type connection. If there is slack in these joints this will cause the wiper arm to go farther in both directions. This will make it look right when off and let it run off the windshield and on to the pillar at the top.

With the wipers off check and see how far the arm will travel up and down the windshield. If it moves very far then you have some joints in the linkage wore out.

If there is not enough slack to cause the problem then the arm need to be removed and adjusted down.

Rodney

 

A'ight, then. I'll give it a look-see this weekend and get it figgered out. Thanks to everyone for pointing me in the right direction. Maybe I can get rid of that odd-looking piece of sheetmetal soon.

 

You hit the nail right on the head. I have around 4" of movement in the arm on the driver's side before I feel resistance. Is it just the torx screws I see along the windshield holding the plastic cowl cover on??

 

Not sure how to get it off.

Most damage I have ever seen with windshield wipers is caused by snow & ice building up on the bottom of the windshield and not allowwing the arm to move free, or using the wipers to move 12" of snow. They are designed to move, not move mountains.

I know 5erBob & MexiStan will chime in on not having this problem.

 

I did that trick to a BMW I had during a snowstorm. Paying that bill made a believer out of me

 

I don't know how to remove the cowl, haven't had to remove mine yet. From what it looks like remove the wiper arms and all the torx screws should do it.

Most of the ones I've been into, the linkage is what is hard to remove.

 

I got the cover off and ran the wipers with all the linkage visible. The problem appears to be in the driver's side pivot, for lack of a better lay-term. Proper term is transmission, I think. Anyway, there's a lot of slop in the arm that goes between the linkage rod and the knurled shaft. And it seems logical there is a pin or something in there to limit the travel of the arm, that apparently doesn't do its job any more. Everything else seems tight. I'll go to the ******* and see if they sell those things. I guess I'll get a kit for all the little grommets in the linkage and replace all that since I'm there anyway. The fix is close. I can feel it.