Quick rebuild of wiper arm pivots...

[kmack]

I'm copying this from another thread I posted to and putting it here for posterity....

For those that have slow wipers and have determined it not the wiper motor, this is an easy way to help clean things up.

Pull the motor and wiper arm assembly out of the cowling area and out of the car. Your wiper arm "pivots" are what is stuck. Put the pivot arm into a vise to hold it still. On the part of the shaft that the wiper blade arm attaches to, you'll see a small little snap-ring around the the shaft just above the pivot base. Take a small flat blade screwdriver and remove that snap-ring. Then slowly work the pivot base off of the pivot shaft.

This part is what will take you the longest. Depending on how gunked up the whole thing is will determine how hard it is to get off. You may need to work the pivot base off with pliers or Vise-Grips. Take your time and try not to hurt the base - it is aluminum.

Once you have the base removed, you'll see how badly rusted or otherwise caked-up the shaft is. Take some emory cloth (or 400-600 grit sandpaper) and clean up the shaft. A little WD-40, etc. will help work everything off. Trial fit the base back onto the shaft . If it doesn't spin on the shaft freely, then keep working.

Once you have it all cleaned up, re-assembly is reverse order. Make sure you grease the wiper arm shaft before putting the base back on. I used Lithium grease. The snap-ring should then just slide back on into it's groove.

Put the assembly back into the car and then get ready to go drive in the rain. Also make sure the little rubber boots that go over the shaft are in good condition and intact. Otherwise you need to do this all over again in a few years.

[thefastestz]

My wipers were moving slow for the longest time on my old

240z i ignored it for too long and had to replace my wiper

assembly! Luckily i had a parts car with a good one, because the

price was high.

So if you have slow wipers don't put this off for too long.

[240znz]

I went one stage further and dismantled every joint and put the lot in a parts washers. Blew everything out with compressed air and resprayed the assembly with zinc and enamel.

Repacked the lot with grease and put it all back together......just smooth smooth smooth now.....so it shoudl be after I spent the best part of 4 hours doing it. Those little circlips can be PITA to get off but they do come off. Once they come apart they stay out of shape, don't worry, they will go back on just find with the help of mister big pliers to re-shape/re-crimp them.

My boots are also perrished beyond use, so I need to find an alternative. You can still but new ones.

However....I should have paid more attention to the way the spring which is in the motor attachment arm works. Now I have put it all back together it seems that the spring has no use. Does anyone have any ideas of how it is designed to work?

[DJACEY(UK)]

Has anyone got a detailed drawing showing the component and assembly of the wiper arm pivots. I've got the parts but not to sure how they fit together and/or whether any parts are missing.

[HS30-H]

This diagram does not break down the parts as far as they will go, but hopefully it might help?

[SuDZ]

How slow is too slow for the wipers? Since I have only had this car a very short time and never really ran the wipers, what is it supposed to wipe like? I mean just a general idea for if it is slow compared to most Z's or what.

SuDZ

[kmack]

Originally posted by HS30-H

This diagram does not break down the parts as far as they will go, but hopefully it might help?

For you guys on *this* side of the Great Pond, hold Alan's picture up in a mirror. That way the wiper arms will be shown on the right side of the car.

[SoCalJim]

On 5/13/2002 at 10:22 AM, kmack said:

I'm copying this from another thread I posted to and putting it here for posterity....

For those that have slow wipers and have determined it not the wiper motor, this is an easy way to help clean things up.

Pull the motor and wiper arm assembly out of the cowling area and out of the car. Your wiper arm "pivots" are what is stuck. Put the pivot arm into a vise to hold it still. On the part of the shaft that the wiper blade arm attaches to, you'll see a small little snap-ring around the the shaft just above the pivot base. Take a small flat blade screwdriver and remove that snap-ring. Then slowly work the pivot base off of the pivot shaft.

This part is what will take you the longest. Depending on how gunked up the whole thing is will determine how hard it is to get off. You may need to work the pivot base off with pliers or Vise-Grips. Take your time and try not to hurt the base - it is aluminum.

Once you have the base removed, you'll see how badly rusted or otherwise caked-up the shaft is. Take some emory cloth (or 400-600 grit sandpaper) and clean up the shaft. A little WD-40, etc. will help work everything off. Trial fit the base back onto the shaft . If it doesn't spin on the shaft freely, then keep working.

Once you have it all cleaned up, re-assembly is reverse order. Make sure you grease the wiper arm shaft before putting the base back on. I used Lithium grease. The snap-ring should then just slide back on into it's groove.

Put the assembly back into the car and then get ready to go drive in the rain. Also make sure the little rubber boots that go over the shaft are in good condition and intact. Otherwise you need to do this all over again in a few years.

This thread is great, and timely!  The wipers didn't work on the '75 280Z that I recently bought.  So, I removed the motor and linkage this afternoon and I verified that the motor on its own works fine.  I checked the linkage and determined that the culprit is a seized driver's side pivot arm.  I sprayed it down with PB Blaster and tomorrow I'll see if I can coax the base off of the shaft and clean & lubricate the pivot arm assembly.