[Stromaluski]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

A common problem, and a fairly common solution. The cause is usually the chromed steel ball losing its chrome and going rusty which then grinds away the inside of the plastic bushing. New bushings are available, but if the ball is worn out they won't help much.

The other cause is the wiper spindles seizing up in the bushings because the rain has washed all the grease out. The extra force needed to move them tends to escape at the weakest point, that being the plastic joint.

There is a design flaw in the plastic caps that go over the wiper spindles, in that the hole in the top is such that it allows rain water to pool on the top of the spindle, when then seeps in to the spindle and washes out the grease, then makes it all go rusty and seize up. I've been printing replacement caps which are a tighter fit to keep the water out, but they're only really useful once the mechanism has been apart and re-greased. Quite often the spindles are irreparably worn as well though, so there's not much that can be done at that point. If the spindles are still ok, the bushings they run in can be replaced, although this is a non-trivial task.

I've been meaning to re-engineer this with rose joints for some time now but haven't got round to it. Ideally I'd like to find a replacement for the spindles as well but thats proving tricky. The mechanism for the centre wiper is a tad complicated and not very easy to replicate though.

One of my wiper spindles looked like this, with one of the bushing seized to it. I replaced the entire linkage with one from a parts car that was better, but still very much not great. I will eventually have to do something else.