8 replies to this topic

[James A Sousa]

The long shot came in - evidently, the weather and a lack of use allowed ice to form somewhere on the wiper linkage in her 855's cowl. She put her brick in a heated garage and cleaned all surface ice and snow off, several hours later the wipers recovered their former operation.

THANKS to those who offered their assistance and to those who read my post to see if they could help or learn.

The original post follows-

My daughter has a problem with her wipers, she thinks that they are possibly frozen down in the linkage below the cowl. '95 855 base.

She is the daughter mentioned in my other post about Lake Placid, New York

She tells me that they move a bit when she tries them. A friend has suggested that if there are any leaks in the plastic in the cowl area, water and thus ice could be down in the linkage area,

I told her to check the nuts that hold the wiper arms on, she had suffered stripped splines on her other brick and knows what that was like.

I suggested that she take the car for a nice,gentle ride, until it is nice and warm inside then let it sit for a few minutes idling to develop some more heat in that area. I told her to shut the car off and allow the heat to soak in for 5 minutes or so, and have a chance to defrost the cowl area, then try the wipers.

She does not use the car very much at Lake Placid, and it has been as cold as 25 below zero.

Edited by James A Sousa, 19 February 2005 - 12:08 AM.

[Mesoam]

could also be the wiper motor, those things really where a weak point in the 240's i can attest to that...but the "ice theory" does also sound plauseable

[rdiedrich]

Jim, I guess the car is the 855 as in your sig, not a 240 series.

I've got two 850's without wiper problems, but PA isn't that cold and if not frozen it could be a shorted wiper motor. I'm stumped.

Boy, are we a lot of help!

Good luck.

[jroot]

If both of her wipers then probably a good chance it's the motor.

If only one, then probably a good chance its the wiper arm that needs to be replaced.

[Mesoam]

lol i seem to have forgot a few words

i meant

"those things really where a weak point in the 240's i can attest to that, not sure about the 850's, they didn't have the shroud protecting the motor on the 240's"

woops,

also if she takes the shroud off (real easy) and listens to the motor she should be able to hear if it is struggling e/t/c

[Ivanfbi]

can't it be just loosen nuts that hold the wipers? also, i think what she did was that she tried to turn them on, when it was freezing outside, and the wipers froze to the glass, and blew the motor.

[mbsl98]

I would say that the most likely, by far, culprit is stripped grooves on the inside of the wiper arms. If the blades froze solidly to the glass and she turned the wipers on before breaking them free, there was a lot of force applied to those fairly fragile surfaces. Step one might be to have the arms removed completely and then check for shaft action. Assuming shaft turns OK, bolt arms back firmly and see if that works, and then see if it stays working for more than a day or two. Odds are that they might work better, but not hold the tightness - once the splines are going they get worse and worse pretty fast. Another alternative - once removing arms and confirming action: buy just one arm and test that. If it works, but the second. I understand that the motor and linkages are really pretty robust.

[James A Sousa]

The long shot came in - evidently, the weather and a lack of use allowed ice to form somewhere on the wiper linkage in her 855's cowl. She put her brick in a heated garage and cleaned all surface ice and snow off, several hours later the wipers recovered their former operation.

THANKS to those who offered their assistance and to those who read my post to see if they could help or learn.

[PyROTech]

i am the self taught expert in frozzern wiper anything. I have gone through so many problems with frozen stuff its not even funny. Infact i have a hair dryer on an extension cord sitting at my front door. Mind you my old volvos never had a problem but my cheap jerk american cars seem to always have a problem. If its the wiper blades themselves that dont move it would most likely be the motor or a combination of tired motor and the cold. If no fluid comes out its prob just the noozles that are frozen on the outside or crap that built up inside the line. The thing about it taking several hours to clear indicates to me a problem not directly related with the cold. It should take only a short period of time inside a heated garage in combination of heat inside motor compartment to unfreeze anything. So my idea is that the motor is prob not as new and adding to the problem of freezing.