Rear wiper skips | Page 2 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

  • Register Today It's free!

Rear wiper skips

My recently acquired Explorer came with a non-functioning rear wiper.

It would not pass the lower edge of the rear window glass and when I did help it along it wouldn't clean the window all the way across.

This is what I did, with the help of forum members and a mod of my own

I ground off the little fingers and bent the arm inwards about 1/4 inch.
I then added some rubber packing (B) between the plastic block and the tailgate panel. This moved the block outwards (C) about 1/8 - 3/16 "

Now when the blade leaves its parkiing position it doesn't foul the bottom edge of the tailgate glass (A).

This was actually two pieces of 2" rubber weatherstripping. I happened to be white but I will pick up some black.

ExplorerRearWiper1a.jpg



I put the block on the weatherstrip and drew around it with a pen and then cut it to shape. The one closest to the tailgate I cut two rectangles out so it would sit around the plastic blocks that the screws go into.

Next will be to treat the arm to a new coat of black paint and fit a good quality wiper blade.

Have run it like this now for a week and it goes first time every time. The blade now rests just clear of the bodywork and doesn't freeze to the tailgate like it did before. Total time, including finding 2 new and slightly longer screws. 20 mins.

I am in Canada, everything freezes this time of the year.

..
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





How the hell do you remove the wiper spring? I've been working at it for hours and all I've been able to do is scrape up the entire assembly. This thing is really getting to me. The spring is very highly tensioned and it is impossible to stretch enough to remove. Any ideas?
 






woohoo! Another problem fixed, that makes 3 today! See, this is why I love this forum. ;)

Started with the dremel, got impatient, snapped the teeth off with a pair of old snips and then ground the sharp edges away with the dremel again. In fact, I may have trimmed off a tad too much because it seems to be pushing a little on the hard side now, but I'll take it! :D

I had the issue with the wiper getting stuck between the glass and the door as well but after I cut the teeth off this doesn't seem to be happening. I guess time will tell on that one.

Thank you all once again for your helpful posts!
 






Rear wiper fix successfull!

:exp:I just did the finger shortening mod and fixed my rear wiper. Yes, thank you, high fives all around...:D

My rear wiper did not touch the glass at all when wiping, although it parked itself perfectly in the little holder when done. I first tried bending the wiper arm a little and that caused the wiper to contact the glass only at the extreme ends of it's travel- near the lower edge of the glass. And, it no longer parked itself correctly in the little holder, it would get stuck in the crack at the bottom edge of the glass.

So, after finding and reading this thread, and armed with small wire cutters I made my move... I lifted the wiper from it's parking holder, and rotated it back so I could locate the "fingers". The flexible plastic tube for the washer fluid runs right between the fingers, so to avoid damaging it I detached it from the nipple it connects to, un-threaded it from the wiper arm and folded it out of the way. Took my little blade cutters and clamped on one of the fingers and squeezed hard. I could tell I was making a dent, so I wiggled the cutters and the end popped right off on the cut line. They are apparently just pot metal of some kind. I took off about a 1/8" piece off of each of the fingers and tried the wiper. It still missed a large portion in the middle of it's arc. I took another small snip off of each finger and tried it again. It now worked pretty good wiping the window but hung up when trying to park and was left still sitting on the window glass. I restraightened the wiper arm where I had first bent it and now everything fell into place, wiper wiped completely, parked when done. I put on a new wiper blade. Tried it again a few more times. Can't wait for rain now! :thumbsup:
 






When I bought my 97 Mounty in '06, the rear wiper was only good for mixing mud on the rear window. I tried ALL of the documented fixes like bending the arm, switching to a premium wiper, I looked, but there were no fingers to cut (maybe the last owner tried that before selling it) yada, yada, yada.

When I tried to remove the arm, it was like it was welded on. I had an inspiration... I used a pair of needle nosed Vise Grips to depress the clip and used a door panel removal tool to remove the arm. The fingers fit perfectly around the splined shaft and it was at the perfect angle to pry off the arm.

Anyway, turns out my whole problem was similar to Budwich's... The knuckle was filled with beach sand! And I live around 40 miles from the nearest beach!

A can of compressed air and little WD-40 later and the wiper worked like new! Also, I got rid of the sissy little 11 inch wiper blade and put on a 16". It JUST clears the latch cover and clears a nice swath of glass.

Mike
 






How can I get the info on the wiper problem? .....also my arm can move back and forth...motor shot?
 






Disassembly of Wiper Arm to Sand Down Fingers

How do you disassemble the arm to sand down the fingers?

Thanks
 






i just popped mine up and ground them down with a grinder.

seemed to work so far, but i dont think its grabbing up top. we'll see when the snow hits though.
 






Yea me too, I left it attached and just pulled the arm away from the glass. Didn't have a grinder so I just cut the tabs off. Works great now.
 






Tabs

I haven't been able to get to the top of the tabs. What do you use to cut them down? I've tried a grinder and just regular sand paper, but can't reach the top. My wiper still doesn't reach 1/2 the glass.
 






So, after finding and reading this thread, and armed with small wire cutters I made my move... I lifted the wiper from it's parking holder, and rotated it back so I could locate the "fingers". The flexible plastic tube for the washer fluid runs right between the fingers, so to avoid damaging it I detached it from the nipple it connects to, un-threaded it from the wiper arm and folded it out of the way. Took my little blade cutters and clamped on one of the fingers and squeezed hard. I could tell I was making a dent, so I wiggled the cutters and the end popped right off on the cut line. They are apparently just pot metal of some kind. :thumbsup:
This method worked almost perfectly for me, except that on one of the "fingers" my rocking of the cutters up and down actually busted the pot metal about an inch up before it cut all the way through. The other finger cut off perfectly, I'm guessing the pot metal on the other one has just gotten old and weak (or I'm alot more butch than I thought). Just be careful when doing this and take your time. With my medium sized cutters you really have to maintain quite an ape grip on them while you rock them. Bigger cutters would be ideal.

In any event, the wiper is PERFECT now, 100% of the glass gets wiped, and it goes back to it's holder as it should. Outstanding and thanks everyone!
 






Thanks for all the info on cutting the tabs. Worked on my 2001. Took 1 minute with big wire snipes.
 






I ground my tabs down a while back and it really didn't do much, just got fed up with it and ground em down some more (4"grinder) works like new! Thanks again Serious Explorations!
 






i had all of the usual problems with the wiper blade i took a couple routes to fix it. i tried bending the arm worked for a few times, next i ground down the tabs super far didnt really notice anything different. the biggest problem what i could get the wiper arm bend to wipe perfect but then the blade would just get caught under the window. i finally ended up adjusting the arm via twisting/bending to get the blade to never get stuck under the window again (not overly bend more twisted) the main thing that worked was i also tightened the spring which pulled the blade close to the window when on. to do this remove the arm and look for the C shaped clip holding the spring to the pivot point all i did was took some channel locks and pinched the C clip together about a 1/4''-1/2'' depending on how week your spring is, doing this pulls the spring tighter hope this helps
 






I too had the problem with the wiper not making enough contact to clean the window. I used a pair of tin snips to cut about 1/8 inch of the metal fingers off, just like some others have done here. It now works just like it should. It looked as though the fingers had an additional piece of metal attached at some point during its manufacturing.

Thanks for the help!:thumbsup::thumbsup:
 






Bought my wife's EB new in '98 and have spent the last 13 years keeping it mint but for one thing: THE BACK WIPER. Many thanks for the tip on grinding off the 2 fingers. Immediate success.
 






i also have a 2001 xlt and my rear wiper did the same thing yours is doing. i took everything apart, even removed the motor. i didn't find anything wrong, but it seemed to me the problem is that the rubber motor mount bushings are too soft. this allows the motor to twist and not remain parallel to rear door/glass. that's why the blade skips the middle portion of the glass. there may be other fixes for this, but i tried cutting the tabs (didn't help much) and then i just bent the arm. it's bent to the point where now it sits outside its saddle when at rest, but it seems to work fine now.
 












Back
Top