wiper misaligned

[famvan]

Folks,
I'm new to this board and I have searched far and wide for the answer to my problem so with your love and understanding, here is my delimma:

My passenger side wiper arm is out of alignment. The arm comes to a rest at the top of the cowl, approximately 1.5 inches too low. I've taken the arm off just to see what the problem might be and it looks as if the "gear" that holds the wiper arm may be the culprit. I'm assuming that it can be adjusted, but maybe not.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance,

Steve

 

[99ExSport]

You should be able to take the wiper arm off and reposition it. You can take it off the gear by lifting the wiper up (like you might do when you clean your window) and then there is a little spring loaded clip on the bottom side of the wiper arm near the gear that holds it on. Pull the little clip back and lift, move the wiper to where you like it and put it back on.

Hope that help (and makes sense).

 

[famvan]

Thanks Matt-
It seemed that the wiper arm was going to be way off when I tried that method. I'll try it again, appreciate it,

steve

 

[mhn3773]

if it is way off then u might just have to keep playing with it till it is lined up..it was aligned right at one point in time so its gota be able to go back =)

good luck

 

[99ExSport]

No problem.

mhn3773 is right, it took me a couple tries before I got mine to where I wanted them.

 

[BuffaloXplorer]

Same problem here on my '96 - after messin' with it for about 10 minutes, i still couldn't get it to stay on the windshield. The connectors are an odd shape with no play whatsoever, so there's no real adjustment area. ...took it to ford and they said the actual wiper assembly may be misaligned...not an expensive job but i'll give no money to Ford unless it is ABsolutely necessary...and it is NOT... i'll figure something out

 

[famvan]

Same problem here on my '96 - after messin' with it for about 10 minutes, i still couldn't get it to stay on the windshield. The connectors are an odd shape with no play whatsoever, so there's no real adjustment area. ...took it to ford and they said the actual wiper assembly may be misaligned...not an expensive job but i'll give no money to Ford unless it is ABsolutely necessary...and it is NOT... i'll figure something out

you and i are in the same boat, it's got nothing to do with the way it seats in the connector. it's an internal aseembly thing, taking off the cowl and taking that unit out for a replacement. i, too, am loath to give anything to the ford dealership without it being a matter of dire straits. i'm not there yet.

steve

 

[mosinman]

Not to be rude, but I think you are not doing something right. 99EXsport gave you the correct proceedure. You should be able to line up the wipers in any start position you wish. It might take some practice, but you should be able to get it where you want.

 

[Sigmo]

No, on these vehicles, you CANNOT align the wiper arms the way you can on any normal and reasonably designed car. The splined shaft thing is NOT a round shaft with splines on these vehicles. Instead, they have an oblong, or oval-ish shaped gadget on the shaft that only allows the arm to be attached within a very small range of adjustment. Yet it does have an area with some splines to give you a tiny amount of adjustment - perhaps 1 to 2 inches of range.

In many cases, this is not enough range to let us get our wipers to rest up off of the window gasket or cowl.

Thus, we need a way to adjust the resting position of the whole shaft and oblong thingamajig. And that probably entails tearing the whole works out and adjusting the position of the linkages with respect to the motor/gear assembly. What a PITA!