adventures in rear wiper motor replacement

[timintc]

How oh how does the shaft in the housing manage to freeze up? After not working for awhile i decided to tackle this job on my own, last weekend took it apart and sprayed it with penetrating oil as much as i could, after a week of head scratching i decided more drastic measures were going to be needed, so i went to the autoparts and found much to my joy a special windshield wiper arm removal tool. Ok now im really getting down to business here, so after finding another motor off an older vehicle i swapped them out even switched motors back and forth and have determined the cause to be that the shaft is frozen stiff inside the housing of my newer 2000 and who knows how old the other one is but works fine. so pretty much everything matches up but am having problems getting the arm and a retaining nut off the older motor and another problem which i dont hope is a problem is that the older set up has a sprayer mounted in the base of the wiper arm housing as opposed to having it above as it is in my car. oh well i know this may have rambled a bit and i hope everyone who is interested can understand what i am talking about, if anyone else out there has any similar experiences please feel free to jump in, and if anyone has a motor that doesnt currently work id guess it is probably the shaft that has siezed up not the motor itself.

[nipper]

There is a removal tool !

 

Ive been fighting my arm for two weks now and it wont come off.

 

 

nipper

[timintc]

yes just go to the autoparts store and ask, i was looking for something different and when they pointed that out to me i thought EUREKA!! ive found just what ive been looking for. It did make the job go a lot easier and it still took some doing to get it off and subsequentyl another on the used one that i found. but a follow up to the last post, i did manage to break the shaft free on the siezed motor and i will be putting it back in today as opposed to the used and older one. and obviously i will be lubing it very well, and hope for another 7 yrs of service but at least i will know how to fix it and what to look for, i just gotta wonder how many rear motors Subaru must sell and replace when the solution ended up being so simple.

[Kilroy]

I was wondering how to remove that! My motor works great, but my washer sprayer hasn't been working. I took a look at it a few weeks ago and everything seemed fine. I had the wife twist the sprayer button on the end of the wiper arm to get it going and the little pump went like crazy, but no liquid came out of the sprayer. I had the wagon lift gate up during this, so I pulled it down to try and get a closer look and water spilled out from the inside plastic panel on the gate. Uh-oh! Took the plastic panel off and found that the little plastic nub on the wiper arm base had broken clean off and the sprayer hose was hanging freely inside the panel. The only way to replace it is to replace the whole arm assembly which is fitted through the glass (or glue it back on, that didn't work at all). Currently looking for a wiper arm at the wreckers. :-\

[avk]

When I was removing wiper arms from a 1995 wagon to repaint them, a $3 battery terminal puller from Autozone worked well. Had to file down the claws to get it under the rear arm. Then (since you want stories) a neighbor dropped a gold ring through the cowl covering on their Chevy and asked me for help. The wiper arms had to come off, or so I thought. The cheap tool just wouldn't do it on that one, so I bought a proper tool, Lisle 54150,

and it worked great. Each of the arms came off with a loud pop, but then it turned out the ring had fallen into a drain hole. It was found in the fender, at the bottom behind the plastic liner.

[Andyjo]

Are you replacing the motor on your 97 impreza? if so, i have a 97OBS motor kickin' around.

and on mine.. you just lift the arm up, and pull... there's a press fitting in there that clamps it down :-p

oh yeah... and there's a little nut under the plastic cover thinger.