Just replaced the starter on granddaughter's 1996 XJ6 (American LHD). It was a b**ch, but I hope to add some tips to one of the starter replacement threads that may help someone else.

Anyway, I removed the windshield wiper assembly to facilitate dealing with the top starter bolt. Have the assembly back in place, but think I must have wrongly installed the various washers & etc. that mount the wiper drive shaft through the body sheet metal. It seems to be holding the wiper arm/blade too tight (or maybe canted?) against the windshield, so that it bogs down the motor when it tries to sweep thru its cycle. With the wiper removed, the shaft seems to rotate back and forth normally (although it looks like the arc may be somewhat small, but that's hard to tell without a blade on, & I don't see how that could actually be possible, mechanically).

I plan to pull the assembly again tomorrow (Friday) & see if I can sort it out, but would appreciate it if anyone has a schematic of the driveshaft parts as they should be assembled, or any other suggestions that might help.

Thanks in advance!
Bill

 

You can stick the bottom of a Styrofoam cup with a pointer made with a marker to see your arc travel

I'm in the same position and will lay out the parts in the stacking order for a picture in need advice where I got lost

 

Thanks for the cup tip. I often do a layout, too, and obviously should have paid more attention on this one...maybe especially to up/down orientation and which parts go on which side of the sheet metal. :-( .

 

In the morning , The dark scares me

 

OK, may have killed the motor? Removed & re-installed the whole assembly; there only seems one logical way for the nuts & washers to go, so I made sure everything was lined up correctly on the wiper spindle and tightened down. (This is a pic from an ebay auction, but it shows the order....Bulkhead sheet metal would be between the two washer-bearing grommets.

Problem still exists, and seems to be the motor is just too weak. If I raise up the wiper arm to lock into the straight out "changing blade" position, the assembly rotates back and forth. If I lower the blade, it will sometimes move a little, and slide a little more if tapped, but won't cycle. This is with the windshield rain-X'd and me misting water onto it. Once I raise the blade again and turn the ignition back on, it returns to "park" or to cycling on the wiper setting it was in if I left the wiper switch on when turning off the car.

Did I mostly fry a possibly already weak old motor when I turned it on after my first install and it jammed the blade over to one end of its arc a few times because I didn't have it positioned right? Could there be some other reason the motor isn't strong enough?

 

Double click on image and drag around

Your in luck , mine is totally taken apart so we can go through everything

I'm at final N stage kidney failure so it has bad days

You have 2 relays on the wiper motor and are common to others that can be swapped

The relays can be closing but the power contacts inside can be burnt not conducting proper current

See page 17 of the attached file below

My articulation monkey motion works under the large black plastic cover was stiff from old dried grease and worked some fresh grease in

 

Parker, First off, you have my sympathy and prayers...Renal failure is what eventually took my mother, so I personally understand what you're having to deal with. Hang in there, and know I appreciate your taking the time to assist me here.

I waited to respond until after our kids came over today and I had a particular son-in-law available to help me look into the electrics. I'm moderately useless in that field, but he has his own company that deals with the design, installation and maintenance of things like interactive museum exhibits, recording & post-production studios & etc., so way more competent in sorting out these things.

He figured out that there didn't seem to be any failures in the electrical performance of the relays and motor.
We held the wiper blade static while the system was on, and observed that the articulated arms also stopped, but the motor itself seemed to be keep running. Removing the little backing plate on the motors "gear box" showed the "screw" on the motor shaft, and the plastic gear it drives were both intact and moving. So by elimination, the slippage is in the connection between the shaft on the plastic gear and the short arm attached to the end (the second and third items from the right in the center row of the pic below) continued...

So, next job is to pull the whole assembly for the third time and see if that connection can be tightened or repaired without having to hunt down replacement parts. Wish me luck.

Thanks again, Parker!

 

Although Little Bubba and Little Bobo have passed away I still drive on like a rock star . been through alot and made it through

They got a plaque for me at the emergency room

Your relays and motor should not have changed performance since you took it apart and the short square shaft arm and how it locks in place may be your key

Gotta take the cat to a Vet for a broken leg on Tuesday and myself to the hospital Wednesday for medical test

The picture is from someone else and when I have a chance I'll lay mine out and photograph the order and get into detail on the area of interest

If I remember right the bottom of the nylon gear with the shaft in the middle of someone elses pic has a screw in the very bottom of the shaft to keep the short bar next to it in the pic rotating


.

 

Seems to be fixed now, although I feel stupid for not catching the problem earlier. I've had the whole assembly of and on a couple more times, trying to fix where I thought it was slipping at the end of the gear-driven shaft. The shaft is tapered and splined like the wiper mount, & the shaft is drilled and tapped down its center at the end where the bar is held on by a bolt fitted into the shaft. It looked like it still had some spline, so I was trying different ways to get it on tighter, including using a lock washer in place of the standard washer. It seemed plenty tight, but still slipped under the wiper load.. Here's a pic of the end of the shaft w/ the bolt & washer:



Here's the bar that fits on the shaft end (its hole also tapered, splined)...even tried adding some thin wire to see if it would keep the splines from slipping:


No improvement.

Finally dawned on me (Duh!) that maybe I should take a better look at the TOP of the shaft where it's driven by the (plastic) gear, although we didn't anything odd about it when we had glanced at it earlier to be sure it was being driven by the motor screw, and that its teeth weren't stripped.
In this pic is easier to see than in person...The hub of the gear has a couple of splits.. leaves it.tight enough to turn the shaft & articulated assembly, but not when the load of the wiper dragging across the windshield is added: (Note that the corresponding item in Parker's pic has a METAL plate at the top end of the shaft, and is driving lugs on the perimeter of the plastic gear...much sturdier arrangement)



My complicated, high-tech, solution:



After removing and reinstalling the wiper arm so many times, I added a lock washer under its nut also, to help ensure it didn't decide to strip out the splines there, & tightened it down pretty solid. Also checked the wiper travel with the arm up until I was pretty sure it wouldn't jam itself at one end or the other and cause problems. Positioning has to be fairly accurate, as it doesn;t leave much space at either end before it rides over the plastic windshield base cowling.
.

Seems to run OK now. Giving it back to granddaughter and suggesting she start looking for a decent used Toyota ;-)