Help troubleshooting wiper motor issue

So I had my tacoma painted recently, and since then, my windshield wipers seemed to be having a harder time than before. They had to break my windshield to do some body work. I initially thought the motor was dying or something, but it seems to work intermittently. Fuse is good.

Right now, it will work one time, then not want to move again for a few minutes, then it will wipe one time again when I turn it back on. If I leave it on, it will go once and then not move again.

Is the motor slowly dying? That seems unlikely to me for something like this. It seems more likely that something is misaligned or clogged or gummed up or something like that?

It wasn't raining around the time I picked the truck up, it feels like I'll have a hard time convincing the painters that they did something wrong or messed something up.

Any other ideas?

Can anyone tell me if its possible to get the wiper arms off without a puller tool?

 

Could be the linkage binding up. If the wipers were just removed you may be able to get off without a puller.

 

I took the wiper arms off and removed the plastic cowl, ran the wiper and it is making the craziest creaking noise right under the driver side arm post. Should the moving parts in the linkage be greased? Is it just binding up? I can see the painters over sprayed primer into the area but I cant imagine that is my problem.

Thanks for any input.

 

You can grease them, only way it should bind is if they didn’t re-install it correctly or if something is overtightened

 

Looking at everything, I can't imagine the painter had to remove or uninstall/reinstall anything other than the arms. What could be overtightened?

 

Wiper arms are splined.

They can hard to remove and put back on.
Beating on them doesn't help. It only makes things worse........

 

Huh? The splines are fine and the arms were eas

The splines look fine and they were easy to remove. Even so, I can't imagine if they had to beat on the splines, that that would have bound up or bend anything in the linkage below all of that.

 

Anyone know how to separate the wiper motor from the linkage? Does it just press on and off? I'm replacing the linkage assembly, the oem one is totally seized within the posts. I cannot get the bracket to separate from the wiper motor and I'm pretty positive it just presses in. Do I need a puller or am I doing something wrong?

 

Thank you for the image and help. Now I'm confused though as the new linkage assembly has that piece attached to it already...I was trying to remove the last link from the motor itself.

 

1st determine if motor working
Assuming it is……

I would be looking at part #4 (linkage)
For bends/kinks/missing fasteners
(Especially since you said sometimes only one arm works)



This is my tacos microfiche 1996
Possibly different from yours mind you
Same premise thou
Let everyone know what you find!

 

I’m just spitting out things for you to check. No idea what they did. But if you’re telling me they had to break the front windshield to do some of the bodywork, then I’m going to tell you they probably did some other crazy or half assed repairs

 

Every paint and body shop I went to told me they would likely have to break the front windshield. That they would try to remove it if possible but more than likely would have to break it. I got quotes from a bunch of places ranging from $2500 to $10k+ and they all said that.I had rust around the top of it.