Fourtrak Rear Wiper Repairs

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Fourtrak rear wiper renovation.

If you can’t feel any movement in your rear wiper when you try to move the arm back and forth the likeliest reason is that it’s rusted up solid. I’ve fixed a couple now and its pretty simple, for anyone else wanting to give it a go here’s the instructions:

Remove the nut from wiper arm and take arm off.

Remove rear inner door handle (2 screws) and escutcheon from door catch (1 screw), take off door inner panel. Remove the “L” shaped metal cover from the upper right hand side of the door below the screen (4 screws). Disconnect wiper motor lead; the connector on mine was behind the metalwork of the rear door.

Remove large, thin nut from outside of the door; remove three bolts retaining wiper assembly to door frame and take out assembly.

Remove the big rubber door seal from the motor mounting shaft . Worth giving everything a clean up now. Remove back panel from wiper assembly casting (4 screws) Remove the two circlips retaining the connecting rod and then the rod itself.

You now need to remove the washer from the main shaft, it looks like part of the shaft but it isn’t YOU MUST REMOVE THIS AND TAKE OUT THE SMALL ROUND SECTION SPRING RING FROM THE SHAFT NEXT !! I didn’t first time round and made a right mess of the bushes.

Scrape away as much of the rust as possible from around the shaft and then spray with penetrating oil or WD40. If you have time, leave it to soak. Warm the shaft housing with a gas torch around its outer end BEING CAREFUL NOT TO IGNITE THE OIL !! Grip the plain diameter of the shaft outer end in a vice and try to turn it, you may have to work more oil in and add more heat but it will eventually move. This shaft does not rotate through 360 degrees so just keep working it back and forth until it loosens.

Next you need to use a copper or brass mallet to tap the shaft through the housing, taking care not to score the 2 bronze bushes in the housing (If you’ve caused any burrs on the shaft when gripping in the vice carefully file them off before trying to shift the shaft). Once the shaft is out you can use fine emery paper to clean the rust from the shaft, don’t loose the curved thrust washer from the inner end of the shaft at this point. Clean out the bushes and put as much water resisting grease in as you can before reassembly (I use the stuff for packing boat trailer hubs).

Reverse the dismantling procedure (leaving out the oiling and heating Wink and refit the assembly in reverse order. Once the wiper assembly is back in the door I fill the outer cap with waterproof grease to help keep the water out as much as possible.

Make sure you orientate the arm in the correct position on the shaft before fully tightening the retaining nut.

Took me 1 ½ hours to do the complete job so it’s not too arduous.

Just to clarify a very

Just to clarify a very important point - Where the instructions above refer to removing a washer and spring on the spindle - there is a tiny split ring which sits out of view to the naked eye which must be removed to free the spindle.

Push the spindle UP (in the opposite direction you want it to go!) and the tiny ring will become visible right at the bottom where the spindle leaves the housing - remove this and the washer it holds will be released along with a rubber O ring and the spindle can then be worked out leaving the two bearings in the housing

One point to note is I stripped two motors and on one the bearing was not at the end of the shaft and this was what had caused the seizure.

I knocked mine out with a drill bit and reset the positions leaving about 3mm at the top of the spindle to pack with grease.

Works great now - Thanks for the information above