If you find that your wipers and mechanism are making funny noises it may be that the Wiper Drive mount is worn and probably broken. A tell-tell sign of this is the bonnet catching the wiper arms as you lift it. Thanks to Serena's guide on how to get at and dismantle the wiper drive linkages, decided to tackle it myself but hit some unforeseen snags. Magically this may actually turn out to be a bonus!

I had the drivers side wiper knocking on the top of the bonnet when in use and would catch if I lifted the bonnet up. So in short I removed the trim as described previously by Serena, undid the two retaining bolt and popped the end linkage off of the passenger side drive. Upon removal I was greeted with this:



Looking a bit worse for wear. The drive housing was pretty knackered and broken leading the whole arm to twist and bend out of shape, making it knock on the bonnet.

Not to worry, I'd sourced another one previously (and scored a brand new end linkage to go with it). Was literally about to fit it when found out the end locating ball joint was on the wrong side!?! Everything else was identical, so, decided to take things apart and see what could be done (rather than the sensible thing of putting it back together so I could actually drive the car legally)

In effect the rotating arm is held in the aluminium housing by a spring clip which is no doubt hidden in a load of grime and corrosion. It's located just below the splines and sits on the flat washer butted against the housing. Try and spot it in the image above!!!

It's a fiddly beggar to get off, but you can squeeze the arm up in to the housing (courtesy of a sprung washer at the back) to give you a little extra clearance on the spline end. Once you manage to get the spring clip off the washer comes away and the whole shaft can then be pushed back through the housing. It get's a little stiff as there is a rubber grommet in there, but it will go through. You'll end up with this:



From left to right:

- Shaft and arm (with rubber guard for linkage ball joint)
- Sprung washer
- Aluminium Housing
- Rubber grommet
- Washer
- Spring Clip

The replacement drive I got was in excellent condition, but the ball joint was a little off:



It was listed as a 323f, I'm guessing it was a saloon or the P version maybe, no idea. But at least the hosing was identical:



You can see the corrosion, damage and wear on my original one

So, a clean up of my arm and pretty straight forward reassembly resulted in this:



Now what this means is hopefully we can source drive housings from other cars that match and simply change the shaft and arm over to fit the BA. The shaft is hard steel whilst the housing is ali, so guess which is going to lose in the wearing out stakes! Mine was a bit corroded inside so sanded the shaft back and generally lub'd prior to putting back together Oh, and grease the ball joint before putting linkage back on too

Now, my wipers work properly again and don't catch the bonnet anymore, yay!

Jon

Great work, Jon!

Patrick

Excellent stuff Jon!

Steel against aluminium on a heavily-used part ... why Mazda, why?!

Really glad my guide was useful. I'm going to have to inspect my current linkage again soon as it's behaving oddly - I'm wondering if my gaffa bodge is coming apart. But I have another new linkage so I'll probably just swap them over.

In fact I've been so paranoid that the current misbehaving one might break when I'm out somewhere and I have no wipers, that I've been carrying the new one in the boot so in an emergency I can stop somewhere and fit it

S

Swap it over, shouldn't take more than a few mins to sort out, else you'll be doing it on the side of the road in the pouring rain

I've had a quick look on eBay and it seems the housings for the 626 (and maybe by virtue the Mx6 as they use a LOT of the same parts) and perhaps the Demio are really similar. Of course without comparing side by side I'm not 100% sure.

I'm positive the middle drive shaft pulls apart exactly the same way, but I think the two housing won't swap over, the shaft protrudes further out from what I saw.

Just trying to find ways to keep the BA's going, even If we have to nab parts from other cars to do it!

It's been the constant rain that's been stopping me doing it - I have nowhere sheltered to work. I can sort it now spring is here

Can you compare with other Mazda parts by using the EPC? See if parts of an F and an MX6 or whatever have the same part numbers.

S

The problem is the wiper drives come as a complete unit and will probably have different arms on them, as did the one I got. That means they have different part numbers. The aluminium body may well be the same for them but the EPC doesn't list them as separate parts unfortunately.

The 626 (GE) and MX6 do have the same part numbers, starting GA, and the Demio starts DW. The BA starts BC.

It's a matter of finding one with the same body and swapping the arm over to suit the BA, and given car manufacturers love parts commonality (Aston Martin's using Ford switches and Volvo keys for example), it's probable another Mazda will have the same housing, just gotta find which one!