Wipers stopped in a sleet storm! Help!
 

This evening as I was driving home in a sleet storm the wipers stopped about halfway up. They were working just fine, there had been no strange noises, or anything. I tried to clean the area under the hood out to see if they were just blocked, but they were not. I would think you would hear the motor starting to go bad, so I'm guessing maybe a fuse? Which one is it? Any other thoughts? If it makes any difference they were on the way up when they stopped.

freaky coincidence
 

Dallas got hit with an ice storm today and that EXACT thing just happened to me on the way home tonight.

When I got the car in the garage I checked the # 7 fuse on my 300SD (red fuse) and it looked good. I figured when I turned the wiper on and it froze in the upright position it hit too much resistance with all the ice and blew the fuse (or wiper motor took a dump). Since the washer motor didn't run either I figured it was the fuse.

After cleaning up the windshield and then lubbing up the glass with a ton of windex I re-attempted using the wipers with the car off (just battery power).

Sure enough they started working again.

Wierd - but I'll take it!

Only thing I can think of is it got hung on the ice, or the motor cut itself off at a certain level of resistance and turning off the car reset something.

not really sure....

Interesting... My washer still works though, so maybe the relay? Or maybe the motor?

mostl likley the fuse, even if its not blown, happen to me last year. fuse looked good. I tested it with a voltage meter, and it was showing funky numbers, replaced the fuse, never had the problem agian

I just moved it under the carport, and I'll see what I can do with it over the weekend. I'm really hoping its just a fuse. I'm really not looking forward to driving a Ford Festiva in the snow again. I don't have a meter so I'll have to just replace the fuse. I might just do them all.

yea for a while, my 240 was blowing fuses. the PO just drove the car every now and then, and since i was driving it as my DD, fuses were blowing all the time. but now they have all been replaced. heh

I'll take a guess...
 

The ww motor may have a thermal circuit breaker to stop the motor before it burns up. A sleet storm would put an enormous amount of stress on the ww system, I would think. These circuit breakers are usually self-resetting. Once the motor cools off they reset themselves. That may be what happened to Bodyart.

Thats freaky....its sleeting here too, I came out to my car at 1:15am tonight to find it covered in 1/4" of ice, and I can still hear it outside sleeting right now.

My wipers are ultra strong, I turned them on "level III" last winter when I had about 10" of snow on my car, and it PLOWED the snow off the side of the car in one massive swath and then continued wiping! :eek: I was impressed!

When I moved the car I tried the wipers again, and they didn't move, so I'm hoping for the fuses. Any idea which one it is? I think I have the card on the inside of the box, just don't want to go out there.

When ever get one of these car I replace ALL the fuses They may look good but if there old, they may not be. Its cheap insurance. And I wouldn't use those glass ones.

You should have a fuse diagram in the back side of your fuse box cover, the owners manual should also list them.

Fuse
 

I vote for the fuse... mine worked fine today under the sleet and snow....

if motor, usually you'll smell it.....

Ok, so this morning I went outside, and in 17F weather replaced the #7 fuse. To cold at the moment to any more than that. However, I still don't have wipers. When I turn the switch to an on position I hear a clunk sound, which I am assuming is the relay. It seems very loud to me. It goes clunk clunk, and nothing moves. If I was just replacing stuff I would certainly do the relay next since its cheaper, but I'm just not sure if it's needed. I've never heard the relay for any other cars wipers though.

ARRRGG... 17 degrees Thats harsh.
I think I would look for a way to get 12v to the motor directly. On the W123 theres a plug on the firewall where you can unglug the motor.

I think I saw that plug, but considering the weather I don't think I'm going to mess with it any more today. The relays are also in the fuse box?

I had a similar sound coming from mine, which I tracked down to the linkage that hooks the motor to the wiper arms coming loose. There is a ball joint that attaches the motor output shaft to the long arm that goes across under the grill in front of your windshield. On my car, the plastic cup of the ball joint had worn, and the steel ball had rusted around the edge, untill it just fell apart under it's own weight during a rainstorm.

I semi-permenantly fixed it by drilling a hole in the bottom of the cup, as well as in the top of the ball, tapping the hole in the ball, and then running a small machine screw with a washer on it through the hole in the cap, and into the ball. With a touch of loctite, I doubt it'll fall apart again before I eventually get around to actually replacing it.

Before you take that plug out maybe someone could inlighten us on how too get it apart without buggering it up. I've not had good luck in that dept:o I dont know where the relay is.

Checking the linkage would also be a good idea, as was mentioned. I was just trying too think of the things you could check before removing the air intakes.

Where do I find the linkage? Is between the firewalls or is it under the little vent looking part under where the wipers go when not in use? How do I get to it? Since its above freezing finally I might be able to spend more than 2 minutes messing with it.

The linkage that I was talking about is under the little vent cover, behind the area between the firewalls.

To get into it, you first remove the rubber weather strip along the rear edge of the engine bay, by pulling upward along it's length. Then you get to remove the 4 or 5 metal clips that hold the plastic vent grille onto the firewall.

The next part of getting into this area is popping the covers at the base of each wiper blade loose, swinging them up toward the arm (or off toward the passenger side of the car.)
Under those two covers you will find a pair of nuts, that clamp the wiper arms onto the wiper shafts. Unscrew the bolts a little bit, spray under them with penetrating oil to hopefully loosen the arms on the shafts a little.

Removing the arms from the wiper drive shafts is what gave me some trouble. I tapped straight down on the nut on the end of the shaft, in line with the shaft, while bracing a screwdriver handle under the base of the arm to apply tension on the arm. After a few taps, and a little bit of aggrivation at doing this in the rain, the arms popped loose and tapped the nut that was still there, protecting the threads from getting abused by my application of a 1/2" ratchet. (Not having intended to be beating on the car, I've never actually purchased a hammer.. And if Craftsman hadn't intended them to be instruments of bludgeoning, they wouldn't have made them so nicely solid and heavy, right? :D )

Once the arms are loose, and you've gotten them off and out of the way, you can pop any of the remaining little clips that may still be joining the plastic panels together, near the center.
The only remaining part to get in there is to gently lift the plastic and pull it toward the front of the car to unhook it from the edge of the windshield. You'll see which one is on top, but I think it was the segment on the drivers side.

Under all this, you'll see the wiper motor, the wiper transmission(linkages), the little coolent bladder stuck under the area where the wipers park on the window, and likely a bunch of assorted small debris that made it through the grille you just removed.

To actually remove the wiper assembly, to repair or replace it, you would need to unplug the electrical connection that passes through the firewall into the bay between the two firewalls, free the receptical for that wiring, so you can pull the motor out, and then remove the three bolts that hold the whole thing down in front of the windshield.
With a little more wiggling and tipping it, it slides out fairly easily.


One final note on working with this assembly. If you disconnect the little eccentric arm that the ball of the ball joint is mounted on, make sure that you mark it in some way so you get it back on the motor's shaft in the same position. If you do not, you will have your wipers trying to park somewhere up in the middle of the windshield.

I hope this helps more than it confuses the issue. Feel free to ask for more info in particular if needed, and I'll see if I can remember more that I didn't put here already.

I may have to rig something along the lines of what heyallen did. I just called the dealer and the place salvage place that has lots of older Mercedes, almost $600 from Germany, and nothing that old at the salvage place.

my ball/socket linkage had crapped out also. for the remedy on mine, i replaced the socket with a sealed cartridge bearing, then ground down the ball and drilled it. then i put a bolt through it all with a vinyl tipped locking nut. it runs smooth as silk now. oh, i got the bearing to stay in there by jamming it in with a strip of a bicycle inner tube wrapped around it.

Hey, that's not an MB correct repair!
ya got any pictures?
John

Yes, please with the pics. I am not fond of spending almost what I spent on the car to get the windshield wipers to work. I did find it at silver star recycling, and then I saw some horror stories about them. So, lets see some pics.

yeah. i only spent $800 on the whole car, so i figured $300 for a repop wiper assembly was not going to happen. i'll try to get pics up tomorrow. if they only made that little plastic socket available. i know a guy that works in the parts department at a benz dealer, and he couldn't even source *just* that socket.

i suppose i could replace the strip of rubber inner tube with a aluminum or brass bushing if i knew someone with a lathe, but i did this in one afternoon.

Ok, so I have spent the last 2 hours trying to get the little covers off the bolts that hold the wiper arms on the shafts. I got one side off, the passenger side however doesn't want to come loose. I know the covers are plastic, and they have little tabs at the back, but I can't seem to get an angle in there. My hunch is that the bolts have loosened up a little bit, and now allow the wipers to slip. They were stuck while I was clearing off my windshield, and I turned them on thinking that they were free. 15 minutes later they were stopped.

Ok, I got the little cover up, and thought I should loosen the bolts a litte and see if I can move them down to where the should start first. I did, and they would not budge. Then I tried to tighten them, and figured I'd test to see. They twitched, so I went and tightened them. Suddenly I hear a popping sound under the little cover. I am pretty sure that's not a great thing. The wipers, moved across the windshield, and stopped at the drivers side, and now they move freely across, by hand. They do move together though. Did I break the linkage? I can hear the motor clearly running its cycles, the wipers don't budge.

If you pull the motor be sure and mark carefully the position of everything, I spend way too much time getting things lined up (in the rain:mad: ) after a wiper motor replacement on a 123.

One more question. Is this the kind of thing that will work as long as I get it from a 126, regardless of model/year? Or do I need to be specific? My guess is any 126, from 81-85 should be ok, but I don't want to spend time and money to get something that I can't do anything with.

You have a W126 1982 300SD
 

Yes, all W126 wiper motors are the same.

Be sure to lubricate the wiper arm pivots with ATF.

So I went to Speedway Salvage, and found not one but about 6 126's all but one had what I needed, of course I have no warranty because only Ford and GM stuff gets one. It came out pretty easily, but I pulled it off of a car that already had the wiper arms removed. I figured the arm and motor would be best especially since I didn't see an easy way to pull the motor off the linkage. Should I assume that the wipers were in the resting position when they stopped? Or should I install the assembly, apply juice, and then turn them off and then install the arms?

Answer:
 

* Remove the arms.
* Remove the old motor.
* Install the new motor.
Lubricate the wiper pivot, read attached DIY.

Install the wiper arms.

Have a great day.