I know that you lot have been having trouble sleeping, worrying about my wipers; I have decided to fix 'em myself. Had the motor apart to check the grease and its adequate, after moving it about to where it is supposed to live on the bits that need greasing.

I have bought two rod ends and some fine thread reddi-rod and I'm making my own link. The wreckers want anything from 50 to 250 for a used 'transmission' and my figuring is that unless the car lived in Nevada, the bushings are going to be worn on any used part. The new part is somewhere about $700+; not an option, yet.

I'm making the new bushings out of brass on the lathe so I can keep the existing adjuster - if you have a W126, look at the rubber plug under the hood, between the wiper bases, and if you remove it and peer inside you will see a 13mm bolt surrounding a screw - this adjusts the space between the two arms, most obvious when they are parked and with bushings in good condition, adjusts the length of the sweep.

My car is a 91, about 135,000 miles and lived its whole life in Vancouver where it rains big time. If you have the same car, I would seriously consider dismantling the wipers and do some preventative maintenance, pop apart the bushings and grease them, if they are not already worn out. Getting the whole thing out is quite simple and is an easy 30 minute job. If you want me to write down the details of the job, just ask.

If you live in Vancouver, just give me a week or three to work out my repair before you do yours, to allow me time to get the best transmission in the lower mainland if my repair doesn't work!

My symptoms were, with the proper blades in the proper arms and cages, the blade hit the left side of the windshield surround and when they returned to the parked position, slammed into the body where they were supposed to not touch. Very noisy. No possibility to adjust the arms as the bushings allowed them to slap about.

One last thing before you all nod off, the ability to just grab a wiper and pull it out of the well it lives it, to change the blades as Mercedes intended, degrades as the wipers get old and the grease hardens into glue. Be careful, if you have not serviced yours, that you don't damage something when you try to pull them out.

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1991 300 SEL
218,000 Km

"Xsbank's rules of mechanical intervention: Always go for the easiest solution first; 90% of what ails a gasoline engine is ignition; After that its all a WAG."