Well, here's a follow-up post as promised. I foolishly opted to be a cheapskate and simply 'fix' the old wiper linkage.

I lubed the joint bushings up with silicone spray since the bushings themselves were still in pretty decent shape. Pounding against an anvil, I first re-staked the end (doubling the original number of stakes) with a cold chisel, then used a centerpunch to expand center of the post, and finally peened everything with a medium sized drift. The result should hold the post tightly for a while.

Here's two of the four joints that required fixing.

If you have the CD service manual, you'll require Job 82-0760 to help line up the linkage if it's removed. I just removed the wiper arm end, so I only needed to line up that end upon re-assembly.

These two notches need to be lined up in order to properly re-assemble the wiper arm end of the assembly.


The biggest hassle of the whole job is removing all the trim pieces and then re-assembling everything without snapping any of the brittle plastic parts. It's a time consuming task, but I bet I could do it again in 2 hours, or possibly less.

I highly recommend that folks purchase a new linkage set, but if you're cheap and impatient like me, the linkage can be fixed. I don't know how long this will last, but I hope folks will at least investigate their wiper condition so they don't experience a terminal loss of function like I did -- especially at night.