How do you replace the wiper mechanism on a Toyota Tercel?

Answer 1

I'm not a mechanic, but I did a wiper overhaul on my wife's Tercel last weekend. Please stick with me even if I don't use the proper terms.

MOTOR: Disconnect the negative (black) terminal wire from the battery first, otherwise your tampering may set off your airbagsiif your car has that feature. Trust me, these things are expensive to replace, and you don't want to risk it. Next, disconnect the electrical plug from the motor, and unbolt the four bolts that connect the motor to the wall. The motor will still be connected by a rotating arm to the wiper transaxle inside.

• • Here's the part where most people find difficulty, as I certainly did. **

The rotating arm on the motor forms a ball, the socket for which is the end of the arm on the mechanism through the hole in the firewall. There is a small clip on the arm of the mechanism through the hole that you can use to hook the arm to the hole in the firewall to keep it stabalized while you work on it, and also so that you don't have to fish the arm out of the hole with a screwdriver when it becomes disconnected.

You can maneouvre the arm inside so that you can find this hook by manipulating the windshield wiper arms if you are having trouble, but be careful that you don't strip them. If your wiper arms do not move freely once the wiper motor is disconnected from the firewall, you've got a whole other problem regarding the freedom of movement of your wiper transaxle hinges, and you are at risk of stripping the delicate teeth that engage your wiper blades when the motor spins if you gorilla it into position. If the transaxle is siezed, you will have to remove everything from the top, and soak the siezed part in Varsol, and then try to make it swing freely again. Anyways. Back to the motor.

Once you get the inside arm stabilized against the firewall with the clip, your next task will be to get the ball out of the socket. There is a tool you can use, but if you carefully get a correctly sized crescent wrench in there, you can break the ball out of it. Another option available, if you can stabilize the rotating bar enough, is to undo the bolt that connects the rotating arm to the motor itself, thus avoiding the necessity to break the ball out of the socket.

Either way you do it, make a mental note, (or use a whiteout pen) to mark the position of the rotating arm when you haul it out; this way you can install the new motor in the same position; you'll want to do this because the wiper motor is on a patterned timer and the wipers will stop / start at wierd positions if you install it incorrectly.

As an obiter comment, the geniuses in Japan made the holes for the new wiper motor (the ones to bolt the motor to the firewall) too small for the old grommets (the rubber things through which the screws go), and you may have a mammoth task to try to get the damn thing bolted to the firewall again with the new motor. I ended up having to shave half of the rubber from each side of the grommets to get it to stick.

Another comment that needs to be made: Make sure the motor is properly grounded with the little wire that comes from the motor and grounds against one of the mounting screws. If the motor isn't grounded, the motor will not engage. Also, if you have everything connected, and it still doesn't work, try looking at the fuse. On the 91 tercel I worked on, I got all of this done and nothing worked. I almost found the nearest cliff until my wife asked about the fuse. (It was #20 under the kick panel next to the driver's left leg) Sure enough, blown.

The installation of the new motor is the reverse of the above; your only job will be to get the ball back into the socket, a task which cost me a bloody knuckle, but I always get a bloody knuckle.