Anyone have any idea why only one windshield wiper would not work I live in Washington so I cant afford to ignore it
Yes…Underneath the cover where the windshield wipers poke up from…There is a linkage arm. This arm attaches both wipers to each other and then subsequently to the arm on the motor. There are Ball and Cup connections in this linkage. The cup is made of plastic and the Ball is made of polished steel…they snap together like a Ball and Socket would naturally snap together. What has happened is that the plastic Cup has cracked or weakened and has popped off of the ball. Go to Nissan or the Junkyard and get yourself some new plastic cups…snap them into place and VOILA…Your good to go. You MIGHT be able to just snap what you have back together and be OK…Until the wiper that came loose meets the same amount of resistance that it did prior that caused it to pop off in the first place. VERY RARELY do I see any problems with the Steel Ball parts…they are usually solid and never come off or malfunction…if they are the issue…you need a new linkage arm from the salvage yard. Pretty EZ Fix for you here.
Blackbird
The teeth between the transmission ( pivot ) and arm have most likely striped.
Sometimes a tightening of the nut is enough.
Sometimes a new arm is needed.
Take off the arm and look.
When new, an arm has NO teeth and only the pivot does, so when you tighten it down it then makes teeth marks in the arm.
Sometimes, and maybe only for a temporary repair…
Take a knife blade and scrape any aluminum residue out of the teeth on the pivot and re-tighten the arm down. If it hasn’t already scraped off too much from inside the blade this might work.
A second step would be to help the arm have new teeth by taking that knife blade or a sharp pick and scratch some ‘‘teeth’’ on the inner surface of the arm , then tighten them together.
We’re getting into the season when this happens most often, and the stupid stupid tv commercials ( usually for car batteries ) that show them staring up the car and zooming on the wipers with a full windshield of snow are the absolute worse for mis-guiding people that this practice is ok.
Scrape off your windshield FIRST…EVEN IF YOUR DEFROST HAS CLEARED IT ENOUGH TO SEE OUT !
AND…reach over with your hand and FREE the wipers from the glass…ALL…BEFOREyou operate the wipers !
in fact…clear ALL…ALL of your windows and exterior lamps of snow…BEFORE you even put it in drive.
Do not let ME catch you driving around with a single small circle in the rear glass.
And , while you have your snow brush in your hand…clear the snow off the roof, hood and trunk too. I’ve seen far too many drivers surprised when the get to a stop light 10 minutes into their trip and zzzzzswoosh comes an entire block of snow down into their widshied !
It cannot be the transmission on the motor as one wiper is working without problems. When one wiper works…and the other does not. It means that the non functioning wiper has come unattached from the linkage.
Blackbird