My windshield wipers, mostly the drivers side do more of a shudder back and forth instead of a smooth slide.

I am guessing this is bushings in the linkage being worn?

Has anyone done this project. I see plenty of videos for changing the motor itself, but none for the bushings on this body style.

 

How new are the blades? How clean is the glass?

I find new blades work smooth and wipe great. Then a few months later, it skips and shutters horrible. The strange thing is it is always the drivers side. Nearly NEVER the passenger side.

Is it the window shape? I have change arms around, even got a new FOMOCO arm and still shutters on the drivers side.

 

Yep. blades are fairly new and I'm pretty good at cleaning the glass when getting gas.

It does a full swipe, no dead spots where the blade isn't touching, it just skips along when it chatters.

 

Yup, same issue I've had on most all my Ford trucks, dating back to my '70 F100. The drivers side ALWAYS gives me grief.

Take a soapy rag or some window cleaner and clean the blades really well. See if that doesn't help.

 

I would be putting a fresh set of DIFFERENT blades on.

I JUST went thru this putting winter blades on. Chattered and jerked. Threw them in the trash and put on a set of beam wipers. Smooth as could be

 

I've had this issue a few times and once just recently. It did seem to always be the driver side. Other than fresh good blades and a clean windshield, the arm may not allow the blade to rest perpendicular to the glass. You can give the arm a little twist with an adjustable wrench or pliers. This is what I had to do.

 

I tried those beam style on my '89. That lasted one rainstorm and I threw them away and went back to std metal arm. They left a ton of water and streaks. Didn't wipe clean and my thought was they were not stiff enough to press down completely on the glass. Maybe it was the brand? Don't recall now.

I just put new blades on annually. Winter blades early Dec, summer blades early spring.

 

Its going to be raining here for the next 3 days. I'll go get a new set of blade today and see what happens. If it keeps it up, I'll get some video of how it looks when its acting up. This is more than a shutter or skipping, its and actual jerking back and forth as it sweeps across the windshield.

 

Any play in the wiper pivot(s)?

 

I just had a new windshield installed and new wipers too and had the screech noise when the blade just starts off of the bottom when there isn't a lot of water on glass.

I used a crescent wrench on the arm just behind where the blade attaches and gave a little twist to slightly bend the arm.

The screech disappeared from the lift off, but then I developed a chatter on the way down.
Took crescent wrench to it and undid some of the initial twist and they now seem to work great.

I think it is about finding that sweet spot...a happy medium if you will.
Look at the blade to the glass orientation. Like said up there^^^^^ the blade should be at 90 degrees to glass when at rest and slightly lifted from surface.

 

I remembered I have slow mo vid ability. Here it is with the old blades showing how the arm starts and stops. New blades helped quite a bit, but I am still thinking that the bushings might need some attention soon.

Also, notice how the passenger arm takes off to go back down before the drivers side.

 

They sell new bushings in the help section of a lot of auto parts stores, but I have found that there is usually slop in the wiper transmissions as well.

New bushings alone won't necessarily tighten it up 100%.

 

The passenger blade starts to move back down before the driver’s side. I’d say there is too much play in the linkage/transmission.

 

You have to pull the cowl to get to all that linkage. Just a PITA, as I replaced a motor on my '89 once.

Both arms connect to the same shaft at the motor, so the bushings are likely gone and the reason they move at different times.