Summertime brings storms to the Midwest, the kind of storms that dump inches of water at a moment’s notice. Ever since I got the Imperial running, I had functioning wipers. In Arizona, they maybe got turned on five times for actual weather; usually they only got used to wipe water away after I washed the car. Here in Kentucky, it’s a vastly different story. Storms and showers pop up with frequency and no wipers means camping or worse, “Honey, come get me.” I can’t have that. It happened at Hot Rod Reunion. Wickam and I were getting ready to leave the hotel, and there was a slight shower, just enough that I needed wipers. I hit the switch and only the driver’s side blade cooperated. He laughed and I swore.

The last time I messed with Mopar wipers was on my ’84 D100. The system is pretty basic, a simple linkage system held together with plastic bushings. But on the J-cars and the Newport/St. Regis, since the wipers are hidden, there is a setup on the drive motor that lets the wipers tuck under the hood, out of sight. I knew that I had popped the bushing off of the passenger side spindle drive, but figured that if I’m in there, I might as well check everything out, since it’s 31 years old and well-baked from the Arizona sun. Finding the linkage bushings is easy enough, most auto parts stores can at least order them in. Finding the big bushing on the end of the drive motor was nothing short of a bitch, and I ended up spending $75 on eBay for a kit. At least the kit is all-new parts and is very complete. Disassembly was easy: pull the two plastic leaf guards out of the cowl, reach in and grab the linkage…it fell right out. Three bolts drop the spindles, and the motor itself comes out after three nuts are removed from the mounting plate. The small bushings push in and that’s that. The big bearing, on the other hand, is actually four pieces composed into one that is nothing short of calculated evil. The swearing has been on a biblical level, and the creativity hasn’t been this high since I was fighting dash lights in the Mirada.

As of writing, I’m THIS CLOSE to getting it together, but it’s not complete…mainly because my hands don’t fit well in the cowl. These small little tasks are irritating, but I’d rather cuss out Iacocca while fixing them than let the car sit for a sunny day. Enjoy this quick look at a day of working on the Imperial (and be glad it’s not you doing it!)

If I flatten my hand, it’ll go in, but will scrape the skin off the top of my hand. You can see where the passenger spindle goes. The bushing is unreachable in the car.

These are the bushings, they go over the pin and pop into place, nothing to these at all.

The wiper motor out of the car. You can see the back half of the ‘big bushing’: The spring limits movement of the “cap” of the bushing.

And this is where I left off. Leverage is nonexistent, I don’t know if the spring has to be compressed, and it’s not fully seated on the motor’s pin.