I will make another post to introduce myself but I’ve been fortunate enough to purchase a very special 914 that you may know from their forum as “Snoopy” this is my first question for the 914.

I’m shipping a car next week been (delivered to the dock and on the way) I noticed that the wipers are moving very slowly. When the car arrives I’ll probably need to drive it and there’s a good possibility that it’s raining. Any thoughts on the culprit and a list of tools needed would be much appreciated!

Pete

If you are talking slow on a dry windshield, mine are slow too. Once the lubrication kicks in (rain) they get moving. Not the greatest help, but that’s my experience. I remember my Beetle being like that too 30+ years ago...

Normally there are two causes for slow wipers. To fix either require pulling the wiper assembly out of the car. And to do that, you have to pull the fresh air blower. That in itself is a task. But there are threads on here that cover it.


The two causes are:

1. Rusted shafts on the wiper frame. Water builds up in the wells where the wiper shafts come through the cowl. So the water drips down the shaft and causes rust on the shafts. That slows down the wipers. To fix it, you have to pull the shafts out of the wiper frame, and clean the rust off of them.

2. The motor is tired. All you can do there is replace the wiper motor.


Hope that helps.

Clay

quick fix is to pull off arms and black plastic cover and spray penetrating oil on shafts ,,
Hope it helps..has worked for me on a couple..

The penetrating oil helps. I've done that with mine many many years ago and it helped a lot.

Mine also get slow when they are not used for a while. I found the best thing for it is to run them. This spring I got caught in a multi-day storm, and I had to drive a couple hundred miles in it in the 914. Between rain-x and the slow wipers I was able to make the drive safely. But I also noted that my wipers were working MUCH better after running for a while and the motor was not drawing as much power. Probably old hard grease getting warmed up and worked over and actually being a lubricant again.

Zach

Thanks for the tips. I had been using them on the trip from Portland up to Seattle and they were working fine. A couple of days later I went needed them again and they were barely moving. The first half stroke seems about normal then they slow way down- barely moving. And I didn't want to run them like that for fear of straining/damaging the motor. The car has been assembled recently enough that I doubt rust is the issue but on the other hand this is probably the first time the car has seen rain since the rebuild.

It did occur to me that there might not be enough rain to lubricate the windshield surface- but even when it came down harder I had the same problem.

I'll look into what it takes to pull the fresh air box etc. and be prepared to do so. I'll try the easy stuff first of course. Doug did add a little WD40 to the blades originally. Maybe adding a bit more would help.

Ant tips of removal much appreciated!

Thanks,

Pete

Also spray penetrating oil on the pivots behind the airbox. You need to lube everything on our cars that pivots, hinges or slides. All the original lubrication has dries up and lack of lube puts a lot of stress on anything that moves.

The wipers on our Beetle work like my knees. Very slow to move at first, but once they get going they seem to work fine.