So, Ill preface this with a short story.
Customer brought a car to me for Fuel line update. A process that includes the removal of the tank ... All went well & the car went back together & outside to get a bath prior to PU. After its wash hop in to move it, hit the wipers that creak to life, sweep .5 way across the windshield ...& stop.

So this is a cautionary tale to suggest if you've never serviced you Windshield wiper assembly, you might consider it.
Those of you in the warmer climes probably are less concerned but here in the PNW their function is pretty important, if you drive your car.
The design of the cowl lends itself to allowing water to get into the shafts & of course rust to follow.
Even rusted they may work ... albeit slowly. The motor laboring to grind the shafts in the bushed collars until... either the motor gives it up or they just seize.
Like this customer's car.
Motor is fine, the shafts rusted to the point they no longer will turn.

Thanks for the warning. I know I will be under there this summer and will definitely lube up the joints.

Cautionary tale, never wash a 914 with water.

Yep, 50 yr old white grease has dried up. Getting like the rest of us, old and slow.

And (partially) dried up.

So ... one side of the the offending assembly
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The shaft & collar separated from the linkage assy (for pictures)
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The hidden ugliness
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What the compromised shafts do to the collars overtime (the other side was worse)
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what the collars are supposed to look like
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Textured!

Patina ~

Wow those shafts are bad,combined with a tired motor with gummed up grease in the gearcase its a wonder the fuse didn't blow ??.
Haynes manual mentions 3.5 amps on full speed.

My wipers just quit working a few weeks ago I’ll soon be doing the same thing! And while I’m in there I’ll fix the not working fresh air blower motor, fun times ahead!

@914werke

Rich, can you post some pics of the fix? What do you do? Sand smooth as best as possible, grease and good to go or get new shafts bushings etc.?

Pretty much find a new rack.
I had a couple of (lrg) tubs of racks and tore apart maybe 8 or 9 to find 2 or 3 that were still in good shape. The shafts have to have a fairly tight tolerance in the bushed collars otherwise the wipers will wobble exacerbating the problem.
The other challenge is that racks were not designed for ease of rebuilding / re-bushing.
What I did in figuring out how to "rebuild" them was grind off the peened swivels from the shafts then drill & tap those (what I call) swivels so I could reattach good shafts.
Ultimately a LOT of work. better off finding a rack that is still not worn/rusted to sh*t.

Click to view attachment

Oh crap! Glad more than ever mine work and feel tight. That is a lot of work.

BTW this is what a shaft is supposed to look like

Any good tips on how to get a rusted one apart? I have a spare assembly from a parts car, I got one side off but the other is pretty rusted and won’t budge. I have it in the sonic cleaner now if that doesn’t work I’ll try soaking it over night in Evapo rust.

Good advice there, keep your shafts lubed as they get older. Need to be in working order in case the need should arise.

I like this thread, never had to take a 914 unit apart. Not a light task!