windscreen wiper w124 E300

[peterw]

Help! I have been trying to lubricate the windscreen wiper slide mechanism on my 124. My car has a metal tortoise shell,not plastic. There is one screw on the underside which I have removed and this will allow the wider end of the shell to lift but not the top end where the blade attaches. Anyone have any bright ideas?
Thanks in anticipation.

 

[Lxb3]

That's unusual, I've never heard of a metal cover...

 

[hotrodder]

There's two more screws that hold the 'turtle shell' on and i'm afraid you have take the complete wiper out of the car and then strip it to access them- they're either side of the spindle and only reachable once the entire eccentric mechanism/turtle shell is removed from the rest of the wiper assembly. On the plus side this means the gears and linkage can be properly cleaned and lubed rather than just the cam & slide, on the downside it's a lot more involved than with the later plastic clip on turtle shell

The internets full of 'how tos' for w124 wipers, can't remember if anyones done the earlier type though. This is for the blower motor but shows taking the wiper out of the car as the blower motor lives under it. Later cars differ with regards to the windscreen trim/weather strips... PeachPartsWiki: Blower Motor Removal There are more detailed versions about, the peach parts one is just easy to find. Two of the four nuts holding the wiper are obvious, the other two are partially hidden, can just see the rubber mounted studs tucked up tight under the windscreen cut out in this pic and directly above the fan squirral cages...

If you can't find/no one posts a link to the relevant bits of the wiper motor i've got one with the early turtle shell and later windscreen rubber that i took out of my 320te. I can document taking it apart if you want


I hesitate to mention it as it's a proper bodge but people have been known to drill a hole at the base of the turtle shell and then go nuts with aerosol grease If this appeals note that there are already two drain holes in the underside at each bottom corner (probably found them when looking for screws) and what's left of the origional grease will be a hard, sticky, tar like gunge by now...

 

[Dec]

Would agree with the above about the drain holes, 4 drain holes can be seen in picture 13, 14, 16, 17, & 18 here… http://www.simnet.is/hlynzi/benz/wiper/MonoWiperv2a.pdf

Don’t know if lubricating through these drain holes that can actually be done but I would definitely try emptying a 500ml can of spray grease (with a straw attached ) through the 4 drain holes instead of taking that thing apart.

Dec

 

[hotrodder]

Nice one Dec. From memory it's next to impossible to get enough access to the drain holes to be able to direct lube into them with the wiper in the car. Out of the car it's easy but IMO once you've gone that far might as well strip it and do it properly... obviously depends how bad the wiper is but all that was left of the grease in mine was a hard, dry mess.

The MB instructions referred to in that pdf can be found here... 82 Lights, Wipers, Radio, Antenna, Misc Body Electrics

 

[Dec]

That what I mean, I should have said, you would never flood it with grease without turning it upside down.

Dec

 

[peterw]

Thanks for your speedy and detailed reply.I already have the entire wiper assembly(motor,linkage,tortoise shell) out of the car and on the bench.The fat end of the shell can be lifted forcibly with a screwdriver now that I have removed the one and only visible screw (Phillips head about M4 and about 5mm long.Very good of you to offer to take an old mechanism apart but I really didnt want anyone to have to go to such lengths.I feel I must be missing something obvious.Surely Mercedes would not make something that needs regular maintenance so difficult to get apart? I also own a 91 190E with the same setup.Thankfully it is OK at the moment.

 

[peterw]

Surely both your 124 cars have this metal tortoise shell cover over the windscreen wiper slide mechanism.My car is a 93 300 non turbo diesel about the same vintage as your two cars.I am pretty sure my car is not an import.Incidentally,when I say metal is it probably aluminium not steel. It is certainly not plastic.I will be interested in your reply
Regards,

 

[Dec]

Mercedes don’t fix things, the just let them brake down, in the case of the wiper, the never lubricate the sliding mechanism, if it does brake down then the just sell you a new one and charge for fitting it… around about about £700 I believe.

The modern ones have a plastic cover so very easy to lubricate, generally the whole mechanising is aluminium alloy, except for the parts you will be lubricating.

Before you can access the other two screws you first have to remove nut 1 and then lever off the crank arm 2, as illustrated here… http://www.w124performance.com/service/w124CD2/Program/Chassis/82-0760.pdf

Observe the align markings, the should line up when the wiper arm is in its normal parking position when the mechanism is on the windscreen.


You will then see a split type circlips washer, when this circlips washer is removed you will encounter a further 2 or 3 very thin (and hard so see) washers as you separate the “turtle shell” away from the rest of the mechanism.
Note where these washers are located on the shaft (that nut 1 was on) as you separate the “turtle shell” from the mechanism.

I think the “turtle shell” can only be separated from the mechanism while the “turtle shell” / wiper arm is in the 12 0’clock position.

Dec
Note the alignment markings on the W202 mechanism, yours may or may not be similar.

 

[hotrodder]

My '93 had the metal turtle shell with the later windscreen trim i.e. the weather strip is one piece and comes out of the car with the wiper assembly. It was barely functional when i bought the car and while stripping/rebuilding fixed the linkage it remained painfully slow. I was only after the motor but someone breaking a later w124 sold me the complete assembly for about £40 so it now has the later one with a clip on plastic cover. That's why i'm willing to take pics of it being being dismantled... once it's out of the car (and you've rebuilt one or two) it's quick and easy. The link and pic Dec has posted covers it anyway although there may be detail differences regarding any alingment marks etc

As he said once the centre nut (#1) has been undone and the linkage pulled off the spline you'll find a circlip or E clip etc, remove that (noting shims/washers) and the entire turtle shell assembly can now be removed once it's been rotated as though the wiper were vertical. Once that's done you'll see the other screws that were hidden- mine has a total of 3 holding the cover on, the one in the pdf has 5.

Dunno if these wipers started to give problems while the cars were still young enough for MB to care and as Dec said, 'care' would be along the lines of "you need a new wiper sir" instead of servicing it*. While it's possible that the later plastic cover was a nod to servicability it's more likely because it was cheaper to make. The mono wiper is a monumentally stupid thing anyway... some boffin comes up with a way to sweep a few extra percent of screen but is so fixated by that (and maybe symmetry) fails to spot the blindingly obvious flaw. One wiper sweeping 180° has to travel nearly twice as far as two wipers with sweep of ~100° so the stupid POS ended up with the worlds most powerful motor that physically rocks the car in a failed effort to get it to cope with heavy rain. Still, at least it looks cool

* They're not alone in that attitude or in the ballache to service things dept and the daft wiper is properly simple in the grand scheme of things... cambelt on pretty much any Audi (and there's probably far worse cambelt examples about, Audis look spectacular 'cause you take the entire front of the car off). Oh, google 'range rover sport turbo change'

 

[peterw]

Thank you Hotrodder and Dec.I will tackle this wiper mechanism this weekend.I will let you know how I get on.