How To Replace a Winshield Wiper Motor

3. First, disconnect the battery under the hood. Then unplug themotor from the car. You should be able to reach the plug with yourfingers.

4. Next, unbolt the wiper-arm linkage from the motor. There'smore than one way to do it, depending on what's easier for you and oneach individual car. We accessed the motor by removing thespeaker/defroster grille on top of the dash, at which point we took thisshot showing a wrench on the nut that holds the wiper-arm linkage inplace. You can access the motor from here or from under the dash.Another thing that helped was an ignition wrench. Its small size andnarrow shape made it easier to get to the nut that holds the wiper-armlinkage to the motor.

5. With the linkage disconnected, there were three mounting boltsthat needed to be removed. On this car, we accessed them from under thedash with a 1/4-inch drive ratchet and correctly-sized socket, as shownhere. Again, a small correctly-sized ignition wrench might make thistask easier.

6. With the three bolts removed and the ground wire unplugged(still plugged in here), the motor came out from under the dash. Afterwe switched a couple parts from the old motor to the new one, as shownin the following steps, we were ready to reinstall the new motor.

7. This gives a view of the shape and location of the mountingholes for the three bolts. Of course, in the center of those is wherethe wiper-arm linkage attaches to the motor.

8. The mounting tab for the ground wire needed to be switched tothe new motor. For this application, we needed a screwdriver to removethe tab from the old motor...