Do windshield wiper motors fail by becoming weak?

[roger wiegand]

In my dad's 51 chevy pickup the vacuum wiper motor died and we tied a rope to each of the wipers and then in through the windows on each side; one of us kids would alternately pull on the ends of the rope to make the wipers operate.

[Warren Lake]

Roger how many different speeds did you have?

[Kev Williams]

so I totally missed the 'passenger side' part

So since I have no idea how the linkage is setup, I found some good pics-
wl1.jpgwl2.jpg


From the looks of it, about all that could be causing the problem is either

the wiper mount splines are worn out (could be splines on the wiper OR the linkage),
wl3a.jpg



Or the linkage connection spline is worn out and slipping
wl4.jpg


OR it might be some is amiss with another of the arm connections?

If it's not the wiper itself, the entire linkage setup is for sale on eBay for all of $39...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/28404600739...saAkV7EALw_wcB

[Stephen Tashiro]

It turns out that on the 2011 Corolla, the metal windshield wiper arm is held to the linkage mechanism by a connection that uses a rubber ring to hold the two together only by friction. Tightening the nut that presses them together fixed the problem. The only thing I had to take off to do this was the little plastic cap on the arm that covers the nut.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Haven't had a wiper problem since my 1963 Studebaker Lark. We were on a road trip back from Florida and ended up with sneaker laces tied to the wipers to pull them back and forth by hand.