How to Replace Wiper Transmission Motor 2005-11 Honda Civic

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

We're going to take our windshield wiper arms off. If your windshield's kind of dirty, there's probably lines where the wiper blades were to give you a sort of reference point when you put them back on. If not, you can just sort of throw a piece of tape. That's where that lower one is going to meet that one.

The top of the other one's going to meet right about here. It just gives you an idea when you put them back on how to line them up. Remove the wiper arm. I'm going to pop this plastic cap off. Just kind of grab it. It pops right off. Big nut over here that's holding on the wiper arm. It is 14 millimeter. I'm going to loosen it. I'm going to spray some rust penetrate in here to help this slide off of the wiper transmission. Just put some rust penetrate in there.

I just lifted up the arm and I just kind of wiggled it back and forth. It came right off. And just repeat for the other side. We're going to open our hood. There are two positions for the prop rod. There's a normal position and then there's also a further maintenance position. So I'm going to set it in that one. Get a little more access to get this cowl panel off.

I'm going to start by removing this weather seal. Simply just lift it and pull it right off. Let me put that aside so we can reuse it. To remove this upper part of the cowl cover, there's three clips. There's one here, one in the center, and then one on the passenger side. So I'm going to use a clip prying tool. Slide it under there. You can kind of feel the clip underneath. Just try to pop it up. I'm just going to use the needle nose pliers to squeeze the clip together underneath. Pop it up. I'm going to lift up this center part. Just kind of pull it off of the metal. Pull it out and up. It's got clips to it. Lift it straight out. It's got a bunch of clips. Get the other side free. This one's just kind of stuck in it. Push down here. I'm going to lift up here. There we go. Kind of roll it forward because the washer, window washer, hose is underneath. Pop it out.

Let's see. There's a coupler right here, so I will disconnect it right here. Clip that back in. You can see all of the clips that are holding this in. We take us out. Move this metal cowl piece that's underneath the plastic. There are two 12 millimeter bolts on both the driver's and the passenger side, and then a 10 millimeter bolt in front of those on bolt the driver and the passenger side.

I'm going to start with the 10 millimeter bolts. Put that bolt aside. These look a little bit rusty, so I'm going to spray some rust penetrate on them. Again, I'm working on the 10 millimeter one first. Switch to a 12 millimeter socket to remove these two bolts. I'm going to spray some rust penetrate on these. Now I move them out a little bit. I'm going to turn them back in, because I want to work the rust penetrate into the threads. Now I'm going to start turning them back out. I may have to repeat this a couple of times to get them to come out smoothly. And I've gotten it out without breaking it.

And the same over here with some rust penetrate. We're going to just do the same thing. Go in and out, applying rust penetrance, just trying to work it in the threads so these bolts come out smoothly. In addition to these bolts, there's one bolt at the rear that's sort of vertical on either side, both the driver's and the passenger side. I'm going to spray some rust penetrant on that one because we can see the backside of it. This is a 10 millimeter. Got it broken free.

I'm going to reach in there. I'm going to remove it with my hand. And do the same for the bolt on the other side. One final 10 millimeter bolt directly in the middle. Spray some rust penetrant in there as best I can. Just trying to get that bolt out and to fall at least on this cowl piece. Didn't sound like it went all the down, so maybe it's still caught in the cowl piece.

I'm going to carefully pull the cowl piece out. Actually, I can see the bolts. Fell down here under the wiper transmission. So I get it. You want to be careful removing this. It’s got some thin edges on here. You could cut your hands, so just be careful taking this out of here and handling it.

We're going to put it aside, because we can definitely reuse this obviously. With the wiper arms out of the way, I can pop these covers out. Pull the washer hose out from underneath. Just slip it out. I'm just going to repeat it for this side. This one has a clip in it. Pull that clip out. This little door that goes on there. Before I remove the wiper transmission with the motor attached, I'm going to reach in, push the lock in, and unplug it. I might probably need two hands because it's a little tight in here, so I'm going to push it down with my thumb and kind of wiggle it off. Pull it out.

There's six bolts holding in the wiper transmission. There's two here in the passenger side. We'll move along. There’s one in the middle, one up here, and then two over here in the driver's side. Spray some rust penetrant as I remove these. I may need to spray some more down in the threads. I'm using a 10 millimeter socket ratchet. And then remove the center one. Just take note that the center one is a lot longer. Remove these two ones in the passenger side.

These passenger side ones are a lot longer because they have to go through rubber bushings. I'm going to start at the driver's side. I've got to lift it out. Reach down, and lift it off of the mount. Just kind of maneuver it out from below the cowl panel. There's our wiper transmission.

To remove the motor, we'll need to pop this arm off of the motor arm. I'm going to use a pry bar. Just gently pop it up. Put that aside. It's a little ball socket, and pops right off. Need to remove this arm. I'm just going to spray a little oil on here. It helps clean it off. There is a mark—this triangle. Should line up with the middle of those three marks right there.

To remove the 17 millimeter nut, I'm going to take some slip joint pliers and just hold this arm, because otherwise when you go to turn it off, it will just spin on the motor. I'm going to spray some rust penetrate in here. I need to break this arm off of the splines. I'm going to use this little ball peen hammer to kind of tap it a little bit. Flip it over. Perfect.

So what happens is, just like a wiper arm, there's little splines in the motor. The splines are pushed into this metal piece and that's what keeps it from slipping, so they get seized on there, you just got to pop it off. Spray some rust penetrate on these. These are three 10 millimeter bolts that are holding the motor into the wiper transmission. I'm going to break these free and just spin them out. The motor should pull right off the wiper transmission.

This wiper motor and transmission was working just fine. We just wanted to take it apart to show you how to do that. So now we're going to reinstall it. Take our wiper motor, place it up into here. Get the bolt holes lined up. Reinstall the bolts. Use a very light torque, about 5-1/2 foot-pounds. So I'm just going to bring them down evenly and lightly hand tighten them. Place it on the motor shaft. It should fit over the splines. I'm going to hold it in place. Put the lock washer back on and the nut. I'm going to torque this nut to 23 foot-pounds.

Before you reconnect this, make sure that this is lined up here. This way when you install the entire wiper transmission, the wipers will be at the parked position. This should just pop back on.

This is the wiper transmission. This rubber mount or grommet looking thing, when installing needs to go up here on the firewall. I'm going to start by sliding in the passenger side of this. Just kind of work it in between the engine and the cowl. I'm going to swing this around so it's not dragging across the fender. You also want be careful. This is a big metal bar. You don't want to accidentally cross it against your terminals in your battery. Just be aware. Snake this up and in there. Slide this over here. This passenger side needs to come out and it needs to sit on top of the sheet metal like that.

Now this can go back. And I can just see it. It's pushing up into place. It's not going to really want to stay there, because the weight of it is going to make it fall down. So I've got the grommet up into place, I'm going to catch this center bolt to help me keep this thing from moving around. So I'm getting one of those long bolts. Thread it in. Now I can deal with attaching the other bolts. All right. So these longer bolts go on the passenger side. I'm just going to move it and line up the holes. I'm going to tighten these down until I feel these get snug. I'm going to stop. I'm going to lift up the driver's side. Lay it in place. There's actually a couple pins right here. Just on this side. It lines up with that opening right there. Install the bolts. Tighten them up.

I need to install this one that's in here. It's a little trickier. I'm going to tighten the middle one now. I'm going to plug the motor back in. You don't want to forget to plug it back in because then your wipers won't work. I'm going to keep going one way. Push it into a lock when it's connected.

I'm going to reinstall the outer plastic cover on the passenger side. It's got one clip here. It's going to clip into here. Obviously the wiper part is going to go through the middle. There's this part is kind of a U shape. It's flexible. It's going to go underneath the fender, and you're just going to kind of maneuver this in here. It's going to go underneath this too.

I'm going to start by going up through. Get up this way. It's kind of a rubber, soft rubber, piece underneath. Pop it over. That comes out. That’s okay. Just put that aside. This also clips in underneath. Clip that underneath there. Just going to work this underneath that piece of plastic, and work this under and up and clip that into place. There's supposed to be a clip here like these. It's missing. Not a big deal. Clip this little door back in place. All right. Slide the driver side one into place just like the passenger side. I'm going to put a push clip in.

We're reinstalling the lower cowl piece. Slip that right into place. I'm going to start by installing the 10 millimeter bolts back in place. Since the bolts in the middle is really in there deep and I don't want to drop it, I'm going to take some masking tape and just stick it on the bolt head. It just helps the bolt stay in there. I'm going to use a driver handle with my extension. It's a little more control on it. I'm going to have to move this around a bit. If the tape stayed there no big deal. I'm going to install this one that's in here.

Now I'm going to work on the 12 millimeter bolts that were in here. Before I put the plastic trim back, I'm just going to take some glass cleaner and just clean up the base of the windshield. I'm going to reinstall the plastic trim. Don't forget to reconnect your windshield washers because otherwise they won't work for you. It will just be spraying windshield washer fluid underneath here. Plug the connector back in. Flip this back up. Get it lined up in place. Push your clips down.

Get this side lined up. Just got to reinstall the clips. One on the outside there. One in the middle. One here on the driver's side. I was just going to reinstall our under hood seal. You can see it's been contoured. It matches up with the contour of this. I'm going to put it in the same exact way. It just pushes right down over the plastic, just along, push it in place. These wiper arms are left and right dependent, so passenger and driver's side. This is the driver's side. So just a clue, it's got this little bend to it. The end of it is slightly longer and molded on the inside is DR. So to reinstall this, I'm just going to flip it up. Make sure the cap's off. I'm going to kind of eyeball it. I can sort of see marks if you didn't use tape. But I've got a pretty good idea. It should sit right about here in the windshield. That looks good.

Obviously you don't want to install it so it's like ... You know if it's sitting like that it's not going to work for you. Or you know too low. These are kind of in line with this black painted part of the windshield. Going to reinstall the nut and going to tighten it down. You don't want to go super tight but just enough. It feels good there. Reinstall the cap. Move to the other side. Got to flip this up. The passenger side one goes below the driver's side. It doesn't go up here, it goes below. So kind of eyeball it. Yep, too high. That looks perfect right there. Can also see it kind of lines up with this contour here. Reinstall the nut. Tighten it down. Reinstall the cap. The wiper arm is replaced.

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