Tired of wet feet &ruined carpets?

If you’re like us, you spend countless hours getting your car ready to head to the track or local car show on the weekends and the last thing you want is for your ride to be rained on. Many a Mopar has stayed garaged on a cloudy day while the owner checks the forecast and watches the sky, hoping for the sun to peek out so he or she can enjoy the car. Eventually, however, we all take a chance and drive our cars when the weather is questionable, and,

more often than not, getting caught in the rain means redetailing the car, or worse yet, dealing with water leaks and wet feet. Water leaks aren’t just frustrating and un-comfortable; they’re bad for the car. Automotive carpeting can quickly become saturated with water, and if it’s not dried immediately the dye can run or it can stain, mildew, and deteriorate. Worse yet, once the carpet and underlying

insulation become waterlogged, water will stand on the car’s floor causing rust issues to both the car’s floor and the seat tracks. Since it’s nearly impossible to completely towel dry or vacuum water from soaked carpeting and insulation, the best way we’ve found to ensure your car won’t be water damage is to fix the source of the leaks.While some water leaks can be blamed on old weatherstripping, faulty windshield gaskets, or windows simply being left open, there is a major cause of water leaks in Mopars that is often overlooked or simply not thought of. The

windshield wipers in most of our cars have seals that seal the pivot arm to the inside of the cowl, and after thirty or forty years these seals deteriorate, dry rot, and break, allowing water to find its way through the seal, along the pivot arm shaft, and into the car’s floor. Wiper seal leaks are commonly misdiagnosed as damaged windshield gaskets or bad weather-stripping, so before you pull the windshield or purchase new window rubbers, you should consider replacing the wiper seals.

1. To remove the wiper pivot arms, it’s easiest to first remove the nut holding the linkage to the wiper mo-tor. The pivot arms can now be re-moved as a pair.

2. There is a special tool to remove the wiper arms, but we don’t have one. While the tool is certainly the best way to remove wiper arms, using a large flat-blade screwdriver with a shop rag or tape to protect the paint does work as long as you’re very careful.

3. You may not be able to get an electric impact to the nuts holding the pivot arms on if the dash is in the car. Luckily for us, we haven’t installed the dash yet so access is easy. If the dash is in your car, you can still remove the pivot arms with a wrench while lying on the front floorboard.

The good news about wiper seal leaks is that they are pretty easy to fix. Other than the discomfort of lying on your back on the car’s floor to remove the pivot arms, installing the seals is pretty straight forward and requires no special tools. We purchased the seals for our ’67 Barracuda from Year One and we were impressed with how inexpensive the kit was. While we’re installing seals on an A-body, most Mopar body styles have similar wiper seals so don’t be afraid to attempt this on your B- or E-body. Although this repair isn’t technically complicated, you should give yourself the better part of a day to

accomplish it, especially if you haven’t changed wiper seals before. Since we are in the process of putting our car back together for paint, our pivot arms were exposed, making the job somewhat easier. If you’re attempting the repair in your driver, removing the front seats and heater box will make it easier. So follow along as we show you how easy it is to replace windshield wiper seals. And soon you’ll enjoy cruising your car without having to duck into the nearest bank drive-thru or car wash when it starts raining!

4. Once removed, we discovered one of our pivot arms was locked up due to corrosion. Finding another one in better shape was an option, but we decided to attempt a repair first.

5. After spraying the wiper pivot with penetrating oil and placing it in a vice, we used channel locks to work the pivot back and forth until it broke free. Further oiling eventu-ally had the pivot working smoothly and saved us from purchasing a replacement.

6. The wiper seal kit from YearOne actually contains several compo-nents including the seals, gaskets, and strips of calking to seal the piv-ots to the inner cowl. Additionally, our kit came with grease fittings and instructions to install the fit-tings in the pivot arms so they can be lubricated with grease.

7. To properly locate the grease fit-tings in the pivots, we temporarily reinstalled the pivot arms and used a Sharpie to mark a place for the grease fittings that wouldn’t inter-fere with the wiper pivots when the wipers are functioning.

8. After marking both pivots, remove the assembly and drill the pivots for the grease fittings. The fittings are self-tapping and are easily installed with a socket or wrench.

9. Greasing the wiper pivot not only lubricates it for smooth operation, the grease acts as a water barrier as well.

10. We’re now ready to install our wiper seals, but first must install the felt gaskets as the gaskets won’t fit over the seals.

11. The seals themselves are a tight fit, so we lubricate the pivot as-sembly with dish detergent to make things a little easier.

12. Instead of trying to force the wiper seal over the splined pivot shaft, we discovered it’s easier to first put the seal on a 3/8-inch sock-et extension.

13. With the pivot assembly in a vise, use the socket extension as a guide to install the wiper seal. The big end of the extension will expand the seal so it slides over the pivot assembly easily.

14. After the seal is on the pivot, it can be worked into position onto the smallest diameter of the pivot shaft by hand.

15. With the seals in place, the strip-calk is now placed on the cir-cumference of the pivot shaft inside the felt gasket. While the seal keeps from entering the cowl area from the outside, the strip-calk and felt gasket keep water that gets into the cowl air box from draining through the lower cowl and onto the car’s floor.

16. With seals, gaskets, grease fit-tings, and calk installed, the pivot arm assemblies can be snaked back into position and reinstalled.

17. When reinstalling the pivot as-semblies, try to seat the seal in the cowl while keeping the pivot arm centered. The bottom of the pivot assembly (where the felt gasket is) should fit flush to the lower cowl.

18. With the pivots in place, tighten the retaining nuts and reinstall the wiper motor and wiper arms, and the job is complete. The great part of this job is that it only too about half a day to accomplish and the parts were less than 20 bucks.