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Old 09-07-2017, 09:15 PM   #1
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
State: Missouri
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THOR #4471
Windshield Wipers get stuck

On a 2016 Ford Thor Hurricane the windshield wipers travel too far to the drivers side of the windshield and when it is windy they will get stuck all the way to the drivers side. The passenger wiper actually travels below the windshield rubber molding and the end of it gets stuck below the drivers wiper mounting bolt. This usually happens when the wipers are on full speed.
I had read somewhere on this forum that the fix is to remove the arm from the drive bolt and reinstall it 1 notch counterclockwise from the original position. After removing the nut from the wiper drive bolt I expected to see a splined drive bolt.
Instead there is a special bolt that has been cut flat on two sides and is threaded on the radius sides. The wiper arm will not slide off of the drive bolt, so I am needing to find out how to remove the arm from the bolt so that I can reposition it more counterclockwise on the drive bolt.
Does anyone know how to get wiper arm off the drive bolt?
Thanks
Tim Parks
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Old 09-08-2017, 07:43 PM   #2
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That is interesting. I used my wipers for the first time this July and mine did the same thing you are saying yours did. The driver side goes up to about the 3" from edge of glass and passenger side drops down below the windshield and they both sit there and twitch until you stop and physically move them back into place where the motor shuts off. Took it into the dealer today thinking it would be covered under recall, nope Thor will only pay to tighten the nuts on the arms. Has anyone else had this issue? If so, would you all be willing to contact the NHTSA to force Thor to solve the problem at their expense?
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Old 09-08-2017, 09:54 PM   #3
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THOR #4443
I believe you would need a 2 jaw puller
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Old 09-08-2017, 11:27 PM   #4
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THOR #1183
Basically we were screwed by Thor. Two distinct different problems and Thor lumped them both into the easiest and cheapest for a recall. Problem number two is what you had. PLEASE REPORT.
http://www.thorforums.com/forums/f17...orks-5811.html
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Old 09-09-2017, 12:21 AM   #5
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On mine if you pull the arm off you will see a small part that was cracked.

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Old 09-09-2017, 12:24 AM   #6
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Thor has a recall

I got a letter from them to go to a dealer and have the issue fixed, seems some nut was getting loose and causing problems... I don't want to park my RV at the dealer for 3 months to fix it so for now just cruising.. not much rain where I live.. maybe ask next time at CW super center...

My wipers work fine, but of course any wind they don't stick to the windshield.. so barley work,, if I lived back in Florida I would buy the wipers with the wind edge on them.
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Old 09-09-2017, 12:27 AM   #7
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When mine started flopping around I found the nut was loose. I tightened it and it only made it a few miles and was doing it again. That is when I took it apart and found the part above broken in half. I think if it is loose it is able to snap.
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Old 09-10-2017, 01:23 PM   #8
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Change to Nylon Nut this worked for me.Click image for larger version

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Old 09-13-2017, 01:13 AM   #9
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In the high heat of summer the rubber blades act like glue to the windshield this over works the whole electrical and mechanical aspects of the wiper arm assembly. Not saying that Thor is to blame
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Old 09-13-2017, 03:40 AM   #10
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Try this:
Remove the nut, then flip the wiper back until it locks into to the outward position. That should remove the tension the arm is placing on the shaft.
You should be able to jostle the arm now and get it to slip off the shaft.
The shaft has two flat sides at its base. There is a tapered knuruled driver that slides onto the shaft (shown above). If that part is stuck in the wiper arm when you get it off you can tap it out with a screwdriver or other tool from the top to make it fall out of the wiper arm. If you over tighten the nut, you might crack the knurled part. So check it before you put it back on the shaft. The wiper arm has the same little knurled pattern so you can increment the position you desire the arm to be in as you re-assemble. I usually keep the wiper flipped back while I reposition the arm, then lay the arm back down to judge its position, repeat until you are happy wth the position and the install the washer and nut...carefully tightened. Somewhere on this site is a post with the torque setting for the nut.
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Old 09-13-2017, 08:11 PM   #11
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THOR #5647
Windshield Wipers get stuck

Quote:
Originally Posted by scooterdudetim1 View Post
On a 2016 Ford Thor Hurricane the windshield wipers travel too far to the drivers side of the windshield and when it is windy they will get stuck all the way to the drivers side. The passenger wiper actually travels below the windshield rubber molding and the end of it gets stuck below the drivers wiper mounting bolt. This usually happens when the wipers are on full speed.
I had read somewhere on this forum that the fix is to remove the arm from the drive bolt and reinstall it 1 notch counterclockwise from the original position. After removing the nut from the wiper drive bolt I expected to see a splined drive bolt.
Instead there is a special bolt that has been cut flat on two sides and is threaded on the radius sides. The wiper arm will not slide off of the drive bolt, so I am needing to find out how to remove the arm from the bolt so that I can reposition it more counterclockwise on the drive bolt.
Does anyone know how to get wiper arm off the drive bolt?
Thanks
Tim Parks
Attachment 6831


Have the same problem with my 2017 Hurricane 34j. Left it with camping world for a total of 6 weeks. They claimed to be working on it all that time. Needing parts blah blah BS. In the end they said the just tightened it up and said it was a Ford issue. I've come to expect no less from CW. Gotta find someone else to work on it. I'm finished with CW forever. Anyway, right now if I run it on low it's ok, but know it's just a matter of time.
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Old 09-18-2017, 05:59 PM   #12
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Warning!! My wipers motor nuts came loose

On my last trip I hit rain for many hours, I saw the wiper was going off the window and down a little to much. I pulled over at the nearest exit. I knew about the nut holding it could come loose, had forgot to check it.. anyway, the large nut that holds the motor to the frame was loose. I took a large cresent wrench and tighten it up, as well as the small one, which was a little loose also. Solved the problems. I suggest everyone check the big and small nut before your next trip!!! I did my fix in a downpour, when I go back on my next trip I will locktite them.. The big nut I refer to is just below the wiper arm, mine partly covered by rubber. When loose I could position it a little, it is not in a tight hole..so this may fix the poster's problem also..




Quote:
Originally Posted by scooterdudetim1 View Post
On a 2016 Ford Thor Hurricane the windshield wipers travel too far to the drivers side of the windshield and when it is windy they will get stuck all the way to the drivers side. The passenger wiper actually travels below the windshield rubber molding and the end of it gets stuck below the drivers wiper mounting bolt. This usually happens when the wipers are on full speed.
I had read somewhere on this forum that the fix is to remove the arm from the drive bolt and reinstall it 1 notch counterclockwise from the original position. After removing the nut from the wiper drive bolt I expected to see a splined drive bolt.
Instead there is a special bolt that has been cut flat on two sides and is threaded on the radius sides. The wiper arm will not slide off of the drive bolt, so I am needing to find out how to remove the arm from the bolt so that I can reposition it more counterclockwise on the drive bolt.
Does anyone know how to get wiper arm off the drive bolt?
Thanks
Tim Parks
Attachment 6831
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Old 09-19-2017, 03:18 AM   #13
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The base of the wiper arm IS knurled. The small driver shown above that gets placed on the double flat shaft is also knulred so you can mate the two at the desired position before tightening.
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Old 09-19-2017, 05:36 AM   #14
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THOR #4471
Windshield Wipers get stuck

Thank you all for your replies to my dilemma.

So I got the wiper arm off by taking a large flat head screw driver and putting it between the back of the wiper blade and the face of the large mounting nut that is covered by a rubber protector. The tapered spline nut remained on the shaft. No matter where I placed the wiper blade on the splined nut, counterclockwise or clockwise, it still continued to get stuck on the driver side. I called my local RV repair shop and the guy there told me that I have to take the rubber protector off of the large mounting nut and tighten that large nut, as the entire bearing/driveshaft assembly was spinning with the wiper blade. He told me to stop the drivers wiper when it was in the vertical position and then line the passenger wiper driveshaft up at the same angle that the driver side was In. After tightening the nut and reassembling the wiper blade on the driveshaft, it continued to get stuck on the driver side. So I took the wiper blade back off and tried realigning the bearing/driveshaft assembly in a different position counter clockwise, then reassembled the wiper blade and it still got stuck on the driver side.
I started to get suspicious of what the drive linkage was doing under the hood in regard to this issue. So I activated the wipers and watched the drive arms and linkage travel until they got in the stuck position. I noticed that the Z shaped arm on the motor output shaft would bend from the motor torque when it was in the stuck position. It was bent so far that it was actually scraping against the motor mount bracket and the bolts that held the mounting bracket in place. I took the Z shaped arm off of the wiper motor output shaft and noticed that there was a crack in the steel right where the angle changed in the Z configuration. I straightened the arm back out, and then put some JB weld over the cracked area in an attempt to help reinforce the joint. The first time I reactivated the wipers after reinstalling the arm, it got bent again right back to the same position as before. I also noticed that the arm for the passenger wiper that is on the underhood side of the bearing/driveshaft assembly would also bend under the torque of the motor when the wipers got stuck. The arm appeared to be connected to the bearing/driveshaft assembly in a press fit condition on the end of the driveshaft, but it had become wollered out due to the lateral motion that the motor torque caused when the window wipers were stuck. From the underside of the hood, the entire bearing/driveshaft assembly is concealed in a fiberglass box that looks like it was cast at the same time that the front fiberglass body was cast. In other words, there was no way that I could see to actually get to the bearing/driveshaft assembly without pulling either the windshield or the entire front dashboard on the inside of the cabin.
So I took the wiper blade off again and repositioned the bearing/driveshaft assembly a little bit further counterclockwise. As I was tightening the large nut back down again, the threaded stem that the large nut tightens on to and secures the bearing/Driveshaft assembly to the body snapped, and I was then just screwed.
I ended up having to take the passenger wiper arm off and just travel down the road with the drivers wiper only. Better one than two that get stuck!! Luckily I only had to travel from Long Beach to north of Los Angeles.
When I returned home, I went out to the RV The next morning and started it to move it into the driveway to do some work on it. The windshield wiper that was still operating now would not shut off at all. If I turned the engine on and off multiple times, sometimes the wiper would stop on its own. It seemed to do it the most when I would push the wash button on the end of the wiper arm control. As the RV was scheduled to go cross country with another driver that day, I ended up having to wire in a switch that would turn the power on or off to the wiper motor. The RV made it to the middle of Colorado, then the wiper motor would not turn on at all, regardless of the position of the switch that I wired in. The new driver checked all the fuses in the box under the hood, but could not determine if any of them were blown. He ended up just driving it from the middle of Colorado to Kansas City with no windshield wipers at all.

In summary I would say that there is a design flaw that had occurred in the windshield wiper system on this RV.
I believe that the momentum generated by the large wiper arms and blades when in the fast setting, and definitely when in windy conditions, is too great for the size of the bearing/driveshaft assembly, the connector arms, and possibly the linkage, to control all the way back to the motor output shaft.

The RV is scheduled to go in the shop on Tuesday 9/19, So I will update on what it takes to fix this design flaw permanently when we get it out of the shop.
People's lives are in jeopardy due to this condition.
We intend on publicizing the results on as many platforms as we can In order to get Thors attention as to the severity of this problem.
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Old 09-19-2017, 08:21 AM   #15
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I also experienced the same with the mounting nut

Sent from my SM-S903VL using Thor RV Forum mobile app
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Old 09-20-2017, 11:42 AM   #16
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THOR #7607
I will be intrested also in what you find out. My RV was wrecked and the bodyshop removed the entire wiper system from the old front cap and installed it on the new front cap. I kept having problems with the drivers wiper going off the side of the RV and getting stuck. I took the whole thing off several times by removing the arms and the two large nuts. The the entire mechanism can be pushed back through the cap and removed from the RV. No matter how I had positioned the arms the driver side had too much travel. I finally determined that the driver side and the passenger side have different ranges of motion and that the entire unit was upside down. So I have flipped it over and put it back in place.
Now the drivers side has about a 90 degree range which should allow it to work without going below the bottom of the windshield and stop at a verticle position and not go beyond the edge of the windshield. The passenger wiper can have a 120 degree range which should be just fine too. On mine the z linkage you referenced is facing down. It had been facing up. It was necessary to unclip the cover on the air filter in order to get the unit back through the holes in the front cap. Once inserted all the way, the air filter cover can be secured again. I even compared mine to a new unit at an RV dealership to be sure the orientation is correct.
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Old 09-20-2017, 01:29 PM   #17
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When I was adjusting mine after I messed with it for a long while because there's no real sweet spot the way it's set up. I want others opinion on this.... I was thinking on heating up the windshield wiper arm right at the curve and just bending it a little bit let it cool and respray that part flat black...any thoughts on that? You wouldn't have to take anything apart.
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Old 09-20-2017, 01:50 PM   #18
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Did you get the knurled part out of the arm? Once you put that on the shaft then you can orient the arm to a lower starting position.
Bending the arm will also make it go lower on the down stroke.
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Old 09-20-2017, 02:26 PM   #19
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I do have an Axis 24.1 must be different type of wiper set up when I pulled the arm off there was a cone shaped pot metal piece that the wiper arm was pressed fitted on no knurled edges just seem to be pressed on by downforce by tightening the nut
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SSF-106-40 SumoSprings Solo Front Bump Stop SSR-107-47 SumoSprings Rear Bump Stop
Hellwig 7718 Front Sway Bar & 7180 Rear Sway Bar
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Old 09-20-2017, 07:29 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brucev View Post
That is interesting. I used my wipers for the first time this July and mine did the same thing you are saying yours did. The driver side goes up to about the 3" from edge of glass and passenger side drops down below the windshield and they both sit there and twitch until you stop and physically move them back into place where the motor shuts off. Took it into the dealer today thinking it would be covered under recall, nope Thor will only pay to tighten the nuts on the arms. Has anyone else had this issue? If so, would you all be willing to contact the NHTSA to force Thor to solve the problem at their expense?
UPDATE:
Got a call from the dealer and Thor refused the repair. The dealer repaired it under the extended warranty I purchased with the coach. Replaced and adjusted the motor. $200 deductible for the wiper motor and new TV. Guess the warranty will come in handy.
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