2004 accord ex wiper free play problems
 

First off, thanks for taking the time to look at this.

This winter, I woke up one morning with a lot of ice and snow on my car so I warmed up my car to let the defroster do its thing before i started scraping away. the thing is, the previous night it had been raining and i accidentally left the wipers in the on position. I didn't realize that until i went out to start scraping the ice off and the wipers broke free and shot snow down the front of my shirt.

On to the problem at hand. now since my wiper motor was trying to actuate while the blades were frozen to the windshield (going nowhere) there is a lot of free play in the wipers ever since. there's probably a good 4 to 5 inches of free play and when i turn them on they bang against the drivers side windshield pillar and down on the black plastic at the bottom of the windshield(sorry for the terms, I would use the proper ones if i knew them)

my question is, what's the issue? do you think its the transmission in there or the wiper motor itself? I'm a harrier engine mechanic so im pretty mechanically inclined, but i just don't know what all is in there and i'm not going to start tearing stuff apart until i know the steps to the job. please, anything will help. ANYTHING. be advised, i just bought a haynes repair manual off amazon.com but it hasnt arrived yet, so if you need to refer me to something in there thats fine. THANKS FOR HELPING!

First thing to check is whether the wiper blades are loose on their shafts. Get the center nut where each wiper arm pivots. The arm is tightened down to a tapered shaft, probably knurled. Loosen that, position the arm, & re-tighten. If the knurled shaft has ground away some material from the tapered bore of the arm, then remove the arm & clean it up so it gets a good bite when you tighten it back down.

If that doesn't do it, the wiper mechanism is a couple of cranks & push-rods. There's bushings on the ends of the push-rods that might be worn badly.
http://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com/...4sda01_b14.png

ok, thanks for the info. I'll try to update. also, how would you go about taking the plastic cover off?

You mean the little cap #23 in that picture? That probably just snaps off.

I never had to remove the cover for the pushrod/crank mechanism so can't really help much. Here's a picture if that helps any.
http://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com/...4sda01_b51.png

Haha, yeah the one you've never had to do. It's all good. I'll mess around a little bit and see what i can do with the part breakdowns you gave me. Thanks