The new to me 1983 300SD came with busted wipers, the passenger side would shove the drivers side out of the way to do it's thing, leaving the drivers side high and dry.

The bushing for the link that connects both sides together failed and the ball fell out.

Although I did find replacement bushings, they come from Taiwan and the website says enquire instead of add to cart. That didn't look promising so I headed off to Dorman to see what they had. After looking at all of the parts that had the right shape and somewhat close dimensions, I bought 3 or 4 packs. Turns out the larger part in set 49471 mostly fits the ball and almost fits the hole in the end of the linkage. I did chose to drill out the top of the bushing to clear the raised part of the ball rather than grinding down the ball to make it fit the bushing.

Now that the bushing fits the ball, I needed to keep it in the linkage. I found a large washer in my stash, drilled the hole to fit with a step bit then roughly cut it to shape with a hand held band saw. I then did an amazingly poor job of drilling 3 holes so that I could use 3 nuts and bolts to clamp the bushing into the washer. It worked!

After cleaning up the rust and gunk, I lubed everything with white lithium grease and put it back together then installed it in the car. We now have functioning wipers that seem to work correctly with no judder or clunking.

If I just count the bushing kit I used, the repair cost me $11.76, I had the rest of the parts laying around.

Michael

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Usta haves '69 250/8, '76 280C, 1971 250C 114.023, 1976 450SEL 116.033
Current have, 1983 300SD 126.120