while wiping - my arm fell off the pin

[airkooledchris]

don't forget to wipe!

anyway, on a long ass drive yesterday in a torrential downpour, suddenly my wipers stop moving but i can still hear the motor whirring.

after punching a hole through the rotten glovebox to get a better look (so much shit in the trunk and on the side of a highway, had no other good way to look at it) - I realized the arm that connects the wipers to the motor had come off of that pin sticking out of the wiper motor.

doh. I find what looks like a little C-clip (if you call it that, it looks like a letter C) on the top of the radio, so I try to hold the arm onto the pin with that little C-clip but I don't make it very far and that thing just shreds to bits.

what am I actually missing? the arm seems to have a fairly wide hole for the size of the pin on the motor, so it's either been stretched out or it's just like that normally. is this C-clip thingy normally a complete circle?

In the Bentley, page 42 of 'Electrical System' section 8.6 'Removing and Installing Motor' - step 2 says 'Remove lock washer and spring washer from drive shaft and disconnect link.'

is the 'lock washer and spring washer' the two bits that im missing and if so, are they generic bits I can get from a hardware store or a special part/size that id need to source/order from a proper VW place?

thanks!

[Insaniac]

That happened to me when i first got the car. Wipers stopped moving, motor still running, the arm fell off the thing or whatever. Buy a new C-clip and pop that sucker in.

[KTPhil]

I hate it when my arm falls off while wiping. Sometimes my foot falls asleep, too. Take the magazines out of the bathroom and it won't happen again.