If your wiper isn't sitting against the windshield firmly and you are thinking about bending the arm then check this out first. I used the windshield washer for the first time after getting the new windshield put in and I had a circular area that the wiper wasn't even touching. My first thought was they put a crappy windshield in. I bent the arm and it proceeded to wipe ok. Later in the day I pulled the wiper arms off to paint them and discovered the cause. You'll see in the picture that the little pin that anchors the spring has come out of it's hole. Tomorrow I'll take some channel locks to stretch the spring so I can get the pin back to where it belongs. It's lessened the spring tension enough that the force exerted on the blade is not enough to hold the blade on the windshield while it moves back and forth.

 

Thanks for this. I'm gonna pull mine off later to see if that's why the passenger doesnt reach anymore.

 

For what it's worth, EVERY S10/Sonoma/Blazer/Jimmy/Bravada (the 2nd gen body in general) that I've seen, the passenger side wiper does not lay flat and contact the windshield at the far outer edge, no matter WHAT kind of wiper blade is used. So don't expect this to fix that... It's just one of those common quirks that the body style has, something about the windshield curvature and the angle the wiper arms stretch across it...

Never the less, that is a good find, doesn't look like that would have held on much longer so it's a good think you caught it before it let go one day when you NEEDED the wipers in the rain!

 

I find it interesting that most vendors list two different wiper arms: 1 for the driver side and 1 for the passenger side. When I took mine off and compared them they were identical. Length of all parts and the arm bend is the same. Curiously the price of the driver side is always higher than the passenger side. It makes me wonder if a previous owner replaced one with the wrong one.

 

I always thought that. But I swear it used to do it a little more.

 

Double post

 

Very interesting! Do you need a puller to get the wiper off?

 

No I just removed the bolt and wiggled the wiper arm back and forth umtil it came off. The spring was so tight that I couldn't get the pin back where it belonged so I went down to the parts store and bought a new one, After painting it and installing it I found that the other wiper arm spring was nowhere near as strong as the new one so I'll be replacing it too.

 

I bent mine but it is still not as good as the passenger side. Are they identical; can they be swapped for each other?

 

Did you compare yours to the picture? If your pin has come out of one of it's holes you can bend it all you want but it won't get much better. I compared both of mine side by side and saw no difference. In fact the only difference was in price. The passenger side is $5-6 less then the driver's side.