wipers

I recently purchased a 95 wstar lx w/60000.
This is the first ford I have ever owned.
We had a good snowfall these past 2 days and when I turned on the wipers, the pass. overlapped the driver one.
Is this a trans. problem, or could it be adjustment? All I know is you can move the driver wiper back and forth with your hand, and after I did this they seemed to work right. Been to cold to look at yet, thought I would ask.
Thanks
Steve

HI
Your van should have, I think, a 24" on the driver's side and a 20" on the passenger. The previous owner probably put two of the same size on there.

When you go into the store to buy wiper blades, near the display, there will be a lookup book.
CAREFULLY read, as all 3 blades (2 front, 1 rear) are of 3 different sizes.

If that is not be problem, maybe someone had taken off the arms and put them on out of place?....I don't know if that is possible, but if so, when they are down, 1 would not be all the way down.

Again, most likely, wrong size....easy to do......have to read across the line in the book to get the correct sizes.

I'm having problem with brand new premium Bosch wipers that were replaced at Auto Zone just after we bought the van back in October. They cost $44.00. They are indeed different lengths and mine appear to have been installed correctly. Still, there's a fairly large part of the center of the windshield that just doesn't get wiped. Strange for the top of line wipers to act this way. These are made to not get iced up in winter weather like the ones with open construction of the blade assembly. Has anyone else run into this issue?

I guess I didn't pose the rite question.
I meant that the driverside arm did not move at all, untill I moved it by hand and then it seemed to work fine. There was no resistance at all when you moved the arm by hand. But like I said after I moved it across windshield and placed back in parked position, I turned them on and eveything seemed to be alright. Jusst don,t want to srew up the wipers in upstate NY during the winter.
Thanks
Steve

You may want to remove the wiper arms and check the little splines, both male and female, that are on the wiper arm and on the wiper arm (tapered) drive shaft. I suspect you have a great deal of wear on driver's side.

Wiper blades normally cannot be moved easily without the motor disconnected. The fact that it sounds like your driver side wiper moved easily suggests that the mechanical link between the motor and the blade is deficient. As suggested, check that the spline connection between the blade and the shaft are tight. The connection is tapered, so it must be tight. If that's not it, check the linkage under cowling. You'll need to remove the upper part of cowl first. That requires removing both arms (1 nut each), ~10 screws, and the radio antenna.

Found out the problem. Took the arm off and the splines were worn down to almost nothing. I took a file and cut new ridges in the wiper arm as it is only white metal and very soft, then cut new ridges in the post, a little tougher. I added a couple drops of loc tite to the post and replaced the arm with the nut and lock washer. I let it set up overnight and works as good as new. Really an easy fix.
Thanks for the info
Steve