Wipers frozen, motor broken?

[Johannes]

It was cold and snowy a few days ago and my wipers were stuck to the ice on the windshield of my 1991 Nissan pickup. I started the engine and let it warm up for a minute. When I got back in the car I heard a ticking noise every second or so... it turns out that when I turned the key my hand must have hit the wiper switch, so for at least a few minutes, my wipers were trying to move but couldn't because they were frozen! Now all my wipers will do is sit there while my wiper motor revs away and makes the ticking noise at the time when my wipers would move up and down. Has anybody had this happen?

[TheSilentChamber]

You probably stripped out the little gears on the bottom side of the wiper arms that make the arms turn. I'm not sure how it is setup on your truck but if you take the whole arm off I'm sure you will see what I'm talking about. These are usually replaceble by themself, but sometimes there made into the studs/arms. I'v used epoxy on the ones that are built in on a friends truck and its been working for probably two years without problems.

[RandomTask]

^^ sometimes they use plastic gearing at some part of the system, probably broke a, some, or all the teeth off...

[Johannes]

Okay I will try taking it apart tomorrow and looking... thanks for the suggestions... I hope its fixable because I don't want to get caught in the rain without wipers!