Mother nature can be harsh, especially when your garage can't hold your Raptor. I've had this beast parked outside for 8 years now, and some of the plastic has taken a beating! I did some research on the forums and Facebook and found that replacing the cowl plastic and wiper arms can really refresh the look and functionally seal up the hood space between the windshield and hood.
Below, you can see how thrashed the OEM parts were from NorCal sun, rain, leaves, etc. Very faded, cracked and even some sections broken off an missing. The wiper arms, while they worked just fine - needed a refresh, no more ceramic coating could bring them back.
These are the parts that I used to replace the old OEM parts, it's ~$200 in parts
- Windshield Wiper Cowl Cover Panel Grille Set $127
- (this part includes new nozzles and hoses)
- Dorman 42799 Front Driver Side Windshield Wiper Arm $33
- Dorman 42798 Front Passenger Side Windshield Wiper Arm $36
Removing the old parts isn't too hard. First remove the old wiper arms. Start with the driver side. This is done by sliding out a small tab that holds the wiper arms onto the rotating assembly on the wiper motor. A small flathead screwdriver works great. You may need to wiggle the arm a bit to get it off, just keep that tab extended and it will come straight off the wiper motor hub.
Once you figure out the driver side, the passenger side is identical - just a bit harder to reach. As you can see, my OEM parts are pretty thrashed.
Next up - pop the hood, and lift to full height to get better access to the cowl pieces.
You can use the flat head screwdriver to pop the snap slots. There are also 3 clips per side that will pull out when you lift up on the cowl pieces. The passenger side is where the wiper washers are connected, there is a simple clip that holds the hose to the body, and simply pull the water connector from the hose.
Here are the old cowl pieces off the truck. The rubber/plastic is hammered. Also, I cleaned up the windshield and cowl area - used a razor blade to clean the glass really well as the grime is caked on.
Lastly, you replace the old parts with the new parts just the inverse process. Just to note, the new wiper arms came with a small metal tab that I had to remove, no matter how hard I tried - I couldn't get that tab to fit the small slot in my hubs - your mileage may vary. A simple flathead screwdriver popped the tab out and they fit fine.
