BMW: large play at wiper arm mount

Have recently discovered something odd with my right wiper arm, seems
to be quite an excessive play at the mounting point.
I removed tha plastic cover, loosened the nut and removed the entire
wiper arm to better see the mounting point with the splines and so on.
When I touch the cone with splines, which the wiper arm is mounted on,
there is an excessive play in the direction towards the engine. Just as
if something was loose on the backside.
I havent been able to take a closer look of the bakside yet. Its quite
tricky to get access and see clearly the backside....

Does anyone know what might be wrong? Is it a common failure on E34?
Something seems to be broken, so how many parts of the wiper package
must be replaced?
If I have understand correct, the wiper function is more or less one large
package or? Does it consists of smaller parts?

/Henrik

p.s
As Im not that good explaining the problem, there are a gif picture
available at http://www.apollo.nu/~slangen/wiper.gif which might
can give more info.
Please note, this excessive play was also found when the 27mm nut
was mounted, but in this picture it has been removed.
The wiper is on a E34 535i -89.
d.s

"Dave Plowman" <co.uk> skrev i meddelandet
news:co.uk... 

Well. my car has also joined that club since there is quite a visible area
at the bonnet
where the wiper arm has made contact during some time. Havent actually seen
that
before on the bonnet. And the cause of this damage is then of course the
large
play in the wiper arm mount...

/Henrik