wipers not parking no intermittent wipers

[Dkennel]

I have searched the board for quite a while to figure out my wiper problem: they don't automatically park, just stop wherever I turn the switch off and my intermittent wiper setting does not work.

I expected the wiper switch to be the problem and finally took the time to pull it all apart. I could not get the wipers to park! they still stop wherever....
I thought maybe it is a bad contact in the switch and "jumped" the blue and black cable from the contacts that should make them park, no fix!

So what is my problem then? Is it in the wiper motor? Can anybody help me with this, I thought for sure the switch would be the answer from what was posted before....

[Dkennel]

Can a defective wiper motor relay cause this problem?
All other wiper functions work slow/ medium/ fast/ spray, just no park, no intermittent???

[NineOhOne]

See: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?t=426241&highlight=wiper+relay

[Dkennel]

I have read that thread, it does not apply to my car, I think the 87 has only one wiper relay. I found a thread that suggests my problems could be the relay, others say if just the relay is defective wipers should still park???

[Dkennel]

how about this:
The following was provided by Jason Savage (jsavage@crystal.cirrus.com).
Intermittent Wipers
Problem:
'89 Carrera (not a C2 or C4) with intermittent wiper dial. Up until the failure, the intermittent wipers worked fine, and the wipers would park in the correct position regardless of when you turned the intermittent wipers off. The continuous wipers also worked fine, and would park in the correct position even if you turned the wipers off in the middle of a wipe. During my drive to work in a light drizzle one morning, the intermittent wipers had been on for about 30 minutes and were working fine, when all of a sudden they switched into continuous wiping mode. When I turned the intermittent dial off, the wipers would stop wherever they were at, and would not return to the park position. I also noticed that the continuous wiper mode also lost its ability to park the wipers properly. In order to have an unobstructed view when the wipers were off, I would have to time when I turned them off so that the blades were somewhat near the park position.

Solution:
NOTE: SPECIAL THANKS GOES OUT TO CHRIS BENNET FOR THIS SECTION. THE MAJORITY OF THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW ARE HIS, WITH A FEW COMMENTS OF MINE ADDED IN.

Tools: 7mm, 8mm, and 10mm socket, socket driver, 10 mm wrench, phillips screwdriver, flat head screwdriver (for prying relay open).

Getting in there:
Removing the hoses and air box is very easy. Review the following instructions before starting, and you will be at the relay in less than an hour, even if you go really slow. There is no difficulty in performing this job yourself - the second time you have to do it (hopefully on someone else's car), you can get to the relay in 10 minutes or less. Here is the tricky part - the fresh air box is fastened to the car via two "hidden" screws located under the black screen for the fresh air inlet (see STEP 5). If you face the windshield (while standing outside the car with the trunk closed) and look behind the black screen, you can already spot the two screws.

Here are some highlights of the disassembly:
NOTE: All directions are relative to sitting in the trunk, facing the windshield.

STEP 1:
I used a socket driver to remove (most) of the hose clamps (7mm). I ended up completely removing the 2 hoses on the left side, and the one closest to me on the right side, i.e. the one connected to the right side of the blower motor.

STEP 2:
The plastic "Y" shaped hose joint (in the center of the car, just below the blower motor) that goes into the floor of the trunk of the car is held in place by a phillips head screw that you can see - the back of that "Y" shaped hose joint is just held down by a clip that it slides under. I.E. Unscrew the little screw connecting joint to floor and pull the joint toward you. Stuff a rag in the hole so you don't loose something down there. The hose connected to the right side of this "Y" shaped hose joint is pretty long, and can remain attached to it during your work. Just move the joint/hose to the right and out of your way.

STEP 3:
To get that brace on the right out of the way you have 2 options: 1 - remove the vacuum hose blocking the bottom bolt, then loosen the bolt (10mm) about a 1/2 turn. 2 - using a 10mm wrench, squeeze the wrench in between the vacuum hose and loosen the bolt about a 1/2 turn. By loosening the bottom bolt on the brace, you can remove the brace's top bolt (10mm) and swing the brace out of the way.

STEP 4:
Remove the top half of the blower assembly (2 screws, 8mm), unplug the blower and swing the top half of the blower assembly out of the way. You can't remove it completely out of the way because it has a control cable attached to it.

STEP 5:
Remove the cover that holds down the black screen that covers the fresh air inlet (4 phillips head screws). Once the cover and black screen are removed, you can now get to those two top ("hidden") screws and pull the plastic blower assembly down. The assembly may still seem fastened to your car, depending on how long it has been sitting in there. Here is why: There is a rubber (grommet?) along the perimeter of the assembly where it is pushed into the area nearest the air inlet is (i.e. the area where the black screen used to be). You are basically breaking that n-year old seal. The trick is to wiggle/push on the assembly with a force that is in the same direction as the two "hidden" screws you just loosened. It helps to first disconnect the drain pipe located at the bottom of the assembly before applying any force, so that you are not working against the drain pipe.

STEP 6:
Once the plastic blower assembly is out of your way, you can see the intermittent wiper relay. It is part #911.618.149.01 for model years '76-'89, and part #911.618.149.00 for '74-'75 models. In my car, it is just to the right of a blue, slightly larger module that is part of the factory alarm system. If this is the same thing you see in your car, here's another trick: there is a section of the wiring harness running between the alarm module and the intermittent wiper relay. You have to pull up this harness slightly to get to the nut beneath it that fastens both modules to the firewall. Once this nut is off, you can get the relay module out of the car out by unplugging it from its connector.

STEP 7:
With the relay out, pry it out of its case by using a flat head screwdriver. The contents of the relay module slide out on a little printed circuit board, and all you have to do is clean the relay contacts by gently sliding some 150grit (or finer) sandpaper in between them. I also sprayed some contact cleaner in there (the stuff Radio Shack sells for $7.99 for cleaning up stereo volume knobs, tv dials, etc). This stuff does not evaporate easily, so I spent some time wiping excess contact cleaner off the rest of the circuit.

Before reinstalling the relay, I performed some testing per Chris's request:
I. With the relay out of the car, I turned on the continuous wipers. They will turn on, but still will not return to the park position when you turn them off.
II. As expected, nothing happens when you turn on the intermittent wiper dial.
After reinstalling the relay, but before putting the fresh air system back together, I observed the following:
I. Everything works: intermittent wipers, continuous wipers, and park functionality.

STEP 8: To quote the Hayne's manual, "reinstallation is the reverse of removal," but please learn from my mistake: don't forget to reconnect the drain pipe (mentioned at the bottom of STEP 5) to the plastic blower assembly before you focus your efforts on getting the blower/rubber grommet positioned back into the car.

[jonbot]

Dude, I had the same problem, it was in the wiper switch. When it goes back to it's "off" position, there's a set of contacts that close in order to leave power to:

a) park the wipers
b) run the intermittent wipers

I know you said you checked this, but I still think the problem is related to that.

[Mothy]

I also have the same problem with one subtle difference.

I only have speeds 2 and 3 for the wiper - speed 1 does not work, the parking function does not work and the intermittent wiper function does not work.

From the research I have done (still to be confirmed by taking out and checking) the problem is that my wiper motor has lost its low speed setting. The parking function uses this speed as does the intermittent wiper switch. I've checked and tested the switch and it works fine.

I'll let you know how I go. Planning to take it out this weekend.

Tim

[wings911]

Normal wipe wouldn't park. If I switched on the intermittent, I could only stop them by switching the wipers on then off again on the stalk.

Boiled down to a combination of a broken connection in the intermittent relay and also broken rings on the motor itself

HTH...

[Rick V]

You need a wiper motor. The park feature is in the motor.

Most likely contacts in the switch have arced and are stuck together.. My 79 did exactly the same thing. It's a very common problem and there are a lot of threads on it.

[Poor-sche Lover]

I concur with jonbot and Mark. Mine was exhibiting the exact same symptoms. The contacts in the switch inside the steering column had gotten gummed up and weren't making a good connection. The intermittent wiper switch on the dash will not work unless the wipers properly park. They will not properly park unless the column swtich parks them. If you clean the contacts, everything should work fine.

[911Texan]

I've got to troubleshoot the the EXACT same issue described by multiple Pelicans above. The relevant portion of my Haynes "current flow" diagram for my '84T shows the following:



Anyone want to interpret why I have NO int wipers at all (switch/rheostat do NOTHING) and windshield wipers do not park. I do not see how the "low speed" of the motor is to remain "hot" to enable the park function as mentioned above. In fact, when the wiper switch is in the OFF position, the only thing I see powered is the intermittent "pulse transformer." I do not see how the "pulse transformer" even gets 12V to the wiper motor either. I can't figure out the nomenclature for that windshield wiper motor.

Yeah, I'll clean up contacts and stuff like that, but man it would be nice to have a theory based on the wiring diagram before I start.

- Rich

[Mothy]

In my case it turned out to be the power connection on the motor for lowest speed setting. Turns out autopark, intermittent and low speed all used the same lead - and it had come loose in the multi pin connector.

[kanadary]

i had the same issue and it turned out to be the switch. someone wrote a nice article on here about how to clean the switch. i ended up replacing it and its fine.

[ivangene]

when you turn them off - try a tiny pressure on the wiper lever....see if they go and park....

I found that if I just touch the arm it would move...or try a lightly wrapped rubber band from the cruise arm to the wiper arm and see if they work right....

I swear that actually worked for me...after a few weeks with the rubber band I took it off and they work fine (over a year) So must be a problem with the switch but until it completely fails or I land one cheap...if it happens, I just put the rubber band on for another couple days...

cheap fix

[Hugh R]

For me it was the switch. I took it apart, cleaned the contacts and it worked fine. The intermittent switch can't work unless they park first.

[sparkle84]

This is a common problem & is usually related to the switch not the motor. Ivangene has the right idea. When turning the wipers off exert forward pressure on the stalk. You may have to push fairly hard. When I found that pushing forward worked I also had the rubber band idea but it didn't supply enough pressure. If the wipers park when you shut them off while pushing forward then it's the switch. Cleaning it won't necessarily do the trick. The contact could be bent thru years of use. Just has to be bent back. At this point I don't remember if pushing forward causes the contacts to close or remain open. either way if you remove the wheel & clamshell & observe which contacts change their behavior when you push forward & don't push forward you will see immediately what the problem is. If I remember correctly it's the ones closest to the dashboard. So if pushing forward works then that's the problem. Quick easy fix & best of all...no $$$$. Your intermittent feature will also work again.

Good Luck

[Dkennel]

I am reviving this thread. It's been very dry in Texas did not use my wipers much. I started taking my dashpad off, so I removed the air intake and the blower motor. Now I also have good access to the wiper relay and the motor. I also took the steering wheel off since I need to replace the turn signal/headlight stalk switch. I took a real close look at the wiper switch while I am there:

I think my wiper switch is fine, don't see anything that doesn't look right with it. The connector to the intermittent wiper relay looked like it may not have been pushed in all the way??? kind of crooked so I pushed it in and wiggled a little to make sure I have good contact, so now I have this going on:

I can run intermittent wipers with the potentiometer switch between the gauges. The wipers park fine and the interval function works great. If I have intermittent wipers turned on I can also turn the wipers on with the stalk switch and get all three speeds, as long as the intermittent potentiometer is turned on the wipers will also park. If I turn the potentiometer to off position the wipers will park anywhere on the windshield if I turn them off with the stalk.

Can somebody tell me if this is normal? Seems like a dumb question, but do the wipers only park if you have the intermittent wiper switch in on position? If not what is not working right?

[spuggy]

Originally Posted by Dkennel

I can run intermittent wipers with the potentiometer switch between the gauges. The wipers park fine and the interval function works great. If I have intermittent wipers turned on I can also turn the wipers on with the stalk switch and get all three speeds, as long as the intermittent potentiometer is turned on the wipers will also park. If I turn the potentiometer to off position the wipers will park anywhere on the windshield if I turn them off with the stalk.

Can somebody tell me if this is normal? Seems like a dumb question, but do the wipers only park if you have the intermittent wiper switch in on position? If not what is not working right?

Not normal.

For the wipers to park, the circuit needs a ground. As described above, there's more than one thing that can go wrong with this...

From your description, it sounds like you have a ground when the intermittent switch is on, but not otherwise. This isn't the way it usually goes... Try moving the stalk around and see if they park.

[Dkennel]

ok, I had enough of this and ordered a new wiper switch, everything had pointed that direction....
new switch is installed....same problem:

wipers do not park when turned on and off on stalk switch, intervals work fine and park fine!! when the interval switch is slightly turned on the wipers also park on stalk switch...

As spuggy suggested it seems I am not getting ground contact when I use the stalk switch, where do I need to look for that ground connector? I have everything apart right now, including fresh air blower to get access to wiper motor...

any suggestions? It is not the stalk switch, not the motor (wipers park fine on intermittent), not the relay(?), probably a concoction - poor ground?