Rear wiper motor now working....sorta
If you take pleasure in other peoples misery, then read on. If not, skip this and move on to another thread.
So i remove the rear wiper motor and use a test light on the plug leads. There is power coming to the motor. There are two wire plug connections on the assy, a two wire plug supplying power directly to the motor, and a three wire plug connected to the assy that controls the intermittent function. I supply power directly to the motor, and it works. So, my problem must lie with the 3 plug intermittent thing.
I pop off the white plastic back cover and take a look at the gears. Everything looks pretty mucky and corroded in there so I use some spray cleaner (carb or brake clean) and then reaaply some fresh lube. When you pop that cover off you will see a worm gear from the motor that drives a white plastic gear that is connected to the reciprocating assy for the wiper bolt.
Behind the white plastic gear you should see the black plastic housing that the three wire plug plugs into. There are two black tabs; using a flat blade screwdriver, push on the tabs and the black housing should come free. What you should see on the bottom side of the black housing are three brass contact tabs that extend out. When installed, these brass tabs come in contact with the back of the white plastic gear. The gear has a metal plate on it that the contacts ride on. There are gaps in the plate, so that when rotated, power will be supplied to the contacts and then cut off once a gap in the plate comes along, thus creating the intermittent cycle.
Anyway, my black housing had only two brass tabs and one fuzzy green looking thing where a tab used to be. I looked through my bolt bin and found a brass contact that i was able to modify to look like the other tabs. I cleaned the green fuzz out, exposing what was left of the original contact, and soldered in the homemade one.
I put everything back together, put the motor back on the rear door,installed the wiper arm, turned the key on and hit the switch.
So what happened??? The wiper moved about an inch then stopped, but I could still hear the motor working. I leave the switch on, walk to the back of the vehicle (the wiper motor is now in intermittent mode) and every few seconds I can hear the motor work but the wiper shaft is not moving. I open the door and pop off the plastic cover on the back of the motor and I watch in dismay as the worm gear turns but the larger white gear does not. Apparantly there is a tooth or two that are NOW stripped on the white gear. Must have just happened, because everything worked nice on the bench test a few minutes earlier. With a screwdriver, I can push the gear to the next good tooth, and when the motor kicks in, everything works nice untill the dead spot on the gear comes round again.
So in the end, I'm back to square one and now have to look for a replacement wiper motor.
I'm having one of those weeks when I have the reverse Midas touch. Everything I touch turns to crap.
