After a couple long nights of snowplowing in our early march blizzard, with snow and ice jamming up under the wipers they have decided to stop at random places on the windsheld when i turn them off. They haven't ever stopped working they just sometimes stop up and down or halfway. Any ideas what causes is it. Is it the switch??

 

could be the multi-funtion switch or you could have a bad hot that goes to the motor. There is one wire that stays hot to continue the cycle.

send a PM to JKM, he just had his all apart a month ago.

 

Do you know if that wire is exposed or part of a harness?? That would make the most sense, if some ice got down there and i was banging around and knocked it loose i had to open the hood a couple times to get it all out of the cowl. I will take a look tommarrow and if i get stumped i will try PM'ing JKM. Thanks that gives me a place to start.

 

I would say there is a pretty good chance your wiper motor is Shot , sort of.

does the wiper stop in random spots while in delay mode or when you turn it off? or when it should be running steady?

What happens when they are under a heavy load is it burns the contacts on the worm gear that tell it when to stop and start (park position). It only takes a matter of seconds to overheat a contact under heavy load (snow fried mine)

I bet if you take it out of the truck and open it up , it will look like this :



I straightened my contact bar out , soldered a new contact on it that i made out of a piece of household copper wire (it was the only thing the right diameter) filled the melted hole with silicone (it melted the plastic on mine , which broke and bent the contact, that's why mine did not work) and put it back together.

I am willing to bet if you take yours apart that there will be a spot somewhere on that metal disk where one of the 3 contacts is not making contact.

 

Good advice from JKM. I have seen this several times in 2nd gen trucks, and it's always been the park switch- which is repairable by buying the whole motor/linkage assembly. Never tried to take one apart and fix it. Good for you if you can.

 

It only does it when i turn them off. That sounds right on. It started when i was plowing the night we got hammered with 13 inches of snow, they were running all night and i had to go clean the cowl every hour because it keep jamming up with snow and ice. Thanks for the info, it was more detailed then i expected, and i appreciate it.

 

Not a problem at all , I'm glad my experience could help. I spent an entire day taking the truck apart and testing switches , controllers and the wiper motor. Having a second truck to shuffle parts between really helped too. It took me a while to finally drill out the rivets and have a look at the park switch.

Let us know how you make out.

 

JKM, Did your wipers stop at random spots even in delay mode? Mine stop at random spots when I shut them off, but in delay mode they return home every time. Any thoughts?

 

My wipers just did not work, it blew a fuse as soon as I stuck it in.

I would pull your wiper motor apart and see if one of the contacts in it is burned , bent, or more than likely work out, that is really what it sounds like to me, those contacts tell the wiper motor/controller when to start and stop, i would say one of them is burnt off , and when you turn the wipers off , it thinks they are in the home position , so it kills the power.

It only takes about 30 mins to get it all apart, big screwdriver or small pry bar and some patience to get the wiper arms off , pop the plastic cowling off , 4 bolts and 2 wiring connectors and it is out. I just drilled the rivets out, then siliconed the cover back on when I was done.

 

thank you search function and of course JKM.

 

Mine did that and I ended up having the motor replaced as at the time I didn't have the time to open it up. Good info from JKM!

Kurt

 

my does this also, someone figure this out!

 

mine has done it from the second year i owned it so now its going on 7yrs now, its on my very long to do list

 

Mine too. Only does it when you shut them off, but they work fine in delay mode. Hasn't been enough of an annoyance to fix, and it's done this for a long time also. Just turning them back on and off seems to send them down where they're supposed to stop.