wipers in my 67 will not shut off

[Ray G.]

Rewired the whole car, things moving along well, except the wipers will not shut off. In fact they will not shut off even with the switch unplugged.
I have the two speeds and the washer pump will come on when pushed.
We have tried a ground strap right to the swithch casing, still no luck. Maybe the switch? Except it did work when we started this a month ago.
Thanks in advance. Ray

[Rich P.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

Ray if you turn the key off will the wipers shut off? Or do you need to disconect the battery. I would guess that when the solenoid is energized it won't disengauge when you cut power to it so it sounds like it is possibly in the motor. Also another question when you do get it to stop does the motor park itself or just stop where ever the blades are?

You should remove all wires from the motor and rig up wires to bench test it in the car. If I remember the service manual gives instructions on how to do this.

Rich

[Ray G.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

If you turn the key off, the wipers stop wherever they might be, they do not park. The motor is a restored one, and was working fine before I rewired the dash harness etc. The original harness was really hacked up, which encouraged me to replace all the wiring in the first place.
The previous owner did not replace the motor himself, he had it done.

[Wayne W.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

This is usually caused by dried thick grease in the park mechanism. It holds the mag switch closed and will not let it park. Its the same mechanism that keeps the motor running temporarily when you turn the switch off, and allows it to run on to park. The fix is to take the front off and spray clean the mechanism.

[Ray G.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

Wayne thanks for the info. This wiper motor worked fine a month ago, and it is a restored one. Do you still think it's the problem you mentioned? Thanks,

[Wayne W.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

No, I cant say that for sure, but, it is a common thing that happens. From the symptoms, it sounds like the mag switch is not turning off, so something is keeping that from happening. It could be a bad mag switch, the park mechanism, or something in the wiring that sends the signal to the mag switch. Only carefull testing will tell that. The switch is in the plastic piece that is under the housing cover. Remove the cover and watch the operation. Test the wiring at the connector for proper signal.

[Ray G.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

Do you think I could have damaged the wiper switch taking it in and out? One of the tangs (middle one) is loose?

[Ernie F.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

Ray,

The wiper motor system on you car is a pretty basic system but it only takes one bad ground to cause a ton of problems.

This system is a two field system that is hot all the time.

To test this system I would first run a verified ground to the motor brass terminal on the washer pump. Running a direct ground to the motor will eliminate any broken ground wires. Once you do this, test turn on the motor and see if it is still working in the same manner. If this did not solve anything, keep reading.

Keeping your new ground wire attached to the motor, remove the three wire connector at the wiper motor. The wires on this connection are Light Blue, Brown and Yellow. With this connector removed, run a direct 12 volts to the center terminal on the wiper motor.

Next run a ground wire from the engine to the terminal where the yellow wire would connect if the plug was connected to the motor. This should give you high speed.

Next run another ground from the engine to the terminal where the light blue wire would connect at the wiper motor. This should give you low speed.

If the motor functions on the test above the motor is good! If the motor fails then you have a motor problem.

Now what about your problem with the motor not stopping! Simple, remove the two grounds you ran to the motor on the light blue and the yellow wires. The motor should proceed to park once these wires are removed. If the motor fails to park, you have a problem in your park circuit on motor! When you remove the wires and the motor parks you have just identified the problem as a wiring problem in the car and not the motor.

Some quick test to see if you have a wiring problem would include testing the yellow and the light blue wires at the motor connection. You want to test these with a test light and not a voltage tester. If you use a voltage tester, the circuit will back feed and show low voltage on these wires and if you use a test light it will not.



There are two links, one on the wiper motor testing with a schematic and one on how to rebuild and/or repair the wiper motor.

Here are the links:

Corvette Windshield Wiper Motor and Washer Pump Rebuild 63-67
http://willcoxcorvette.com/repairandinstallhelp.php?hID=126

Corvette Wiper Motor Wiring and Test 1963-1967
http://willcoxcorvette.com/repairandinstallhelp.php?hID=256

I hope this helps you figure this out.

Ernie

[Ray G.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

Ernie, thanks for helping. I have a question please. On the 3 wire connector that plugs into the motor, is the yellow wire closest to the firewall or the blue wire closest to the firewall? Thanks, Ray

[John H.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

Ernie, thanks for helping. I have a question please. On the 3 wire connector that plugs into the motor, is the yellow wire closest to the firewall or the blue wire closest to the firewall? Thanks, Ray

Ray -

Yellow is closest to the firewall.

[Ernie F.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

Thanks for covering for me John, I've been busy the last two days.

[Ray G.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

Interesting devlopment in my wiper motor mystery. We brought over another wiper motor from another Corvette and just held it by hand and wired it up and the 2 speeds worked fine and the motor parked. So we figured it was my motor that was the culprit. We took my motor out and just for the heck of it plugged in the connectors and hand held it, and what do you know? It walso worked fine and parked!
So we reinstalled my motor and atttatched the wiper arms and it works perfectly. All we can figure out is maybe that when the motor was installed the car several years ago under the restoration, the gear was not in the park position, but the wiper arms were installed in the parked position, so the motor could not find it's parked position. Any of this make any sense? That's about all we could think of.

[Joe R.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

Ray,

Either fix the motor now or replace it into the car and it will happen again. Grimlins always turn up at the worst time. Usually judging time.
Try PV'ing the car. It WILL show up again.

JR

[Brian M.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

I'm with JR on this, get it fixed. BTW JR much better avitar.

[Rich P.]

Re: wipers in my 67 will not shut off

Ray,

If you installed the wipers in any position but park they would sweep to wherever you have them put. That means it would go past the lower windshield moulding scratching the wiper grill, hood surround and hood. So thats not what happend.
I think it is 2 possible things causing this.

1 A bad connection.

2 As was stated before it was not releasing and parking from dried grease.

And both these "Gremlins" could have been temporarilly cured by your removing it and moving it around.
I would bet the farm (and I don't have a farm) that this will happen again unless addressed.

Rich