Intermittent wipers stop midway

Gotta love that wiring . . .
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18Fiatsandcounting
Posts: 3798
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:23 pm
Your car is a: 1969 and 1971 124 spiders
Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Intermittent wipers stop midway

Post by 18Fiatsandcounting »

I finished reworking the electrical system on my '71 spider, and lo and behold, everything seems to work as it should with one minor exception. The windshield wipers work fine in the "continuous" lever position, but in the intermittent wiper lever position, the wipers stop at the midway point rather than in the rest position at the bottom. Otherwise they work fine, starting and stopping as they should every few seconds and giving a single swipe. The issue is just the position where they stop and restart. As part of the overall electrical work, I had taken the wiper motor apart and cleaned and lubricated, etc. By the way, I have not yet installed the wiper arms and blades, so it's not an issue with the motor stalling on a dry windshield.

I assume that something is out of adjustment and a switch contact inside the wiper motor is making or breaking contact with the wipers in the wrong position. Before I remove the cowl to investigate, does anyone have any ideas what the issue could be?

SUBSEQUENT CORRECTION: Well, I lied to you when I said that the continuous wipers work as they should.... They do swing back and forth just fine, but if you turn them off, they stop midway rather than in the rest position at the bottom. I'm guessing that the issue here is the same as with the intermittent wipers not stopping at the right point.

-Bryan
18Fiatsandcounting
Posts: 3798
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:23 pm
Your car is a: 1969 and 1971 124 spiders
Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Re: Intermittent wipers stop midway

Post by 18Fiatsandcounting »

Original Poster here again. It turns out that this wasn't hard to fix. Remove the cowl and flip it over upside down but with the wires still connected. Loosen the 10 mm nut (with lock washer) that secures the lever assembly to the splined shaft coming out of the motor, and let the lever hang free. Turn on the ignition and turn the washer switch on the stalk to "intermittent" (or turn on the continuous wipers but then turn back off again). When the motor stops, turn off the ignition (i.e, the power). Then, by hand, rotate the lever assembly so that the 2 wiper shafts would be in the full rest position if the cowl assembly were put back together at it should be. Without moving the splined shaft of the motor, press the lever back down onto the spline and tighten up again with washer and nut.

Works just fine now.

-Bryan
tima01864
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Your car is a: 1983 FIAT Pininafarina Spider 2000
Location: Wilmington, MA

Re: Intermittent wipers stop midway

Post by tima01864 »

Good work!
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dinghyguy
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Your car is a: 1981 spider
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Re: Intermittent wipers stop midway

Post by dinghyguy »

Wow something that was not electrical yeah!
WELL DONE
Now get on that alignment project.....
Cheers
Dinghyguy
1981 Red Spider "Redbob"
1972 blue Volvo 1800ES "Bob"
1998 Red Ford Ranger
18Fiatsandcounting
Posts: 3798
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:23 pm
Your car is a: 1969 and 1971 124 spiders
Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Re: Intermittent wipers stop midway

Post by 18Fiatsandcounting »

dinghyguy wrote:Now get on that alignment project.....
Cheers
Dinghyguy
I wiil, I will...!! :D

As for the wipers, I originally posted this in the electrical section because I assumed that the switch that stopped the wipers needed to be adjusted, but it turns out the position of the switch is fixed, and it is the position of the wiper arm (under the cowl) that gets adjusted to stop when in the fully down position. Either way could work, but Fiat just chose the latter route.

-Bryan
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