Marc Schwager

My front wipers operate quite slowly and seem to be struggling. I have lubed the wiping mechanisms and that didn't seem to help. I plan on tearing it all apart to see if I can figure out what is causing the problem. Anyone seen this before?

TIA

the flyin' scotsman

Marc..........I have the same issue. Hopefully someone has a resolution!

perrys4

Mine dont seem strong either. I just figured that was the way they were. On higher speeds it seems okay.

Mark

I used to kid that my wipers had 2 speeds...slow and slower. THen I discovered that the stalk controller was slightly out of align, and that it was being prevented from going into '3rd' speed, as the arm was hitting the steering shaft cover.
Now i have slow, slower, and not quite as slow.

Perry - the reason that they work better at higher speeds - the air gets under them and lifts them a little - less friction!

I think it is just a design weakness.

Marc Schwager

Hmm. I suppose it could be a feature. I will experiment and report back.

JKelly

Mine are pretty slow. The wipers stopped working about a month after I bought the car. I tested everything I could with the multi-meter and figured out that the motor must be bad. Since it is a pita to get the motor out (of an 86), I loosened the wipers from the motor a little bit and tested it again. The wipers were binding at the point where they attach to the motor. The motor worked fine. I hardly ever drive in the rain and use rain-x wiper squirter stuff. I could pretty much do away with the wipers now

Marc Schwager

Well I did a bit of diagnostics with the wipers. The summary is that they are still slow. I'm going to call it a design feature at this point.

What I did:

1) Verified that they were still lethargic

2) Pulled the wipers up so they weren't dragging on the windshield. This improved things immensely.

3) Popped the connecting rod off the motor and checked the wiper drag by hand. Verified that the bearings are pretty frictionless, and it is the wipers dragging on the windshield that cause the friction.

4) Greased the bearings on the actuating rods anyway.

5) Pulled the motor out and cleaned it up.

6) Opened up the plate on the back of the motor gear and cleaned the contacts. Gears looked fine.

7) Reassembled everything

8) Adjusted the lever which connects the motor to the actuator so the wipers stop where they are supposed to instead of 2 inches up the windshield.

9) Retested the wiper. Still sluggish.

Conclusion: Windshield friction is the culprit - wipers work better when the windshield is wet (duh) and/or if you are moving (as Mark mentioned) so that the windage gives the wipers a little help.

Next step, remove widshield

hlj821

Mine are sort of slow, but functional. Mine are extremely loud. Is this normal?

scirocco

Another possibility to check is the grounding of the wiper motor itself.... this is also often a problem with slow power windows. Corrosion over time can increase the resistance between the motor body and the mounting point by an amazing amount.

A meter will show the full 12-14 volts, but with poor ground (high resistance) the motor does not get enough current (amps) to function fully.

~aaron

HerrSchnell

My wipers went from slow to non-functional a while back so last fall I removed the motor and cleaned it out with wire brushes. There was a lot of corrosion/rust inside of the body and that kept it from being able to spin.

I've heard others mention the binding at the connection point as well and I could see that happening too.

FWIW, it was a PITA for me to get the motor out and back in . . . although as with everything it would be much easier the second time.

hupp

My wipers are very slow and only operate at one speed. The delay works but when switching from regular to fast nothing changes. In my case this is more than a friction issue.

tresamore

Slow and noisy on both cars I had.