Strange. Or maybe not. My wipers quit working. We tested the switch. It works. Anyway later, I was working on the car and left the door open. Needless to say it ran down the battery. When I tried to start it I got the click, click, click of the solenoid and lo and behold the wipers started working. I then charged the battery. Tried the wipers: didn't work. So.... weak battery, wipers work. Strong battery, wipers no work. Ideas? Thanks.

 

Check this...and not being there to look at your wiring....it is possible due to someone may have done some bogus wiring without you knowing about it.

Do your wipers work with the door open.,..but not work when you shut the door??? This can be due to someone has spliced into the alarm system wiring and that wire becomes a ground when the door is open and the door jamb switch grounds out.

Do you have a test light or better yet..a digital voltmeter????

Check and verify that the aluminum housing of your wiper motor is grounded!!!! It must be groudned to work so you can clip on a jumper wire to ground and check it.

On your wiper motor you have 4 wires gong to it to make it work....unless you have intermittent wipers...which will make it 5 wires.

3 of these wires are in one connector all by themselves. Then you have a dedicated black wire that is your ground....and if you have intermittent wipers you have a wire that attaches to the wire coming off the black cover of the wiper motor itself.

I have seen many many times that down by your starter solenoid..the ground wire for your wiper motor and blower motor has been attached to the big stud for your positive battery cable and NOT attached to the bellhousing bolt.....or the connection for your lower starer wiring harness that attaches to the 6 port connector at the back of the right side valve cover at the firewall is corroded or has a problem...which is why many people will pull another ground wire and not do it correctly.

DUB

 

The wipers on my recently acquired 1980 don't work. I saw the motor was new so I checked for voltage and it was good. I then connected a clip lead to the ground on the motor and it started working. I haven't fixed it yet but at least I know what the problem is when I get around to it.

 

Okay, here's what I did. Referring to this Wilcox procedure,(http://repairs.willcoxcorvette.com/1...d-wiper-motor/) I followed these instructions. When I made the final contact, the relay clicked but nothing from the wipers. Is it the motor?

Thanks.

 

Assuming that you followed the tech sheet from Willcox...I would have to say YES the motor is bad....or will need to be tweaked to get to work

But with you writing : When I made the final contact, the relay clicked but nothing from the wipers. causes me concern due to not knowing how you had the ground wires going to terminal a #1 and #3 in Willcox's description. Or if you tested any of the other way that the ground need to go on terminals #1 and #3....and if you are sure the motor housing is grounded an 12 volts is going to terminal #2.

I am sure this motor is fine BUT I can not describe how to tell you how to get to the contact points that are more than likely dusty/dirty preventing the motor from working. I fix so many that do not need to be replaced due to the owners never use them due to never driving the car in the rain...and they never cycle the wipers when they are washing the car. I often times disconnect the wiper arm linkage at the back of the motor so the wiper blades do not move...if the Corvette has a really clean scratch-free windshield in it.

DUB

 

Did you run a new ground to the motor as suggested by Dub?

When I get a wiper motor issue in the shop the first thing I do is remove the bell crank from the motor (so it can run freely without the arms). Then I remove all wires from the motor (including the factory ground). Then I run a jumper ground from the wiper motor to the engine.... then I test per the instructions off my site...







If you do it this way you are basically testing the motor on the bench without removing it. If the motor runs then you know the issue is not the motor and if it fails you know the issue is the motor.

We did these test pages and videos because around 90 percent of all motor cores returned to us actually tested good... so isolate the issue and then we'll move forward.

Post back.

Willcox