Ok, I did read that. I suppose I misinterpreted the statement. I'm guessing that the wiper motor is picking up a ground somewhere. The harness is new as is the dash harness. I did have my ds lower dash out and noticed that the wire from the radio capacitor to the brown wire near the ignition was broken and I recently replaced the headlight switch. Do you think either of those might cause this condition?

 

Sully... give me a couple more days and I'll be home then I'll take a look at all of this again. I'm in Maine and will return home Monday.

Ernie

 

Reading this post makes me cringe remembering the pain I went thru sorting out the wiring on my 68 wiper motor. Easy fix would have been to sell the car and buy a 1969 model year. Good luck getting yours fixed. DUB has given the hands-on advice to fix it.

 

YES..the black wire in the 3 wire SQUARE connector...that goes to your LIGHT BLUE wire on the motor....is a CONTROLLED GROUND wire.

And THIS ground wire is being controlled by your wiper door going UP and contacting that contact switch on the firewall.

SO...when the door goes UP...that allows the ground path to get to yoru 3 wire square connector....and that BLACK wire gets a ground FROM teh single wire cut off switch under your steering column.. BUT....IF the single wire switch under your steering column is OFF...then it will not get a ground. SO...the wiper motor will not work.

You HAVE TO make sure that the metal bracket...that this single wire switch under your column HAS a ground wire bolted to it. Because that single wire switch has no ground provision on it so you MUST have a ground wire going to that metal bracket.

NO.

You wiper switch housing...the large metal piece that your wiper switch is bolted to...MUST also be grounded....AND the three wire connector that attaches to it MUST be correctly installed.

***OPERATION OF MOTOR*****

When you turn your wipers ON....regardless if it is low speed or high speed...the BROWN wire gets 12 volts to it...and if you look at your wiring diagram....that brown wires goes to the vacuum switch mounted behind your tachometer. What this does is it STOPS the flow of vacuum. SO at this time your wiper motor is waiting for a ground to operate.

Now actuator relay changes position due to no longer having vacuum on teh small hose that goes to the actuator relay. And NOW due to the relay changing vacuum routing on the big hoses...makes the vacuum actuator OPEN your wiper door.

When this happens...the arm that is bolted to your wiper door frame assembly now makes contact with the contact switch mounted on the firewall...and thus... COMPLETES the NEEDED GROUND circuit that will go to your LIGHT BLUE wire...and thus...your wipers work.

KEEP IN MIND ...YOU MUST make sure that the 3 wire STRAIGHT connector is correctly installed on the motor and you have VERIFIED that your wiper switch is switching on and off the grounds CORRECTLY on the outer two terminal in this 3 wire STRAIGHT connector...and ALSO making 100% positive that your wiper motor is GROUNDED via the single black wire. And that the CENTER wire of the 3 wire STRAIGHT connector has 12 volts to it when your ignition key is ON.

DUB

 

Thanks Dub. I’m going to work on it tomorrow and go through the entire system.

 

Success! The wipers are now working. Thanks to Dub and everyone else who responded.

 

So? Are you going to share with us what the main problem was? So we can all learn.

 

It turned out to be the ground wire to the override switch below the steering column. Amazing how something so simple can be hard to track down.

 

glad you got it fixed. After you find what the problem was, it always is amazing -as you say- how simple it is. My PO connected the ground wire to -get this- the always hot wire on the starter.

 

DUB

 

Why, that’s brilliant! Sounds like a Bubba fix.