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2025 C3 ('68-'73) of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
2023 C3 of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
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Emergency: Need help now
I’m on a road trip to the north of Spain in my 71 coupe. There are massive rain and thunderstorms coming and my windshield whippers switch just broke. It just flops around and doesn’t do anything. Any quick fixes or is there a way to bypass the switch to get them working. I’m hundreds of miles from home and the rain is predicted for the next several days...
DS
I just Googled 1971 Corvette wiper switch. It looks like you can jumper the middle wire to the left wire to get the motor operating. To be safe try and find some alligator clips for the jumper, and by all means do a Google search for your specific year.
2025 C3 ('68-'73) of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
2023 C3 of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
2019 C3 of Year Finalist (stock)
Originally Posted by Eliredandblack
DS
I just Googled 1971 Corvette wiper switch. It looks like you can jumper the middle wire to the left wire to get the motor operating. To be safe try and find some alligator clips for the jumper, and by all means do a Google search for your specific year.
I have the connector un plugged that goes to the switch. There is a dark blue left, black center and light blue right ... I cut a small pice of wire and stripped both ends, inserting one end where the middle black wire is and then tried touching the other end to the left dark blue wire, got nothing. The tried from the center black wire to the right blue wire, still nothing...
From: NNCC No Name Car Crew; Owned 1 C2, 2 C3's, 1 C4, 3 C5's, 1 C6, 2 C7's; Now '86, '03; S. DE
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Small consolation if you can't get the wipers to work, apply liberal amounts of RainX or equivalent on windshield, that may help heading down the road.
I am no wiper switch expert. But here is a 71 wiring schematic. Hopefully that helps. Switch is almost exactly in the middle and looks like colors you mentioned.
A road trip in Spain sounds cool!
Dave
I could be mistaken, but our omnipresent relative, BUBBA, must have travelled to Europe. Your switch, per Willcox looks like its off a 1973. It looks like light blue and black need to be jumpered. The DARK BLUE is the washer. you will still NEED To Ground the switch.
To me it looks like if you have a length of spare wire 18ga preferred, you can strip the insulation off one end of it, back out one of the wiper switch mounting screws wrap the bare wire around the mounting screw and tighten the mounting screw. You can also slip the bare wire under the wiper switch near the mounting screw and tighten. Maybe this is a more secure method.
This will be used as the broken wiper switch ground.
Now strip just a little on the other end of the temporary wire and with ignition switch on touch it to either the lt.blue or black/white wire in the connector your holding.
One should be low speed the other will be high speed.
Make sure when you disconnect the temp wire ground the wiper motor goes into the park position (stops) if it doesn't park but the motor keeps running go out to the wiper motor and unplug the 3 wire connector on the motor.
Last edited by bmotojoe; Sep 19, 2020 at 11:17 AM.
According to the switch internals I found, you ground both the blue and black wires for low speed or ground only the blue for high speed. The wire colors and switch are pretty standard GM for 60's to 70's GM's so I found a number of different sources that all said the same thing with the same wire colors.
You would ground the dark blue to make the washers work.
Last edited by lionelhutz; Sep 19, 2020 at 11:16 AM.
2025 C3 ('68-'73) of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
2023 C3 of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
2019 C3 of Year Finalist (stock)
Originally Posted by bmotojoe
To me it looks like if you have a length of spare wire 18ga preferred, you can strip the insulation off one end of it, back out one of the wiper switch mounting screws wrap the bare wire around the mounting screw and tighten the mounting screw. You can also slip the bare wire under the wiper switch near the mounting screw and tighten. Maybe this is a more secure method.
This will be used as the broken wiper switch ground.
Now strip just a little on the other end of the temporary wire and with ignition switch on touch it to either the lt.blue or black/white wire in the connector your holding.
One should be low speed the other will be high speed.
According to the switch internals I found, you ground both the blue and black wires for low speed or ground only the blue for high speed. The wire colors and switch are pretty standard GM for 60's to 70's GM's so I found a number of different sources that all said the same thing with the same wire colors.
You would ground the dark blue to make the washers work.
2025 C3 ('68-'73) of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
2023 C3 of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
2019 C3 of Year Finalist (stock)
Originally Posted by bmotojoe
You are correct on the low speed wires
All I did was take a length of wire stripped one end long and grounded it to a dash screw. then the other end of that wire touched to the light blue wire in the connector and whammy, instant working windshield whippers... I just followed the directions...
All I did was take a length of wire stripped one end long and grounded it to a dash screw. then the other end of that wire touched to the light blue wire in the connector and whammy, instant working windshield whippers... I just followed the directions...
Now enjoy showing off that rare and beautiful car in Spain!
Amazing road side service from Corvette Forum for someone stranded in Spain. Two hours and 10 minutes from the original request for help until the solution.
"The Rain in Spain" stays mainly on the plain. From the musical My Fair Lady.
Last edited by 68/70Vette; Sep 19, 2020 at 01:12 PM.
All I did was take a length of wire stripped one end long and grounded it to a dash screw. then the other end of that wire touched to the light blue wire in the connector and whammy, instant working windshield whippers... I just followed the directions...
Yes, that works for high speed. For low speed you ground both the light blue and black wires.
Emergency: Need help now
