Slow wipers: Help

[1983calais]

So I had the 87 monte ss in the shop the other day just tiding up a little ugly things I didnt like. After I was done I thought I'd take it for a cruise so I did. Then it starts raining. Typical. Anyway, the wipers are slow as hell. High and low works and the delay works but they are really slow. Any ideas? When I shut them off they won't even go down below the hood all the way. They get stuck on the bottom windshield trim. Any help would be great and thanks!

 

[pontiacgp]

I would disconnect the wiper transmission from the motor, operate the wipers by hand to make sure nothing is seized and if that checks out then I'd change the wiper motor.

 

[HAFROD]

Check to see if your negative battery cable has the small wire to the inner fender steel structure. If it is connected, I would try a driveway test with a jumper wire on negative side of battery to one of the wiper motor mounting bolts backed out about half way to get a clean contact area. If it speeds up the motor, its a ground issue. Also try unplugging it and plugging it back in in case contacts are corroded. That is the small body motor and If I remember right, it has a thin metal ground tab for one of the 3 mounting bolts. I had an 87 SS with that thin ground tab broke and it was slow. Please update the thread when you get it fixed in case someone else has the same issue in the future doing a search here. If you do get it fixed and the wiper arms are still not parking all the way down, loosen the two 10mm nuts on top of the wiper motor area where the linkage is. Pull the linkage arm towards drivers side and hold while retightening nuts. Good luck brother

 

[HAFROD]

I have a spare motor so I snapped you a pic. Here is the ground strap I'm referring to.

 

[HAFROD]

The firewall ground to engine might be a cause also if it is not hooked up

 

[1983calais]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys! I thought it might be a ground issue but wasn't sure. I will look it over when I get back out to the garage tomorrow. I am guessing it is the ground because when I turn my turn signals on the needle on the amp guage moves with the blinker relay back and forth. I will check all the ground wires on the inner fenders, engine and firewall. I really appreciate the responses.

 

[pontiacgp]

it's not uncommon for the needle on your amp gauge to move with the blinker relay. The reason I didn't mention ground is because everything works on your wipers but in slow motion

 

[1983calais]

This is the only car I have with guages and didn't know the needle moving with the blinkers was common. It has been to long since the calais rally pac has been lit up to remember if that one did it to. I will be checking the wiper trans too PontiacGP. I didn't rule out your suggestion by any means. I will try to work on it tonight and let everyone know what I came up with.

 

[pontiacgp]

although I don't think it's a ground issue it's not a bad idea to add a few grounds, I have a 4 gauge wire from the battery to the body, another to the frame and one from the frame to the engine.

 

[1983calais]

So I just came in from the shop trying to detect the problem with the wipers and I think the motor is either worn out or bad contacts inside on the brushes or something. I did not pull it yet to disconnect it from the trans nor could I get the wires off to clean them because the connector is so close to the inner fender. I did however take the arms off and disconnected them from the motor. Then I operated them by hand and they were not that easy to operate. I took the stems out of the cowl and drilled a very small hole in the housing to get some fluid film (very good sh*t by the way, highly recommend) in there because they needed it bad. They turned very hard. Then I greased all the arms and keep working everything by hand to get the lube worked through the housings. After about half an hour of that, they were alot better but they still aren't much faster when hooked back up to the motor. I ran ground wires directly from the battery and still no luck. I checked and tightened every ground wire I could find in the engine bay and still not any better. I will take the motor out tomorrow and see what I come up with. I will give updates when I can.