Windshield Wipers Driving Me Crazy (1 Viewer)

[rmckay1021]

I have owned my 1964 FJ40 for a couple of years. The WW motors never worked. I searched exhaustively but could not find original replacements. I bought generic aftermarket motors for a hotrod and installed as a stop gap. Searched locally for an electrical shop to repair/rebuild but qualifications and pricing were problematic. I finally decided that I had nothing to loose and decided to try to repair myself. When opened up, the internal mechanics of both motors were gummed up from old lubrication.

 

[rmckay1021]

When I opened up the armature side, all brushes looked good but one of the brushes had a broken connector wire. Re-soldered carefully using a heat sink to protect winding coating. Not too much slop in the bearings.

 

[rmckay1021]

Removed a cover plate on the mechanicals and carefully marked the position of the cam lobe and gear to reset to original position. May not have mattered but I didn't want to chance. Cleaned away the gunk with denatured alcohol and a semi-stiff small brush being careful not to let alcohol run onto the armature and windings.

 

[rmckay1021]

After cleaning, I discovered that the plunger mechanism (circled) that the cam arm hits had seized up from the old lubrication. I used WD40 to soak and finally it freed up. I was hesitant to put too much pressure on it for fear of breaking. I assume it serves to reverse the direction of rotation????

 

[rmckay1021]

The shaft that drives the wiper arms was equally gummed up and received the same cleaning with denatured alcohol. Had to be really careful with the brass bushings that fit between the drive shaft and the housing sleeve (not sure I'm using the right names) The 3rd picture shows the mechanicals cleaned and lubed with white grease.

 

[rmckay1021]

During the cleaning, all of the rubber insulator covering the power busses basically broke into a lot of small pieces, leaving electrical busses, contacts, and the head of the plunger (that was freed up during cleaning) exposed to dust.

 

[rmckay1021]

Needed a substitute for the rubber cover. Tried heat shrink tape but didn't work. Finally improvised a way to cover and protect. Wrapped everything that I didn't want to get liquid electrical tape on with blue painter tape. Then wrapped the buss compartment with black electrical tape and painted probable 30 coats of black liquid electrical tape over the actual electrical tape. Let it dry for 15 minutes between coats and for a couple of days when finished.

 

[rmckay1021]

After drying, I removed the painters tape and left with a durable, removable, elastic cover substitute.

 

[rmckay1021]

Reassembled motor and gave both a rattle can paint job. Final photos show motors reinstalled. Motors work great but the rotation on one is about 100 degrees and the other is about 80 degrees, plus they don't park correctly at shut-off. Suspect it is something to do with the setting of the cam/gears but guessing. Someone out in FJ40 land has to have solved this problem and can help me re-set, adjust or fix.

HELP PLEASE!!!!!!!!

 

[shipmag]

Good thread what did you relube with after you cleaned the old out with. Hope you replaced it with some kind of grease. Mine are in the windshield but will also need rebuilt. Keep writing up your repairs some one eventually reads them.

 

[bsmith123]

wipers

for the wiper travel it sounds like you just need to reindex the splines on the wipers to get even travel on both sides

for the park position, i am looking at your pics and trying to figure it but generally speaking when you place the switch to off then there is a contact that keeps power (possibly by controlling the ground) on until it mechanically opens the circuit. on some wipers this is done by an open spot on a contact ring and wiper contacts that ride until they hit the open spot. others might be a switch opened by a cam--so power stays on until the cam is hit by an arm to open the switch.

this is how the wipers can stop always in the same position.

not an expert on all things wiper but if you fiddle with it and know how it should work you should find how this motor is doing it

for the stock fj40 set up the reference work would be Coolermans wiper science page (search on mud or google it)

hope that helps

 

[Coolerman]

Excellent write up indeed!

Your park problem may be the plunger switch. You need to figure out how to get to the actual switch ( I have never worked on the really early wipers) to see if the switch is actually working. Looks like from your pics, you would remove the two nuts, unsolder the wires to the terminals, then slide the whole thing out? Before you can index them to match, you need to get the park working for a reference point.

Please post the results in this thread for others to reference later.

Here is the link to the late 60's early 70's page mentioned. It will describe how the park circuit functions.
http://www.globalsoftware-inc.com/coolerman/fj40/5G.htm

 

[rmckay1021]

Thanks for the recommendations and links.

 

[Tancruiser]

Mine start out in syinc but after a while they are not but both park correctly ???????

 

[Pighead]

Just started taking one of ours apart. Looks like that little plunger pushes up on the metal strip that goes from one of the end posts to the other, interrupting flow to the farthest post ...




https://forum.ih8mud.com/fj25-owners-group/680945-little-orphan-annie-11.html#post8444755

(post #211)

 

[brooklyn]

Upgraded My System

You may want to consider going to a later model with the single motor - you get two speeds and they stay in synch. I did mine and I have to say it's one of the better upgrades on the truck.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/40-55-series-tech/405393-wiper-motor-upgrade.html

If you interested, I can post up picture of the final install. Made a few last minute updates.

 

[nuclearlemon]

You may want to consider going to a later model with the single motor - you get two speeds and they stay in synch. I did mine and I have to say it's one of the better upgrades on the truck.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/40-55-series-tech/405393-wiper-motor-upgrade.html

If you interested, I can post up picture of the final install. Made a few last minute updates.

problem there is finding good ones. especially since they are nla. the gears tend to slip and the cable goes bad.

early wiper motors, you can just do what don did https://forum.ih8mud.com/40-55-series-tech/549969-replacement-early-wiper-motor.html