'91 Corolla - Wipers stopped working...??, Any suggestions? Options

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

So since it isn't Celica related, per se.....I figured I'd post up in the OT to see if anybodys had this issue before.

My brother owns a 1991 Toyota Corolla, and he managed to somehow ruin his wipers.
Not sure exactly what he did, and he doesn't know either, but his wipers just completely stopped working and were stuck in the middle of his windshield, obstructing his vision while driving. He called me up that night and asked what he should do, so I told him to look in his fuse panels and see if there one for the wipers. Sure enough, the 20A interior fuse for the wipers was blown, so he ran down to a Pep Boys and get a whole pack of 20A fuses, and put in the new one. He puts it in and turns the ignition on, and tries to use the wipers and the wipers return to their off position where they should be then the fuse blows again.

After another 4-5 fuses later, it now blows the fuse every time he puts a new one in. I told him to disconnect the battery terminal when putting the new fuse in, still nothing. I thought about having him try a higher amp fuse to at least see if it would resist blowing like the lower amp fuses, but I'm not too crazy about trying it. I also doubt that the wiper motor is bad, but anything is worth a try I suppose.


Anybody have a similar experience? Any other suggestions?

[Supersprynt]

Theres a short somewhere, he'll have to go through the wiper wiring and see where it is.

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

Weeee.

You mean I'll have to go through it for him.

[Supersprynt]

Ask if he's touched anything lately? By the tone of your response I gather he doesnt work on cars. So the answer is probably no.

[hurley97]

check the grounds... ? cause that'll be so much easier...

a friend's headlight on his mustang was doing some crazy things and I ended up finding a ground completely broken off. of course that wasn't too hard cause it was right on the radiator support bar and pretty obvious... but take a look around... can't hurt I guess

[Supersprynt]

Generally if it was a ground they wouldnt work at all.

When I took the interior of my truck apart to clean it, I didnt clear a wire from the e-brake and everytime I had the ebrake down the wire's covering got cut off and the wire was touching metal, but only when my ebrake was down. The wire was for my rear lights and it took me awhile to re-trace my steps and notice that every fuse I put in only went out when the ebrake was down.

[hurley97]

with that kids mustang one of his headlights was really dim and would blink (go off completely then come back on dim again) when he put on the turn signal. the headlight and turn signal were not the same light at all but they did share a ground which wasn't connected. when you touched it to where it should connect the headlight would brighten and look normal. it was kinda weird

This post has been edited by hurley97: Mar 28, 2007 - 9:01 AM

[Supersprynt]

Yeah grounds are just important as power. Always make sure you have good battery grounds.

G'luck Corey.

[alltracman78]

But a bad ground wouldn't cause a blown fuse.
It simply won't allow power to flow either all the time or some of the time [depending on if it's loose or totally bad].

A fuse blows when too much amperage runs through a circuit.
EG there is a short BEFORE the load[s].
So you want to focus your attention on the wiring before the motor. Is anything else on that circuit?

How does the fusebox look?

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

Got it fixed.

So my assumption going into this was that he was being careless with the wipers, and was either trying to get them loose from ice or that he had them running on high and then just shut off the car or something. Chances are, this is what did in the fuse.

I took the windshield wiper motor out and took it apart and all the contacts looked perfect, nothing looked to be fried. So i reassembled the motor and reinstalled it knowing that wasn't the cause. Next I checked the wiring that leads through the firewall, the fuse panel contacts, and identified all the 4 leads for the motor, everything checked out just fine.
So as a result I chose to use a 30 amp fuse in the interior fuse panel in place of the 20 amp. I figured at the very least this would resist blowing as easily, and allow me to discharge any excess voltage that may have accumulated, causing the fuses to blow constantly. Everything worked perfectly fine with a 30 amp, let the car run for a while and then replaced it with the 20 amp fuse and it didn't blow and worked 100%.

I did, however, realize that the grounding on his car was awful and may have contributed to alot of throttle hesitation, lighting dimness and perhaps contributed to the wiper fuse going as well. I replaced all the engine room grounds with 8-gauge amp wire and the difference was night and day!



Sorry to write a long-winded explanation, just figured I'd explain how it went down.

Also as an important footnote - If you ever have to tear apart a windshield wiper motor, make sure that you look to see where the contact plate was BEFORE you remove it, otherwise your wipers will stop in the middle of your windshield instead of the bottom and leave you scratching your head for an hour.