Wiper acting stupid

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shotgunvic64

shotgunvic64

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I have a 66 Dart and the wipers don’t really work since they’re stopping halfway then continue to do a full sweep after they pause and it doesn’t help in the rain. Every time they stop I hear a click somewhere and my headlights flicker with each click and I am wondering if it’s a short or bad wiper switch or motor.
 
Most likely the motor, the limit switch maybe going bad
 
Thought... if the arm on the motor has spun on the shaft it might explain the symptoms you say.
 
There is a cycling circuit breaker at the switch. If that is the source of the clicking, it will totally fail eventually. Sounds like you have high resistance somewhere in the mechanical. So first,,, Go under the dash and disconnect the linkage at pitman arm. Does the gear motor run fine? If so the fault must be crusty wiper pivots. How difficult is it to move the wipers by hand? Majority of the work load and subsequent wear is in the drivers side pivot. I've been through this with 2 of 67 notch backs.
 
All good thoughts but I’ve still got this issue and it’s rain season here in LA and my wiper symptoms have gotten worse. What I find weird is that my lights go out for every click when I have the wipers on. Why is that? I have gone under the dash to look for a short somewhere but the wiring is a mess since I have no cluster so there’s random wires just hanging not connected to anything.
 
shotgunvic64 said:
All good thoughts but I’ve still got this issue and it’s rain season here in LA and my wiper symptoms have gotten worse. What I find weird is that my lights go out for every click when I have the wipers on. Why is that? I have gone under the dash to look for a short somewhere but the wiring is a mess since I have no cluster so there’s random wires just hanging not connected to anything.
Click to expand...

That is starting to sound more like grounding. I would start with checking the ground strap in the wiper itself. Remove that nut and pull the barrel out of the rubber grommet. Clean the surfaces. The motor gets ground through that strap, to the nut/barrel to the firewall. Then make sure there is a strap from the back of the drivers side head to the fire wall, clean those connections. Then clean the connection on the radiator support where the battery cable and headlight harness bolt to it. I have not gotten to the dash harness on mine so I am not sure where the ground are there. There a short jumper between the steering column and one of the nuts that bolts the column bracket to the under dash support. Also typically the connection between the dash and body is a current carrying path. The bolts on each side of the dash above the kick panels clean and tighten them.
 
So I guess we have to ask a bunch of questions... Did you recently buy the car in this condition?
Did you remove the instrument panel? Is this when the wiper problem started?
The wiper switch does need to be grounded. If its just dangling from the harness connector that might the problem. I drove my 67 a few weeks without inst' panel. I forget if the wipers would not run or would not stop but I did need to make a little bracket from a piece of plumbers strap to temporarily mount and ground that switch. I did the same for the headlight switch although that switch didn't need a ground.
When inst' panel is removed there are only one or two harness connectors ( depends on model ) and two large wires one red one black involved. Those two wires should be bolted together. I can only imagine someone has placed a cycling circuit breaker here between these two wires. Anyway.. Removing the inst' panel shouldn't result in a lot of loose wires.
The instrument panel was only grounded through its mounting hardware ( which grounded the headlight switch mounted in it, again depending on model ).
A 66 wouldn't have or need the ground jumper at the steering column mount since the slotted blocks in the column mounting bracket were metal. Later blocks were plastic so a little ground jumper was needed. Could you provide pics and more details?
 
Here are photos of the metal plate that holds the switches in place, the motor, and the back of the wiper switch. I bought the car like this for $300 and someone even made lights for direction signals(my left indicator stopped working the other day and I’m having trouble with that too) oil, and high beams and built them into that metal plate. I used a wiring diagram for 1966 dodge slant 6 to guide me but there’s a lot to look at since I don’t have the actual cluster.

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Wow, just don't know. You'll have to find where the click is coming from. If it is inside the wiper switch its a thermal protection devise overheating. Its a simple strip of bi metal in there. It can crack and fail completely eventually. Did you run the motor without blades or linkage?
 
shotgunvic64 said:
More photos of what I have to deal with.

View attachment 1715275728

View attachment 1715275729

View attachment 1715275730
Click to expand...

I can't really tell what the switch is mounted on, but some of those switches have to have a ground to it's case to run.
It might be getting it's ground through the motor and gear causing the intermittent issue and the clicking with headlights flickering.

Simple test to just use a wire that's connected to ground and touch the wiper switch case with the wipers on and see if it clears up.
 
The wiper switch is mounted on the Mopar metal plate, the sound comes from the switch itself so maybe it needs to be better grounded.
 
So I went to the junkyard where they had a 65 Valiant and I took the motor from it and solved the issue, thanks guys!
 
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