Windshield wiper motor

[JT708]

My wife has a 99 Lincoln town car. I've put 11 wiper motors on in the last 3 yrs! 6 new or
remanufactured 5 from salvage yards the used original equipment seems to last the longest.
3 new multi switches, turn signal, wiper control. I've talked to a mechanic at ford, Lincoln
dealer and other shop mechanics around the area. Some say voltage problem some say they've never heard of such a problem. All the motors work great when first put in then after awhile they start sounding like they have gravel in them and then will only work on high and then finally they just quit working at all. Any ideas?
Thanks for any help or thoughts.

 

[Perplexed]

Just a WAG since I am no mechanic in any sense, but I’d be looking for something causing mechanical resistance in the assembly. I would wonder if something along those lines wasn’t making the motor work harder than it needs to before the latter gives up.

In the meantime, you could do this...

 

[swampratt]

Yes good idea and if you had one of the old motors i would take it apart and inspect what gave up.

 

[POKE1911]

Have you tried the wiper arms themselves? I’m no mechanic either but it seems with this type of motor it’s either an input or output problem. Since it works fine at the beginning and slowly gets worse, it would lead me away from thinking it’s an input problem. So if it’s output, is there something about the connection, arms, brackets, etc that would cause undue strain, resistance, or gear slippage.

My advice, get your wife a newer car. Hitting that 20 year mark, I’m sure it’s still running like a tank but this is the time all these little widgets start going out and causing headaches and money/time pits. A lot of the parts you can live without, ie: do you really need to roll down the back passenger widow? Others like this are pretty imparitive.

 

[swampratt]

I have not had windshield wipers on my 2 hunt fish vehicles for many years 47 dodge truck and 57 chevy car.
I use Rain X. Original
Yes mist is a pain but light to heavy rain is excellent.
Downpours where people are parking on the highway I see right through it with No wipers.

 

[Mack45]

I have to agree with perplexed and poke on this. I would remove the motor and manually move the wipers back and forth to see if something is in a bind or rusted up to cause the motor to work too hard.

RainX is good stuff.

 

[NightShade]

I have the drivers window in my truck that has had similar issues. I know that there is something causing it to catch and break the regulator. I was hoping to replace the plastic crap with steel but it has not been a high priority since I don't do drive through's and I don't like my window being down anyway. I have replaced only the regulator as well as the regulator and motor, same thing happens. Also taken a couple broken ones and rebuilt one while adding some extra support and that seemed to last the longest. For ventilation I open up both the front and back window on the passenger side and that will change out the air in the cab in a few seconds.

But take the whole system apart and you will probably find something not lubed right or a piece of crud somewhere. To see if it could be the blades being too grabby lift them off and see how fast they go, then set them back down and spray a light mist on the window and see if they run a lot slower. Also if you are running larger than called for blades (I do because my truck calls for 19's but 21's clear a whole lot more and only one little spot hangs off on the passenger side when they are down due to the curve of the glass) you should plan to drop to the correct size as the larger the blade the more resistance.

When you take apart the motor and find there is some little plastic gear that is breaking maybe a machine shop can make one out of steel or someone out there may have already came up with a fix just like it.

 

[Cowcatcher]

When I think about how often wipers are used, 3 motors a year sounds like you aren't getting much use out of a motor. I'm thinking ya might have some mechanical binding goin on.