|
Dodge wiper motors are all pretty similar. There's usually 2, 3 or 4 wires to the motor, and they're 1 speed, 2 speed or variable speed with newer also featuring delay settings. If the switch goes out and you can't find one you can wire them to a toggle switch. You need a 'DP/DT/OFF' switch, which is 'Dual Pole-Dual Throw-Off' with 6 wire terminals on it, 2 on each end and 2 in center. The 2 center leads are 'Hot' terminals, the ones on ends are your switched terminals. You can also use SP/DT/Center Off, which is Single Pole/Dual Throw/ Center Off. Both switches have three toggle positions, like up, down and center. The DP/DT/Center Off are easier to find so that's why I spec'd it.
You can safely use battery voltage to test out your motor to identify wires. Connect a ground to the motor body and to grounded metal. Take a 12V hot lead and momentarily touch each wire. One may spark hard as some motors [very few] have a ground wire, other wires will also spark some but not as violently. Determine which lead wire from motor is 'High' speed, which is 'Low' speed, and which is 'Park' by observing motor lever rotation. The 'Park' wire will cause the motor to rotate for a moment and then stop in parked position to always return wipers to lowered position. Please be careful as this motor has a lot of torque and may jump, or the lever may come around to bite you or something. Wire the motor leads to the toggle: Permanently connect a jumper wire to motor's 'High speed' wire so it has a 2 lead pigtail. Connect remaining ends of pigtails to each end of one side of toggle. This leaves 2 more terminals at ends of toggle switch. Connect the 'Low Speed' wire to the other terminal on one end of switch. This leaves one unused terminal on switch ends and two unused in center. Connect the 'Park' lead to one of the center terminals and connect your 12V Hot lead to both of the center terminals with a pigtail. With this wiring you should have 'Low speed' at one toggle position, 'High speed' at other toggle position, and 'Off' in center position to cause wipers to park. You need to check to see that the 'Park' lead doesn't feed continual voltage to motor to drain battery. It shouldn't because the 'Park' position is supposed to trip a contact inside motor connections to open the circuit and stop current flow. To test use a voltmeter and disconnect negative battery terminal and test for current flow between disconnected battery lead and the battery negative post with all accessories and ignition turned off. This is called an 'IOD' test, or 'Ignition Off Draw' test. If there's no current flow/draw you're fine. Remember that clocks and many radios have a constant current draw on battery so you'll have to disconnect them from power to perform test. You'll lose your presets on radio when you do this. These instructions are correct for many wiper motors, but probably not for all. On some motors you follow these instructions to make the Hi/Lo speeds work correctly, but other motors are wired differently. On some motors instead of connecting HI & Lo speed wires together for one speed connection you just use it 'as wired'. That is, connect Hi to one toggle position, Lo to the other toggle position. Others require this jumpered setup as described. JimmieD |