For 5 years I couldn’t get my wipers to park in any mode. I changed everything from motors to switches, park switch to relays with no success
Two weeks ago I went for a country drive and hit an enormous pothole after which the rotten things suddenly sprang to life and parked themselves!
They’ve been working perfectly since but today during a thunderstorm with heavy rain they went back to a no-park situation. Short of finding another pothole or hitting everything with a hammer I’m going to assume the park switch is traumatized. I’ll re-check all the wiring connections then replace the park switch. Again.
Since you have originally covered all the relevant bases, Don; it’s either gremlins, or the pothole doing a ‘fiddle factor’…
Do you have the ‘intermittent’ function (relay) or just plainly a ‘park in off’? In both cases; the park switch is included in the motor circuit by connections in the stalk switch’s connections (‘off’ and ‘intermittent’). The motor then runs ‘backwards’ compared to ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ stalk switch setting.
The problem is almost certainly electrical - and the most usual fault of ‘non-parking’ is in the stalk switch. How carefully did you originally check out the stalk switch??
It may of course be a park switch fault - or a ‘new’ fault unrelated to the original problem. And the pothole may just be a coincidence - the nature of gremlins…
There is no ‘intermittent’ function. I replaced the stalk switch with a new English one.
I did that because I had already replaced the original switch with an allegedly good second handy with no improvement and didn’t trust my ability to test with certainty.
I have a new park switch so will stick it in tomorrow.
But Frank, one issue I had before with another motor and switch along with no-park was the wipers would not turn off until the stalk switch was toggled repeatedly and sometimes not at all until the car was turned off. Can this be the park switch?
Edit; Whoops, sorry. I just realized I asked that question here 3 years ago. How embarrassment! Old age and long term Jag ownership takes its toll, apparently.
At least that issue has not returned, just the park gremlin.
[quote="Benzme, post:3, topic
…one issue I had before with another motor and switch along with no-park was the wipers would not turn off until the stalk switch was toggled repeatedly and sometimes not at all until the car was turned off. Can this be the park switch?
[/quote]
No, Don; that must have been a stalk switch fault - eliminated by your actions. The stalk switch is always powered with ign ‘on’ - the switch just alters power and ground routing.
The park switch grounds one motor terminal during sweep while the stalk switch powers one of the two other terminals to vary motor speed.
In ‘off’; the park switch breaks its/motor ground connection when reaching wiper park position - and connects power to one motor terminal while one of the other terminals is also powered by the stalk switch. With power on two terminals and without any ‘ground’ - the motor stops…
In ‘low’ and ‘high’ the stalk switch provides power to one motor terminal and ground to another - the park switch is not involved.
Incidentally, the intermittent, when fitted, works in the same way, but uses the intermittent relay to power the motor out of wiper park - to resume wiping, until next ‘park’ position…
Some wiper motors, like the one in my car, have two park switches. Theres the normal switch which is activated by the slider where the cable goes, the other attached from the inside under the cog wheel.
Does anyone know the function of the second switch?
I successfully installed the new park switch. It works!
quote=“Don_Faulkner, post:5, topic:443603, full:true”]
Some wiper motors, like the one in my car, have two park switches. Theres the normal switch which is activated by the slider where the cable goes, the other attached from the inside under the cog wheel.
Does anyone know the function of the second switch?
[/quote]
Is the second actually a switch or just a connector/relay Don, is it ‘active’ - ie connected; and does it do anything? You can of course disconnect it and see what happens…
It’s rather academic since you have fixed the problem…
Good point. I’ll disconnect it next time I’m in there and see what happens. If it’s just a connector I can use a motor that doesn’t have it and just tie the plug up. Thanks Frank…
Rather than disconnect to see what happens i pulled the other motor apart to have a squiz. It is in fact a switch without the three connectors but with the same plunger that runs backwards and forwards over a moulded cam on the back of the cog wheel.
I suppose if you needed a new park switch and you are clever enough you could make a new switch out of one of these with a bit of soldering and fiddling. I have yet to work out what it does that doesn’t happen on a motor without it.
I must be getting incredibly dull in my old age but I found it all very interesting.
I would expect that most motors would have a generic self park arrangement, Don, but in this case not compatible with Jaguar wiring demands It’s a bit unusual for motors to need to reverse for parking - but what is cause and what is effect is moot.
Like you I find things like this interesting, but the wiring is intricate and may be Jaguar specific. Using your spare motor you could ohm between the connectors and connectors/ground and to see what happens when turning the motor manually.
Not that it may clarify matters, but when you compare it with the wiper wiring diagrams it may give some clues as to why Jaguar didn’t use it?
In the parts catalogue the switch on the slider is called a ‘park switch’, the other is a ‘switch unit’. Im curious as to how it works when the two operate in opposite ways, eg the slider switch operates once per cycle, the other continuously as the cog wheel goes back and forth.
Since this wiper motor has no mechanical park position the slider switch does nothing. Unless it is adjusted so that it switches every cycle, then if it is wired correctly it will also work as park switch because the park circuit is powering the motor when the wipers are switched off.
For a better answer we would have to know how it is wired, but both should stop the wiper at some point of its stroke.
Wiring diagrams shows the park switch, bypassed in normal wiping, grounding the motor in ‘off’/intermittent’, David - breaking ground with wiper in parked position…?
The park switch is normally the one inside the gearbox. It keeps the power feed going until the gear trips the switch open, at which point the motor stops unless the wiper switch is still providing power.
Regarding the reverse to park comments.
Some cars used to set the wipers lower on parking than when in operation. I assume the reversing of the motor allowed this function, so suspect that is what the second switch is for.
Do these cars use that function?
If someone posts up a wiring diagram I’ll be able to say what the switches do.
The S1 has it. It looks a bit unsophisticated but they park nice.
It’s a little gadget on the crank pin of the gearwheel which extends while the motor is reversed.
At times, the wipers on my 83XJwuzza six fail to park. ilearned that a simple tap on the end of the stalk gets a proper park. learned from frmer lister Gregory Andrachuk.
