funky windsheid wiper motor on '97

A friend of mine has this problem, of his wipers comin' on at any random
time.. When It occurred (at a car wash,) since then they come on at
anytime. Maybe a light tap of the motor ? Anybody in the group have come
across this situation before ? Is there any fix for this...Now he's
unpluggin' things so they won't come on. Not a good thing !!

odyssey wrote:
> A friend of mine has this problem, of his wipers comin' on at any random
> time.. When It occurred (at a car wash,) since then they come on at
> anytime. Maybe a light tap of the motor ? Anybody in the group have come
> across this situation before ? Is there any fix for this...Now he's
> unpluggin' things so they won't come on. Not a good thing !!
>
>

Sounds like that car has "Rainsense"--detects water drops on the
windscreen & cycles wipers until drops are gone. For 1997 I thought it
was offered only on Cadillacs and the Park Avenue. But, I rented a '01
coupe last year that had lateral 'G' on the HUD--wasn't aware that
earlier HUDs had that feature.

The "fix" is to move the windshield wiper switch all the way to the off
position rather than leaving it in the first detent. Good idea to leave
this off in good WX--some Caddie wiper arms have been mangled in car
washes when the ignition switch has been left on.

Rainsense has a headlight interlock (turns off twilight control at night
and turns on the low beams if it's daylight after 6 seconds of wiper
operation--to comply with Fed and state laws that kick in in a couple of
years). When he turns off the Rainsense, the twilight feature on the
headlights will work properly.

HTH......Paul H.

Most likely the wiper motor circuit board is wet. If he opens up the
motor and cleans off the board and makes sure the drain holes are open
it should bo okay. Alternatively, it could be a problem with the
stalk. Playing around with it might show if that's the culprit.

For more help, check out www.c5forum.com or www.corvettemechanic.com



On Fri, 13 May 2005 03:04:55 GMT, "odyssey" >
wrote:

>A friend of mine has this problem, of his wipers comin' on at any random
>time.. When It occurred (at a car wash,) since then they come on at
>anytime. Maybe a light tap of the motor ? Anybody in the group have come
>across this situation before ? Is there any fix for this...Now he's
>unpluggin' things so they won't come on. Not a good thing !!
>

This information comes from one of our members in the Capital City Corvette
Club in Columbus Ohio and appeared in our most recent news letter. Thought
I would pass it along. Hope it helps.

Rod Flannery
'03 Spiral Gray Coupe

"Caring For Your Corvette
by Lloyd Harvey
Corvette Care 614-471-3331

Working with Corvettes and nothing but Corvettes I sometimes find solutions
to unusual problems.

I have seen a few C5's lately with wipers that are partially or completely
inop. The wiper motor sets in a plenum that turns into a pond if water is
trapped by clogged wiper plenum drain tubes.

To prevent your C5 Windshield Wiper Motor & Park Circuit Board from being
shorted out by either rain water or water from washing your Corvette, reach
your hand down into the space just aft of the washer fluid reservoir and
clean out the debris that gets caught in these 3 drain tubes.

This is a quick and no cost preventative maintenances item that can be
easily performed by anyone that does not have forearms like a gorilla. This
can get very expensive if the tubes are ignored and get clogged!"






"odyssey" > wrote in message
k.net...
> A friend of mine has this problem, of his wipers comin' on at any random
> time.. When It occurred (at a car wash,) since then they come on at
> anytime. Maybe a light tap of the motor ? Anybody in the group have come
> across this situation before ? Is there any fix for this...Now he's
> unpluggin' things so they won't come on. Not a good thing !!
>
>

"Rod Flannery" > wrote in message
...
> This information comes from one of our members in the Capital City
> Corvette
> Club in Columbus Ohio and appeared in our most recent news letter.
> Thought
> I would pass it along. Hope it helps.
>
> Rod Flannery
> '03 Spiral Gray Coupe
>
> "Caring For Your Corvette
> by Lloyd Harvey
> Corvette Care 614-471-3331
>
> Working with Corvettes and nothing but Corvettes I sometimes find
> solutions
> to unusual problems.
>
> I have seen a few C5's lately with wipers that are partially or completely
> inop. The wiper motor sets in a plenum that turns into a pond if water is
> trapped by clogged wiper plenum drain tubes.
>
> To prevent your C5 Windshield Wiper Motor & Park Circuit Board from being
> shorted out by either rain water or water from washing your Corvette,
> reach
> your hand down into the space just aft of the washer fluid reservoir and
> clean out the debris that gets caught in these 3 drain tubes.
>
> This is a quick and no cost preventative maintenances item that can be
> easily performed by anyone that does not have forearms like a gorilla.
> This
> can get very expensive if the tubes are ignored and get clogged!"
>
>
>
This is exactly what the caused the problem on my 99 I just bought. I live
in Las Vegas and bought the car from an individual in FLA. In early April
when I first saw the car an test drove it. it was doing this. He had it
checked out and they found nothing. It also stopped doing it about 3 days
before he took it there. I picked the car up the end of April and drove it
back to Vegas. 20 miles out of Panama City the wipers came on. It poured in
FLA the night before so I new it was moisture related. I pulled the fuse and
drove it back to Vegas with plenty of Rain X on the windshield. When I got
back I reached in the area mentioned above and felt a rubber cow udder that
had all sorts of crud in it. It has a slit in in and as I squeezed it you
could hear the crap fall out. There was no way water could drain out of it.
I left the fuse pulled for a few days, put it back in and the wipers no
longer come on when there not supposed to. I've been told that there are two
other drain udders under there somewhere.