First Post here...Need some insight...

[JessePatty]

My wife has a 97 Expedition and she has begun having a weird issue with the wipers.....

They worked fine yesterday and then today when she turned them on the wipers would swipe up (pointing to the sky) pause about 3-5 seconds and then swipe down...

Of course it has never had the pause before so I am trying to determine if I should start at the Multi-Function (Turn signal, wiper switch) or the wiper motor itself.

The wiper motor seems to be working fine other then the pause between up and down.

We have well over 200K on this vehicle and this is the first experience with this problem so if anyone else has been through this please chime in..

Thanks

 

[tonydiv]

I guess the first question is, has anyone worked on the truck recently, under the hood or in the dash?

If not, I think you first need to determine what is actually happening.

If the wiper motor is still making noise during the pause, then it's the motor, perhaps a bad gear or something like that. You may need to get under the hood, with the engine off to hear it.

Then I would put a meter on the electrical connection to the wiper motor and turn it on. See if it has constant power when turned on. If the power to the motor goes off when the arms stop in the up position then the motor is most likely ok, and it's time to look deeper.

Hopefully that should get you started. Let us know what you find.

 

[JessePatty]

Checking it further shows the wiper motor is cutting out during the pause... It isn't acting like it's struggling or anything of that nature. It seems like it is just cutting out or losing power once the wipers reach a certain position.

I guess what I need to know is if there is a separate delay wiper control module or is it built into either the wiper motor or the multi-function switch.

I am leaning towards replacing the wiper delay control first and going from there.

 

[riccoh]

check the motor control in the engine bay, clean all the contacts as necessary and this should fix the problem. i have been doing a lot a cleaning lately on the expi I got a few months ago and that was the cure for mine.

 

[JessePatty]

I know this probably sounds foolish but where is the wiper control located under the hood?
I've followed the wiring out of the wiper motor and it runs into a large harness and off to who knows where.... My service manual is vague on what exactly controls the delayed wipers.....

It's now not doing it all the time.....Sometime the pause is there and other times they work as they should....