One of the last problems I had to solve was my inoperative wipers, so I rolled up my sleeves and tackled that today. Turns out there was power to the single speed motor (brown wire) and the white wire went straight to ground when the switch was on as it should. That only left the motor itself, but being as there is an internal circuit breaker, I decided to take it apart. Took awhile to get to it, the wipers and cowl must be removed first, but I was finally able to. Upon opening up the motor, I saw a lot of rust inside as well as a build up of corrosion on the armature. Luckily the rust was on the inside of the motor housing and not a real concern, so I took my dremel tool with the wire brush and cleaned the armature. I also noticed when I removed the end bearing cap that 2 items fell out. One was a solid round metal disc and the other a washer made of some sort of cloth or fiber. After the armature was clean and ready for reassembly, I used some Marvel mystery oil in the end cap bearing after first putting the round metal disc in and the fiber washer last. I figured this was some kind of oil retainer and being as the end of the motor shaft had what looked like a single ball bearing in it's middle, I figured it would go into the hole of the washer and be lubricated by the fiber. (If someone knows better than this, please let me know.) The brushes and the commutator seemed to be pretty clean so I didn't mess with those, but they were a bear to get back together as the wiring doesn't allow for much room. But I prevailed and once back together again the motor actually runs now! I made sure to use some more mystery oil on the shaft going through the housing where the worm and plastic ring gear are and then coated those with lithium grease. Put it all back together and it now seems to be working just fine and even the park feature seems to work. :beer
Man, great work! I love these stories of getting the old stuff back to working order! Just some elbow grease, logic, common sense and perserverence. And Commutator? That's my new word of the week!
