Wiper motor park position on Classic mh

[bkahler]

The windshield wipers on our 84 310 don't park together. When we got the mh the drivers side wiper would start out working ok and then after a few cycles would drop down blow the bottom of the windshield and hit the engine cover. I just finished pulling both driver and passenger wiper motors and what I found was on the drivers side motor all three screws that hold the motor wiper motor to the bracket were loose. The timing on both motors was set the same which to me makes sense because both are situated in the same relative position to the windshield.

When I reinstalled them I swapped the motors around mainly because if the original drivers side motor is bad its a lot easier to pull the passenger side than the drivers side

What I don't know is if the motors are supposed to self park when they are turned off or if they are just supposed to stop where ever they are when you turn the switch off. What they currently do is just stop whenever you turn the switch off.

Any ideas or suggestions on what I need to do or are they working as designed?

Thanks,

Brad
PS, heading on a trip tomorrow afternoon so any replies after about noon saturday will not get a response until the 23rd.

[str8strm]

In the two plus years that we have had the 345, we have only had the occasion to use the wipers a couple of times. They seem to have an unsychronized rhythm. They seldom to seem on the same path, but they work well. As soon as I turn the switch off, they stop. I have resorted to shutting them down when the driver's side is all the way down. Then, from wherever the passenger side is, I can manually pull it down (while standing in front of the coach. It may not be correct, but it works. Ron

[txraz]

The wipers in the MH are controled by two seperate motors that are not sychronized in any fashon. Once they start, for the first couple of sweeps they will sync, then go about thier own way.

The wipers use a "Coast-to-Park" method of shutting off. Once you turn the wiper off, 12 volts is continued to be supplied to a special contact inside the gear box until the wiper returns to the park position and then the power is is to be disconnected. The park position is adjustable by loosing the hold down screws on the back of each gear box and adjusting. There are two issues that can cause you to have the continued operation. The power that supplies the park voltage is supplied from a common source, in fact there is a large diode bar on a stock aluminum heat sink under your dash that keeps the power from bleeding back from one motor to the other. If there are issues with those diodes then a motor will continue to recieve the park voltage, thus keep running, after the park contact is closed. The other issue can be the result of worn out or bent park contacts.

I resolved the issue by taking both motors out and disassembling, cleaning the park contact and then re installing. I chose however to imporve my system by replacing the simple wiper controller/diode with an intermittent controler designed for dual "coast to park" motors. Now they not only stop when I ask them to but offer a much finer level of control. The new controller has built in diodes so the old ones are simply removed. I did have to run a new Park wire from the controller to the motors, but that was easy enough.

Turns out that most of the original wiper motors, gears, and contollers eventually found their way to a company called AMequipment. You can find them at AMequipment.com. They can not only help with your run problem but can custom build a replacement for just about any original AS whiper system.

Good luck,

TxRaz

[bkahler]

TxRaz, thanks for the great post this is very useful information. If we ever get the Motorhome back from the repair shop I'll check out the wiper motors. I'll post back when I've had the time to check them out.

Almost forgot, welcome to the forums TxRaz!

Thanks again!

Brad

[Robfike]

Sometimes ours park as they should.
Sometimes they just stop where they are when I turn them off. Kind of a PITA. Sounds like the "Park brushes" could be suspect.
Thanks for the info, Rob