Intermittent wiper problem, what is it?

[madtriumphman]

Driving home last night I had to flick my wipers to intermittent. Up they went but on the return sweep they stopped halfway! If I put them on normal wipe or fast they work but wont return past halfway when knocked off (so I have to knock them off when they are at the bottom of the screen!)

Whats causing this strange fault, any ideas?

[Oldandslow]

Not sure. Is it possible the motor has slipped round on the drive if say it was used when the screen was covered in snow or wipers frozen to screen?

[mikey P 500]

Had this fault on mine one last year. You need to remove the wiper motor (Very easy 3 bolts), undo the end bit of it and the there are some copper contacts that pass in a circle to control the park positions (1 does the intermittent wipe and it will be worn almost through), if you’re a cheapskate you can solder a blob on the end so it continues to make contact for a bit longer. I couldn’t find a place to replace just the copper strips so decided to buy a second hand motor from a breaker for a more long term repair.

[madtriumphman]

Ok, thanks I'll have a look at the weekend. It might be worth replacing the motor if thats what the problem is as I have found my wipers to be pretty slow anyway!

[WarrenG]

mikey P 500 said:

Had this fault on mine one last year. You need to remove the wiper motor (Very easy 3 bolts), undo the end bit of it and the there are some copper contacts that pass in a circle to control the park positions (1 does the intermittent wipe and it will be worn almost through), if you’re a cheapskate you can solder a blob on the end so it continues to make contact for a bit longer. I couldn’t find a place to replace just the copper strips so decided to buy a second hand motor from a breaker for a more long term repair.

^^
what he said!

every classic mini I ever owned (about 6 of em) had exactly this fault bar one and that was so old it didn't have a park setting from the factory. Autolink will do a working one for £25 www.autolinkuk.co.uk looks like there's about 3 variations spanning 5 yrs of the early mk1 build.

Edited by WarrenG on Saturday 13th March 23:26