Magneti Marelli Wiper Motor Questions

[Odoyle]

So my wipers haven't been working for the last 6 months so I decided I would try and fix them. I have the wiper motor apart and I plan on cleaning all the electrical contacts, but I'm not quite sure what I should be looking for. The carbon brushes look like their getting low and could benefit from being replaced possibly. Not sure if that would fix the issue or is even necessary. Has anyone refurbished their Magneti wiper motor before?

[wizard124]

Been there! I didn't replace the brushes.
I used spray electric cleaner, removed rust from the motor and housing with light sand paper, and applied white lithium grease to shaft and bushings. Good to go.

Search my posts to find my thread and info on troubleshooting electrical connections.

[azruss]

take the top of the gearbox. 90% of the time, it is the plastic gear that's stripped and not the motor.

[Odoyle]

So I replaced the 8amp fuse and checked the plastic gear in the motor and it looked fine, put the motor back together and hooked it up. The wipers work now... but they wont return to the down position when I turn them off. Could it be that I connected the wiper cables wrong?

[Odoyle]

Wipers still wont go back down, anyone have any suggestions as to what would cause this?

[v6spider]

There's a park relay cam inside the front of the motor.. If it is not assembled correctly.. The wipers won't return after they are shut off.. Also make sure the contacts are clean and the springs are not broken.. I had a spare motor that had a broken spring on one of the contacts.

Rob

[aj81spider]

Does it stop immediately on shutting off the wipers or do they just park in the wrong place?

If they park in the wrong place you can just move the wiper. If they shut off immediately then you either have the broken cam switch mentioned above or you are wired wrong. Basically the wiper motor has two sources of power - one from the on/off switch and one that is always on routed through the cam switch. When you shut the on/off switch off the power still goes to the wiper motor through the cam switch, until the cam opens the cam switch in the parked position.

You should have one lead that shows 12 V when the switch is on and 0 V when the switch is off and another that has 12 V on all the time.

[Odoyle]

Does it stop immediately on shutting off the wipers or do they just park in the wrong place?

If they park in the wrong place you can just move the wiper. If they shut off immediately then you either have the broken cam switch mentioned above or you are wired wrong. Basically the wiper motor has two sources of power - one from the on/off switch and one that is always on routed through the cam switch. When you shut the on/off switch off the power still goes to the wiper motor through the cam switch, until the cam opens the cam switch in the parked position.

You should have one lead that shows 12 V when the switch is on and 0 V when the switch is off and another that has 12 V on all the time.

It seems like the wipers are parking in the wrong place. They still move when i turn them column switch off but are parking vertically. I'v tried moving them down with the key in the ignition but they wont move. Where is the cam switch btw? For now I will re-check my wiring. Thanks for the feedback guys.

[DieselSpider]

Just a note that one really should not use a grease with a metal (conductive) additive in an electric motor.

A electric motor specific grease really should be used for two reasons: 1 - It's non-conductive. 2 - It's formulated for high temps with a low separation rate so the oil will be less likely to weep into the winding's.

Here is one example of a decent electric motor safe grease:
http://www.amazon.com/Electric-Motor-Gr ... B009P0L2NA

[baltobernie]

Unlike the early Spiders with their keyed Molex connector, the later versions have several separate connectors that can indeed be incorrectly re-attached. However, the wire color codes do not change from firewall to wiper motor. Ensure that the blue/black from the harness is still blue/black at the motor, etc.

[aj81spider]

If they are parking in the wrong place (i.e. every time you turn them off they are in the same position) then it's not a wiring problem. Run them, then stop them so they park. Then remove the whole wiper arm by pulling it off the post and reinstall it so they are parked in the right place. Simple, completely mechanical fix

If they park in different places every time they are turned off then it's probably a wiring/cam switch problem.

The cam switch is inside the wiper motor at the top by the plastic gear.

[timspider]

I'm having same issue after taking the wiper motor apart today and cleaning it after is stopped functioning yesterday. Cleaned and lightly sanded all connections and voila, wiper motor is back and has no trouble dragging the wipers across a dry windshield quickly. Victory!
then they stopped in the straight up position. Turned them on and off to cycle them a few times- same thing.
I'm hesitant to just re mount the wipers in the down position as that seems like then they would want to swing down from the low/neutral position when I turn them on. Which seems like it would be really bad for the wiper arms, motor, or both.
I'm leaning toward trying to re set the linkage, but now that I think about it, that could get same result.
I have a white connector to the motor that I cleaned the contacts on, and it only goes on one way so those are all the same, but I'm sure there could be one funky contact in there.
Maybe that's where to go?
The white connector to make double sure everything is cleanly connected?
Something else?
thanks for any help

[Odoyle]

So I finally got some time to remove the wiper cowl to check the orientation of my wipers. Turns out that when I put the wiper linkage back together, I put the rotating arm 180 degrees in the wrong direction. So I took off the arm and flipped it, now the wipers rest in the correct position.
Here is the correct orientation of the wiper pivot arm.

[Turbofiat124]

I installed a Bosch wiper motor on my Spider from a 70s to 80s VW/Audi on my 80 Spider.

Bosch:



Marelli:



It bolts right up but requires soldering a ground wire to the body of the motor to get the intermittent wiper function to work. I did have this on my webpage but when I switched providers, my webpage died along with it but still have the wire configuration written down somewhere. I can post if you want.

By the way this shouldn't have anything to do with my delay issue. That problem started after installing air conditioning. The delay function has worked well on this Bosch motor for years up until the AC installation.

The Bosch motor works much faster but still wants to drag if it's cold outside or I need to put some Rain-X on my windshield. Ironically, the wipers work great in downpours! It's in the early hours of the morning if it's cold trying to swipe dew off the windshield that they struggle.

I've come to the conclusion there is still too much of a voltage drop between the ignition switch, wiper speed switch and selector. Despite replacing all the corroded grounds on the car.

My plan is to install a 12 to 15 volt step up converter. I've got this one on the way:



My theory is by connecting to the fuse that powers the wipers, by the time it goes through all the switches, I should be getting anywhere from 13.5 to 14 volts directly at the motor which should boost the speed.

I read where someone on the Xweb forums did this to an X 1/9 and it worked very well but have not been able to find it in the archives.

I'll post my findings are I get it wired it.

[spider2081]

I installed a relay that connects the alternators output post to the speed switch input. It helps a lot with the speed of the wipers to have full voltage at the motor. The relay install materials cost less than $10. A good working alternator should be producing a little over 14 volts jumping to 15 volts is less than a 10% increase.