Electrical Issues

[Taz]

New to the world of Fiat. I have a 81 2000, fun but frustrating car to drive. Two issues are driving me NUTS. 1) What can I do to get the wipers to run like a what I would call a NORMAL car. I noticed someone state that the 2 speeds are slow & SLOWER. I can't drive the car in the rain because the wipers won't operate fast enough to clear the rain off the windshield. 2)Does the car ALWAYS blow HOT air at your feet ? It seems that no matter where I set the control levers there is always hot air blowing in near our feet. NEED some answers, because I would love to be able to drive my car as a daily driver.

[bobplyler]

One of the wiper arms in the mechanism is probably stuck. You can take the cowl off (it's easy), and soak the stuck arm in a lubricant, and work it back and forth. When it gets loose, you will be able to tell.

Always blowing hot is a sign that the heater valve is stuck. Mine's been that way for years, but I can close off the air flow, and it doesn't get hot.

[Ky2000]

I would advise you to get a bottle of Rain-X. It will help to keep the windsheild clearer in rain. As far as the heat my car has a valve installed in the heater hose line to stop the flow to the heater core in the summer time. It works well.

[aj81spider]

The wipers will never go extremely quickly. However they go very slowly because they aren't getting full voltage. You can trace the wires and clean all the connections to reduce the voltage drop in the wires. You need to do this on both the drive side and the ground side.

I tried to do this and it helped some - however not enough to get them to an acceptable speed. Eventually I wired a relay to drive the wiper motor directly, controlled by the wiring that used to go to the wiper motor. This speeded the wipers up to the point where at least it wasn't unsafe if it was raining out.

[vandor]

If you move the leftmost lever forward, that should shut off any air from entering from the outside, so it should quit blowing any air. If it does not, then there is a problem with the cable.
The middle lever controls the heat, sounds like either the heater valve is stuck, or the cable is not shutting it off. You can see the valve from the passenger footwell (unless your car has AC), watch it while you move the lever and see if it is moving the lever through its full range.

For the wipers it helps to lube the linkage, especially where the shaft come through the cowl. What made the biggest difference on my car was a reman'd wiper motor. However, Rain-X is a lot cheaper. Making sure the ground and all other connections are tight and clean is free, and worth doing all over the car.

[124JOE]

also look up the brown wire fix
these cars loose volts at the ING
and the fix helps return that lost voltage

[Taz]

THANKS to ALL of you ! As soon as the weather warms up a bit I'll try your tips. Some one else was talking about putting a relay into the wiring harness that gives more power to the wiper motor. Anyone know if that works and how to do it ? I purchased one from a Fiat shop in Texas during the winter to install into my headlight harness, it is supposed to brighten up the lights.

[aj81spider]

Caveats:

- Other years may have different wiring.
- I'm writing this from memory.
- If you get a better approach from someone else feel free to use it.

That said, here's what I did on my 81.

> I pulled the speed switch out of the dash. There is one input and two outputs. The outputs go to the high and low speed connections on the motor. The input is the voltage to drive the motor. On my car the input was the gray/black wire. The outputs were gray and light blue.

> I connected the wire running to the input side of the switch (gray/black) to the positive coil side of the relay. The negative of the coil was connected to a convenient ground.

> I ran a wire from the alternator to an in-line fuse as close to the alternator as I could make it. Then ran from the fuse to one side of the normally open contact side of the relay. Use a fuse - you don't want to take your entire car down - or worse start a fire - if you get a short behind the dash.

> I ran the other side of the normally open contact side of the relay to the input side of the switch.

The net effect of this is that the voltage that was supposed to go to the wiper motor (but which was too low to effectively drive the motor) now drives the relay. When on the normally open contacts will close and the 12 volts from the alternator will run directly to the wiper motor. The only voltage drops along the way are all new that you have put in.

On a side note - since you are thinking of doing it, I highly recommend driving the headlights with relays - that will improve their output substantially.