ebiff

Thank you. I worked as a tech for airline ground support equipment for 20 years and now as a medical equipment engineer...I see bad grounds all of the time. It just never struck me the internal strap would fail as opposed to a motor which I encountered so often. Thank you for letting know about Chryslers. I will pass it on in other forums.

You sir are a genius! Spent hours troubleshooting fuses, column wiring, the switch assy...no reason found for the sudden failure of the wipers to come on. Washer worked perfectly. Found your post via a Google search. I poked a screwdriver through the grating to touch the motor housing and crossed it against another screwdriver grounded to frame. Boom! Wipers engaged! Very simple fix per your post. 1.Removed the plastic grill covers on either side of grill covering the wiper motor. Each cap has three plastic lock rivets that remove easily by prying the center post up from he base using a tiny flathead screwdriver. 2.The grill itself comes up once you carefully pop each of the plastic retainers holding down the rubber gasket through the grill to the fire wall lip it attaches to. I used a small needle nose pliers and squeezed each retainer from the bottom while tugging gently on the gasket. 3. There are 3 or 4 more retainers holding he grill along the upper side of the grill closer to the windshield. These released easily without breaking by tugging gently on the grill. 4. I then removed each wiper arm by removing the plastic cap at the point where the arm connects and then removing the attaching nut for each wiper arm. I used a crayon to mark the orientation of the arm to the pivot...but it was easy enough to eyeball on reinstall. 5. I didn't completely remove the grill as there was enough play to lift the grill away from the wiper motor. 6. I made a small ground wire using 3 inches of 16g wire with an eyelet crimped on either end. 7. I removed one of the bolts mounting the linkage to the firewall (just below/right of the wiper motor) to use as my grounding point. I used a wire brush to clean off the threaded hole and the large flat washer and the bolt and then connected one end of my ground wire to the bolt and reattached the bolt. 8. I removed one of the Phillips headed screws at the wiper motor housing, again cleaned off the hole and bolt with a wire brush, and connected the remaining end of my ground wire to the screw and reattached. 9. Before reinstalling everything I tested the wiper functions and let them run for a while without load to see if the motor or ground wire were getting hot. No problems. Also took the opportunity to lube the linkage as best I could. 10. Reinstalled grill, covers, and wiper arms in reverse order. In retrospect I would have used a better form or heavier gauge of grounding strap but I was pressed for time and unable to run out to the hardware store at the time. I would suggest giving this item more thought as above...but for the meantime I am good to go! Thanks again to Frank_ster for this post and for his ingenuity! Joe