Soldato
Evening all,
Rear wiper faults are common place on the older Fiestas.
The wiper on my GF's Fiesta has been intermittently working/broken for a while but recently hasn't worked at all.
After checking relevant points for 12v and continuity I moved on to the motor itself.
I removed the wiper motor from the tailgate and opened it up. It was thick in emulsified grease/thick, sticky sludge.
I stripped out the couple of gears and reconnected the bare motor. Switched on via the stalk and the motor operated fine.
Cleaned everything up with brake parts cleaner and a dremel. There are some electrical contacts which were rusty (provides a switch to ensure wiped returns to rest position) so sanded these back with the dremel.
Regressed everything and refitted it all.
It works!
Kind of!
The motor doesn't seem very strong. I've read about a dodgy earth to the wiper motor causing issues so quickly bodged a wire from the wiper motor to an earth terminal near the rear light clusters.
The motor now operates much stronger and faster.
The earth to the boot lid is/wiper motor is provided by the chassis and tailgate hinges, no wire.
Now, here's the weird thing. There are four electrical terminals on the boot surround and tailgate. These make contact when the boot is shut. Only 3 of these terminals are in use. Nothing connected to the fourth. I wired the wiper motor ground to the fourth contact in the tailgate and then ran a cable from the contact on the boot surround to the earth point near the rear lights.
Everything seems good now. I can't figure out why Ford didn't cable it like this though? Have I made a stupid mistake running the ground through this contact? The other contacts carry permanent and switched live for the wiper motor. I guess the third is related to the high level brake light.
I'll add a few pics to this thread as I think it'll prove useful to forum and Google users.
Rear wiper faults are common place on the older Fiestas.
The wiper on my GF's Fiesta has been intermittently working/broken for a while but recently hasn't worked at all.
After checking relevant points for 12v and continuity I moved on to the motor itself.
I removed the wiper motor from the tailgate and opened it up. It was thick in emulsified grease/thick, sticky sludge.
I stripped out the couple of gears and reconnected the bare motor. Switched on via the stalk and the motor operated fine.
Cleaned everything up with brake parts cleaner and a dremel. There are some electrical contacts which were rusty (provides a switch to ensure wiped returns to rest position) so sanded these back with the dremel.
Regressed everything and refitted it all.
It works!
Kind of!
The motor doesn't seem very strong. I've read about a dodgy earth to the wiper motor causing issues so quickly bodged a wire from the wiper motor to an earth terminal near the rear light clusters.
The motor now operates much stronger and faster.
The earth to the boot lid is/wiper motor is provided by the chassis and tailgate hinges, no wire.
Now, here's the weird thing. There are four electrical terminals on the boot surround and tailgate. These make contact when the boot is shut. Only 3 of these terminals are in use. Nothing connected to the fourth. I wired the wiper motor ground to the fourth contact in the tailgate and then ran a cable from the contact on the boot surround to the earth point near the rear lights.
Everything seems good now. I can't figure out why Ford didn't cable it like this though? Have I made a stupid mistake running the ground through this contact? The other contacts carry permanent and switched live for the wiper motor. I guess the third is related to the high level brake light.
I'll add a few pics to this thread as I think it'll prove useful to forum and Google users.
Last edited:
Just kidding! 
