It's me again. This time I want to know if anyone knows what goes on
inside the windshield wipers on my '70 Europa. The motor looks just the
same as all ones I have seen on other British cars, the
"push-and-pull-the-cable" variety, and has two speeds.
Although I have the original motor, I do not have the original switch.
Bonzai Electronics Tech of Oahu used a double-pole-double-throw-center-off
toggle switch, wiring the poles together to make it single-pole. The
center was the power in, one end pole was for low speed and the other for
high speed. I could not trace this all to the motor, as there was just
too much intervening confusion.
I have been looking at the schematic and at Terry Pitts' Europa. The plug
that goes into the wiper motor has five conductors.
One comes from the fuse, 12v, and is green. I assume this is for parking
the wipers only, as there is a power supply to the switch, possibly
from.
a different fuse (but the schematic is very bad at explaining what
is going
on in the fuse box).
Another wire goes to fascia earth and is black.
The other three wires go back to terminals on the wiper switch. I don't
know why they need more than two.
I can't reach Terry's switch easily, so I tried to analyze the switch from
the plug. Terry disconnected the car battery and I crawled under the dash
to pull the plug out of the motor. There are numbers molded into the
plug. All the wire color codes agree with the Lotus manual schematic. I
hooked one ohmmeter lead to the green terminal (should be were 12v would
be under operation). Terry turned on the ignition, operated the wiper
switch and watched the ohmmeter dial.
I was amazed to see a connection between the green and the black all the
time! This would short power to ground all the time regardless of switch
position. HUH?
After that, I did find a wire that was connected to the high side only
when Terry selected low speed and another only when he selected high
speed. Both of these wires go to separate switch terminals in the
schematic. We confirmed them with voltage readings after reconnecting the
battery. We never got the last wire to go live. What is it for?
Can anyone tell me exactly what is supposed to happen here? I may just
connect up the hot (wiper parking), ground, low and high that I have
identified, and leave the fifth connector open. Can I damage something
this way?
Phil Ethier, THE RIGHT LINE, 672 Orleans Street, Saint Paul, MN 55107-2676
h (612) 224-3105 w (612) 298-5324 phile@stpaul.gov USA
"A Lotus is a kit car bolted together for ease of shipping." - unknown author
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