Windshield wiper park when switch turned to off?

[Bentworker]

The 71 is slowly going back together.

Today I finished up installing the wiper motor and linkage.  Gave it a test run and it seems like the wipers don’t park on their own.  You have to time turning off the switch at just the right moment to park the wipers.

If so any guesses on what is wrong with mine?  Wiper motor is original to the car.  The harness appears to be be perfect.

 

[Bentworker]

After asking the question I went out in the garage and figured it out.

Discovered that the wiper motor gearbox has a cam that pushes a rod that breaks a contact inside the motor to make it park.  A flat spring returns the contact to position.  The rod having 50 year  old grease wasn’t freely returning.  Got that all cleaned up and put some fresh lightweight lube and it is working great.  The wipers park perfectly. 
 

If your wipers won’t park and you go down the same avenue I did the only advice I have is that the wiper motor is a DC Permanent magnet motor, so if you decide to remove the two screws with a 5/16” head and remove the cover it will try to take the rotor with it (because of the magnet).  Since there are carbon brushes on the rotor it would be easier to not make the same mistake I did.   If you take off the gearbox cover you can use something soft like a small piece of wood or plastic to put pressure on the worm gear, and that should keep the rotor in place while you remove and install the cover.  
 

Red circles show where the cam lever, pushrod and contact are.

 

[jpaz]

Thanks for the info on this! I have had the same issue, sometimes mine does park and sometimes not. I’m probably having the same problem, and they don’t get used very often either.

 

[Bentworker]

FYI I ended up using some oddball high temp NLGI #1.5 grease I had sitting around.  If I was to do it again I’d probably use something a little thinner like NLGI #1

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

I did couple of mine recently. Took everything out of the box and motor apart. I use the Lucas Oil Red N Tacky #2 grease in the wiper motor and drive and all my window mech. and door parts. It works much better than the old white grease.

 

[Ray Meese]

Searched and found this thread, I thought they should park on their own, mine park wherever they motor gets stopped at... I will fix tomorrow or Friday...!