Ok so that post was great and everything worked out fine. It took about an hour to do. From start to finish. I also didn't bother unplugging the battery - no big deal... However, After taking it all apart and greasing it back up with Vaseline. The wipers still did not work.

I checked the following up to now,
- Fuses
- Relays
- Switch (cleaned and re-greased).

What else could it be? Where else could the problem lay?
My pump for the rear window works when I hit the button. However the Wiper does not move for the rear. I'm thinking its like the whole electrical system that is associated with the wipers etc? Any thoughts?

OR should I bring my truck into the dealership to have them reprogram the BCU/IDM - I dont know anymore its getting to the point of "lose my mind" mode. AND icing on the cake. The rear latch must have busted because the rear door won't open from the inside and outside.

Cant catch a break...

 

It's been just over a year and now I am having the same issue again. Last year I cleaned it up and lubed it with some bulb grease and had no issues last winter at all.

Now I am wondering if there is a more ideal kind of grease for this. Seems to me vasoline gets semi-solid in cold weather too, so before I take it apart again I want to investigate the most ideal grease for a contact switch like this - if anyone knows please chime in! Thanks!

 

Thanks everyone, this thread was very helpful. I did have a couple of gotcha's.

1 - my switch wasn't screwed in, screws missing, looks like someone did this once already (I bought my truck with 100k+ miles)
2 - I lightly pried switch out from below, that seemed to work better than pulling, which i tried pulling pretty hard and it still didn't come out.
3 - when I had the switch out, disassembling was a bit tricky. First, separate the arm from the main switch body. Then disassemble the switch body. This is two major parts: an outer sleeve and an inner piece that holds the contacts and the slides. On mine there are no clips - the inner piece has 4 tabs that fit into 4 slots in the outer body. I needed to spread the outer body to release the 4 tabs. this required inserting 4 screw drivers between the inner and outer pieces right next to the tabs. of course this requires four hands in the the space of two, I fumbled around and eventually the two pieces popped apart and one of the two slides (the wider one) popped out, so I couldn't see exactly how it was positioned.
4 - The contacts were pretty gunked up as others mentioned in this thread. I cleaned with contact cleaner and put a light coating of vaseline (couldn't find my tube of di-electric grease, I guess that's what is best).
5 - re-assembly: thanks for the pictures in the thread, I could figure out the positioning of that wider slide - it can go in either way.
6 - re-install: pretty straightforward, although I found that the switch wouldn't go back in past the ignition key if the smaller connected was inserted into the switch body, but it really doesn't have to as it connects to a small connector from the wiring harness, it doesn't actually make any electrical connections in the place where it mounts to the switch. So I just tucked it in out of the way.
7 - I could the wipers always ran, no matter what I did with the switch on the stalk. I pulled things apart again and realized that the wider of the two sliders needs to be positioned over a little lever from the switch in the stalk - this is how the wiper switch moves that slide to make different connections when you turn the switch. Once I reassembled it properly and re-installed it everything (wiper main switch and intermittent switch) works fine.

So, a mistake on my part made it take a little longer than it should, but in the end all is well. Thanks again for everyone's comments and the pictures - very helpful!

 

Not to drag this out even further, but upon deeper investigation it appears that "bulb grease" is made as a hotter temperature variation of dielectric grease.

As mentioned above by aguison, dielectric "tune up grease" is what is needed as it is rated for much colder temperatures (-46°F). Guess I'll do this again and use the right grease this time!

 

Since it cooled off here in Idaho, I've noticed mine are acting intermittently, so I'll give this a try.

 

Me too - it's cold here today in Denver and I see a delay/intermittent functioning of switch. I will open it back up and replace the vaseline with dielectric grease. Now that I know how to do it, it goes quick.

Thanks all!
- Derrick

 

Just did this to my wiper switch today and the wipers are working fine now. Next project will be to replace my air bags with some Arnott units I got from Advance Auto Parts. $245 for the pair of them delivered. Since its been getting down below zero at night here in Idaho my rear end has been sagging when the Disco sits outside overnight until I start it up in the morning.

 

thanks for the info here! made use of a snow day here in NJ to fix this year long problem with the wiper switch. followed instructions and switch is now functioning properly.

 

Hi,

I did this a month ago. Thanks for the DIY. I did not put grease back in. Everything worked for a while, but now it is no longer working properly. If I switch to intermittent, I can hear a faint "click" at the intermittent interval, but typically the wipers don't move. If I fiddle with putting the switch to continuos and back to intermittent the intermittent finally kicks in but not always.

So the current situation: Continuos, slow or fast speed does not work at all. Intermittent works sporadically. Pushing the lever down for a single wipe always works.

Is it due to the lack of grease? Is there something else I should check?

Thanks!

-Eric

 

Put the grease on it and along the edges of plastic where the pieces slide and I bet it works just fine - your systems are just like mine when it was acting up, down wipe always worked, and if I turned the switch in between settings it would sometimes work, but not at the actual setting position.