uk escort, 98, rear wiper problem

[greg palmer]

uk 5 door escort, 98 model, REAR wiper works but will not self park........switch on it works, off and it stops immediately, suspect a wiring problem but have no diagramme
Can any one shed any light which wires to check
thanks

greg

[cheesyhoward]

Looking from the rear with the boot open, you should see 3 smallish copper rods to the right of the boot lock (at the end of tailgate) and copper plates on the main body of the car directly underneth.
Clean them and it should fix your problem.

[SebastianMWS]

Originally Posted by cheesyhoward

Looking from the rear with the boot open, you should see 3 smallish copper rods to the right of the boot lock (at the end of tailgate) and copper plates on the main body of the car directly underneth.
Clean them and it should fix your problem.

I have similar problems, not just with rear wiper, but defroster as well. After reading your advice, I cleaned all copper rods and plates, wiper works now just fine.

Problems with defroster (not working) remain, I even noticed that middle rod, when pushed up with hand, gets stiffer when almost in upper-most position. If pushed further, it gets stucked completely. After some research I found out that it's this middle rod that supplies defroster with voltage (left-most for wiper and tail fog light, right-most for trunk light). After replacing relay (old one was just fine, now I know), checking the fuse, grid connectors and copper connections, measuring grid with ohm-meter (it reads 1 ohm), I still don't know what's wrong - there's just no voltage on grid connectors with ignition ON. The ground terminal of grid voltage connections is fine, all that remains is loose connection between (+) grid connector terminal and that middle copper rod.

Two strange occasions (both happened today while experimenting) that suggest that;

- Ignition ON, light switch ON, defroster switch ON, I switched ON the tail fog light and it won't work. I just glanced the defroster switch and LED turned off by itself. Tried to swtich on fog light again and it worked !

- Ignition ON, light switch ON, I hit the tail fog light switch by mistake and I couldn't turn the fog light off (LED on the switch wouldn't turn off either, just got dimmer). opened the trunk door and noticed the middle copper rod stuck in upper possition.

Any suggestions ? I would really really appreciate, thank you !

Sebastian