What if no rubber mounts for wiper motor

[fun in dirt]

Working on a friends junker ‘86 that wipers are not working on...
The fuse was missing so replaced that & they cycled 1 time, slowly then turned switch (in column) on then quit. The white wire was hot with key on & others ground when switch moves hi/low. I then noticed it had no rubber mounts, just bolted straight into the firewall ... would that cause a problem w motor??? Wondering if that would make it all ground all the time & maybe smoked the motor???
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[ray_mcavoy]

Originally Posted by fun in dirt

Working on a friends junker ‘86 that wipers are not working on...
The fuse was missing so replaced that & they cycled 1 time, slowly then turned switch (in column) on then quit. The white wire was hot with key on & others ground when switch moves hi/low. I then noticed it had no rubber mounts, just bolted straight into the firewall ... would that cause a problem w motor??? Wondering if that would make it all ground all the time & maybe smoked the motor???
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No, having the motor bolted straight to the firewall shouldn't be a problem. The rubber mounts were only there to reduce noise / vibration from the motor. And many of them had a copper / brass grounding strap bridging across one of the rubber mounts to ensure the wiper motor case had a good ground. Although, I don't think that case ground is necessary on the 78+ motors since they use a different internal parking switch circuit as compared to the earlier years.

Having power on the white wire (w/key on) and ground on the other wires (depending on switch position) is normal so it doesn't sound like there are any issues there. Did it blow the fuse when it quit?

[fun in dirt]

Fuse was still good - I’m thinking it just needs a new wiper motor.
Thanks for the info!
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