71 240Z High Beams Work Low Beams Don't

[Richie G]

I do have a 6/71 so i am late model series 2.  If I understand this right, the engine bay connector to the wiper motor harness is the same for early and late and that's exactly how my engine side is setup.  Now I have to get under the passenger dash area to see which of the two type connectors I have? Once I know, am I doing a continuity test from the passenger side to steering column connector B for the 3 blue wires?  I took that pic a while ago so i'll have to go back open clam and see what B looks like.  If this pic is still accurate then i can see there are for sure 4 blue wires some striped and twogreen.  theres no black from this pic and seems all 6 are occupied.  I'll report back.

Oh and if this matters, I think the PO used a 72 dash harness becasue I think when i was fiddling around in the console area something made me realize or assume that.  i think it was the length of maybe the fuse box connector.  Maybe if the PO did use a 72 that's why my B connector is different?

 

[Richie G]

Took the clam apart, looked at B connector here is what I got.  

Notch on top

Top Row G-L, G-W, L-W

Bottom Row L, L-Y, L-R

Switch Side

Notch on Top

Top Row Y-G, G-L, G-W

Bottom Row L-R, Y-B, R-L

And remember, Low works and going to off will park it.  I can't tell if the low setting is actually low or high though, all i can say is it moves and man its slow so must be low lol.

BTW, I really appreciate all the help. I'm trying my best to keep up 🙂

 

[SteveJ]

I don't think you're looking at the correct connectors. I will take a picture later to show you the connector for the wiper motor to line up to my post.

[Richie G]

Thanks.  Took another look and I'm guessing this is the right connector pair, at least for my car.  The second pic that had some of the yellow wires in it is the only connector coming from the combo switch and those wires are directly connected to the switch we were testing.  The first pic is the only corresponding 6 pin connector under there to match up with and everything works on both sides of the column other than the high speed motor.  Now granted I have no idea what the PO did as for custom wiring, but it "should" be the right set of wires if not the right type of connector.  Maybe he combined wires from smaller connectors not sure.  there's a few single wires left over coming from combo switch in either bullet or flat type connector that all line up with the ones from the harness.

[SteveJ]

So the connector for the wiper motor in the engine bay should be like this:

Note that it only has 5 wires.

For the combo switch connector, the dash harness side should be this:

GL GW LW

L    LY   LR

So your connector on the dash harness is correct.

On the switch side, you should have

YG GL GW

LR  RL  YB

So your switch is correct.

Verify the dash to engine harness connectors and wiper motor connector per my earlier post.

[Richie G]

Thanks Steve.  I'll get to that probably in a few weeks I need to leave out of town for a bit and may not even be back until after TG.  I'll be sure to follow up with what I find.  Have a great rest of your day.

[Richie G]

Wanted to come back and close this one out with what i found and then all the work it "inspired" me to do 🙂 @SteveJ I want to really thank you for all the extra effort you put in to guide me through this.  What i ended up finding out was that the continuity was good on all wires from switch to firewall adapter so i looked into the motor itself.  Had an opportunity to pickup a refurb original at a decent cost and that did the trick.

So this started with removing the cowl and man what a mess in there.  the PO in their attempt to paint must have just painted this car with the cowl in place because as you can see here he painted over the arms and the motor and bag (no pic).  So lazy!

So i went about tearing it all down, degreasing and striping the rust and paint, and ended up like this

I had to make those rubber gaskets and sourced some new bolts but everything else came out real nice.  You can see the original spring is still there but it was broken like pretty much every other one in the world.  I found some pics from hybridZ i think that showed what it was supposed to look like and thought I might find a replacement at home depot to fiddle with.  Well that didn't work out so well because if you look at one of these the wind is reversed from pretty much any generic compression or torsion spring i could have sourced.  So i ended up recompressing it and bending the tip up and it came out pretty nice

you'll notice its a little less than half a turn shy of complete but in the end it works great.

The new vinyl bag finally arrived from Banzai (Distinctive Industries) but I noticed there was no way to really close the end of it unless you glued it or maybe sewn it over the motor.  Didn't want to do that so i sewed on some simple buttons that can snap it shut to keep the bag nice and tucked under the motor

Oh and one other thing I replaced was those felt washers.  I have no idea their purpose but i put some back anyway lol

I ended up repainting as best i could the interior of the cowl and addressed any surface rust that was present around the cowl frame and reinstalled the arms, what a freaking difference!

 

Final product

also took some time to address the cruddy old washer jets by soaking them in degreaser, then carefully threading some thin gauge wire through them to loosen the 50 years of rust, gunk and who knows what else.  i now have a working hi/low set of wipers with actual washer spray hitting the windows!  This refurb motor even parks perfectly but not sure if that's being aided by the spring i repaired or just getting lucky with it returning to the position it started.  It does reverse the motor and end up dropping the wipers into their correct starting location no matter when you turn them off so that's what i would expect them to do.

I am still waiting on replacement rubbers I've discussed in that wiper woe thread so will report back what model blade worked to add to a useable list for the next guy.  again thanks to all that aided me along the way.

As an aside, i did see the vast number of recommendations on the honda motor replacement but honestly for me now that the work was put in to degrease and clean up the arms, spindles, etc it works really well in both speeds.  maybe some others aren't going to the extent I did and just grabbing the honda motor but in my opinion if you do it right you really don't need the upgrade unless maybe you want intermittent.  This isn't a daily for me and I don't really plan on ever driving it in the rain so probably not a big deal for me as much as it might be for others.

 

 

[SteveJ]

I'm glad you came to a definitive diagnosis. OTOH I hope you are never caught out in weather that would require you to use your wipers. 😄

[Patcon]

How did you treat the washer arms in the transmission after blasting them?

[Richie G]

@Patcon Temporarily I coated them lightly in low temp grease just to keep water off. I have plans to plate them once I get to that with all the engine bay work that's needed. 

[Patcon]

That's good. They won't hold up well raw like that. Oiled might help but I hate to oil things I want to plate later. Knowing you will avoid rain will also help

[Richie G]

This really is my first attempt at all of this with this car so I'm sure they'll be bumps along the way and a few do-overs now and then. But really that's all part of the enjoyment, learning and doing.