!@$% G20 wipers inop - diagnosis.....?

[davidpertuz at mindspring.com]

No, they can't just fail anytime, they have to quit when I'm leaving for a job interview. Fortunately I had _not_ started tearing the bottom end of my SE-R down the other day, so I could just drive that. But I need to leave for Chicago (I was supposed to leave at lunchtime) and I can't take the SE-R on any trips til I do the bearings. It picked up a bad engine shake the other day too. So....

Background: Car was parked Tuesday night and shut off with the wipers in the middle of the windhsield. It snowed yesterday and last night, so I had to get the snow and ice off the car this morning. I started the car first, so the wipers were in mid-travel and "wanted" to return but couldn't b/c of the ice. This has happened many times before, so seemed like no biggie.

Symptoms: Wipers work fine initially, for a couple of wipes. I pull away, wipers don't work, so I stop and get more snow out of the cowl. Wipers work once or twice more. Last time they stop in mid-stroke. I return home to get the SE-R. When I start to RC the issue, I can get the wipers to finish their stroke by pulling on them. When I turn the switch on again (any setting) the wipers will travel about 30deg, then stop. They'll continue for the rest of one stroke if I pull on them. After a few times of this they stop working completely. When I activate the switch I do not get any motor noise.

When I still got some operation oout of them, the motor seemd the most likely suspect, perhaps the linkage but less likely since they worked fine for a little bit. So I was going to yank the motor from the garage queen and take the cowl screen off the G20 and inspect for obvious wrong-ness, and test the motor. But when it quit working completely my focus moved to the column switch. So I pulled the FSM out of the trunk, etc.

Checked the relay (swapped with anti=theft relay) and it's fine. Didn't do electrical test, but e/e works so if no change when I swap relays, indicates OK.

I took the s/c shroud off and am going to try to test the switch contacts with the plug out. I sooooooo do not want to have to take the steering wheel off to replace a switch assy!

Any suggestions? Right conclusions so far, wrong conclusions?

If only it were sunny! !@$#@! Might resort to taking the train, sigh.

thanks,
David