IDIDIT Steering Column / Wiper Electrical Issue

[rhamer88]

I’m having a unique issue with the wipers on my 1984 C10, hoping someone smarter than me can assist with a solution.

The backstory here is that I installed a new IDIDIT steering column which comes with a new head light relay and wiper relay.

The issue with the wiper relay is that it works in a reversed polarity than the factory setup does (IE the feed wires for low and high speeds output as a 12V lead instead of a ground). I had to make my own wiring harness and basically reverse all of the polarities. So now the feed wire going into the motor is ground, and the leads for the low and high speeds toggle positive, which then activates the wipers.

So the issue I’m having is the park function is not operational. The new wiper relay has an output for park (which is a ground signal when the wipers are off). So what I need to know is if there’s a place I can wire the grounded park lead on the motor assembly to make the park function operate correctly.

Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated!

[ray_mcavoy]

The 1978-1987(91) wiper motors have a park switch built into the gearbox. Look for a 2-terminal connector out on the gearbox end of the motor assembly ... it's a Pack-Con type connector, similar to the 3-terminal one used for the motor's power & ground connections. If your motor has the onboard washer pump (which I think they were still using in 84) that will have it's own 2-terminal connector with larger/wider blade terminals right near the park switch connector.

The contacts in that park switch are closed until the motor's output shaft reaches the parked position, at which point the contacts open.

With the stock setup, one side of that park switch is wired (originally with a black / lt blue stripe wire) to a terminal on the wiper switch that is grounded only in the off position. The other side of that park switch is connected to the wiper motor's low speed control (originally a gray wire). So the wiper switch & park switch (in series) complete the circuit to ground so the motor runs on low speed until the park switch opens up and stops the motor.

It sounds like your new wiper switch provides a ground in the off position (just like the stock switch) but with the polarity of the other connections reversed, you'll probably have to hook up an additional relay to make it work.