Wiper door not opening

[Jim K.]

I have a 71 BB with a wiper door that will not open. I pull the wiper door control down and it will not open. I manually opened it by pulling on the door (hope this won't ruin anything?) and the wipers worked OK. The door will also not close with vacuum. Is this an electrical or vacuum problem or both? Lines all look OK. Where do I start? Jim

[Erv M.]

Re: Wiper door not opening

Try this attachment. It should help you with your problem

[Alan S.]

Re: Wiper door not opening

Hi Erv,
There's some good information in the attachment you posted . Thanks very much!
Regards,
Alan

[Terry B.]

Re: Wiper door not opening

I'm not sure if this problem with your wiper door not opening was out of the blue or if it has been slowing getting worse but I had a similar problem where out of no where the wiper system would not work. After a lot of chasing down hoses and connections, I finally located the problem with the ground on the wiper switch on the center dash. The frame of the bezel for my '68 is metal and over time most of these metal frame bezels break on each side just below the wiper switch housing where it is extremely thin and fragile metal. When this happens the ground is severed and the switch cannot complete the circuit. I'd check this 1st to see that you have a complete circuit and if your bezel is broken, you can usually adjust it so it will make a ground connection. I hope this helps.

[Jack H.]

Re: Wiper door not opening

The key here, Terry, is he said in the first post that using the vac switch over-ride (under the steering column) that the wiper door wouldn't open! The wiper switch (center console) uses electricity to trigger the wiper door solenoid (back of tach) to open and vent control vac to wiper door relay, and, yes, a fractured center console bezel can disrupt ground rendering the wiper switch to wiper door solenoid to be inoperable...

BUT, the over-ride vac switch (below steering column) is 'downstream' from the wiper door solenoid and it should force the wiper door's relay to actuate independent of the wiper door solenoid. So, if we believe the initial post AND believe the car's vac lines are connected properly, the problem lies either at the wiper door relay or the wiper door vac motor...