Two odd things...got questions

[ghunt]

#1. My truck sat last weekend from Friday evening to Monday evening. When I got in the truck to go home, I turned on the wipers and the motor sounded very loud...made a "rurrrr, rurrrr" sound and seemed to be slower, and it's still doing that now. Is the motor dying, what the hell happened? They worked fine last week.

#2. It's been cold here the last few days so I've been running the heater- every now and then I get a weird "hot plastic" smell coming out of the heater vents. What would be causing that?

 

[Agnem]

Not sure about the wiper motor, but the smell could be something laying on the fan switch resistor. Try this... if the fan is on full speed there probably will not be a smell. If on the lowest speed, then the smell might be at it's max. If so, then something is going on with the resistor. The resistor lives in the air plenum. Looks like a piece of fiber board with a connector on it from under the dash.

 

[1dieselman]

I would say your wiper motor is about done. Mine has done that since I bought it almost 4 years ago, if it ever rained here I would replace it.

 

[icanfixall]

My wiper motor did that just before it crapped out. Its ruff to remove too. What I found my failure was is the motor magnets glue let go from the case and the magnets grabbed the motor rotor. You can find these motors all day long in wrecking yards. Thats a good place to learn how the come out too. I found the Ford Focus cars have the same motor and they are so much easier to remove. Its just a few screws, a plastic cover and a special clip on the motor arm. You want a few of those because they are hard to find when the pop off and take flight... Napa sells the motors too.

 

[ghunt]

Ahhh great.

I must have no luck, the wiper motor died on my Mustang years ago and now the motor dies on this thing. Sheesh.

As for the fan thing...well, what should I do, and where do I need to look? Right over on the side where the heater is?


BTW, what year Foci have the same wiper motor? I'm not even getting the same part number when I look them up online.

 

[Agnem]

If the resistor is in the same place on the 94 that it is on all the others, it will be in the vacinity of the drivetrain tunnel hump on the plenum. It's usually a red piece of fiberboard.

 

[subway]

i think these guys got it on both accounts

i need to do my wiper motor to but i really dont want to lift my cowl and mess my paint up more.

 

[ghunt]

Why do you have to lift the cowl...I assume to get at the linkage? Blech.

The wiper motor on my Mustang was easy since there was a plastic cover on the cowl that just came off.

 

[subway]

not with our trucks, you have to lift the cowl to get the linkage dissconnected and that can involve pulling the hood to for easier access.

me i am really going to try to rotate the motor to the right position to get the linkage clip off. i have done it on other trucks, i dont want to be re-aligning my body panels.