1990 245DL

Arg, I'm playing whack-a-mole with failing systems.

First it was no wipers at all. Found a hole rusted in the motor so I replaced the motor with a used one and that fixed that problem (for a while). Then there were no rear electrics, so I replaced the wiring harnesses in the tailgate. Then the engine started to stall under mysterious circumstances and I'm still working on that problem. But now my front wipers have gone out again.

The wipers suddenly quit working on the way to work a few weeks back. They worked fine when I left that day so I opted to wait for it to happen again. Same deal happened again two Fridays ago and came back on abruptly on my return trip home. Now it has happened again and but they have not come back for more than three days now.

I've searched the archives and found references to water on the relays, but nothing else. I've checked the connections at the motor and dug out the blue and black relays (both were dry with no evidence of corrosion on the connectors) I've even swapped the relays for some spares and it has not changed anything. There's no evidence water is getting in back there.

My rear wipers work fine, front wiper are dead on full and on intermittent. I can probably expect them to suddenly start working again soon, but I doubt it will be during the next rainstorm. I've not dug out the DMM yet, and I'm not sure the spare relay I tried was appropriate for the system.

Do these symptoms sound familiar?