Love this site- it's been very helpful in the past. I've recently run into a problem I haven't seen posted, though. First, my Hummer: 2006 H3 with the Adventure package, AT, 108,000 miles, stock. In case my problem is electrical, I will also mention that I've replaced the battery terminals with Stingers, as I've seen recommended on the site a couple years ago. I replaced the wiper transmission recently with an OEM AC Delco replacement after the right-hand wiper stopped working. The motor still seemed to be working fine after the old transmission went bad, driving the driver's side wiper until the new part came in, so I hooked it up to the new transmission and installed both in the truck. I then re-installed the long vent at the bottom of the windshield, and the driver's side wiper, positioning the tip of the blade on the mark designed for that on the lower part of the windshield.

When I turned on the wiper to test it, it moved just part way up the windshield before moving back down past the bottom of the windshield, slamming into the edge of the vent and wedging in-between the vent and the body below the windshield. I had to remove the vent to free the blade. I've tried reinstalling the blades several times and "re-setting" the motor as I saw described somewhere by disconnecting the motor from the transmission and cycling the motor before re-connecting them- same problem. The motor seems to be working at all various speeds, but it's not rotating the blades high enough, nor reversing early enough on the bottom end. Is this a motor problem- does it need to be re-set in some other way or replaced? Or is there a specific way the transmission is supposed to be aligned with the motor before tightening the center bolt connecting the two? I haven't been able to find any information re: that. Kind of a dumb, and frustrating, problem compared to some other things I've fixed and we have snow on the way. Any help out there from some of you've who have been through this? Thanks in advance.

 

Welcome to HF.

I have not done a wiper transmission on an H3, but I have on other vehicles.

Couple tricks that might help are you want to cycle the wipers so they are in the off position. Remove everything without ever turning the wipers back on. Reinstall everything with wipers in the same "off" position, then and only then turn on the wipers to make sure everything works correctly. If you have the wiper motor in an unknown position of rotation then you need to cycle it once so it returns to where the wipers would be in the off position.

Usually the instructions show you the wiper transmission orientation for the wipers in the off position. I replaced one on a Saturn and it was difficult to tell how the transmission was supposed to be for wipers in off so I had to test that while the cowl and wiper tray was reinstalled on the car to be sure everything would work correctly.

Basically, the wiper motor is supposed to make a single rotation for one full wiper stroke. If it is not, then the motor could be bad.

Sounds to me you have the motor out of sinc and it needs to be rotated a tooth or two where it connects to the transmission.

 

Thank you for your time and advice, Doc. My first post though I've benefited from the knowledge and tips shared on this site for several years. No instructions were provided with the part, and I'm kicking myself that I didn't take a quick photo documenting the position of the old transmission before I removed the motor. I'll cycle the motor as you suggest- sounds like it might just take a little trial and error to get the transmission in the right position. I'll report back, and if it might help someone else, maybe attach a couple photos- I noticed a couple others posters were a little tentative removing the 3 trim pieces.

 

Make sure the wiper motor is in the parked position then attach to transmission. When you install the blade arms, the blades should be at the top of the black on the windshield about 2" up where the top of the dash is. GL

 

Thank you Doc and Hummerz. It was an alignment issue with the transmission and motor after cycling the motor- fixed now. I'll post a more complete explanation with some photos and/or a short video clip for the next guy that runs into this tonght.

 

You got it, and saved yourself a lot of $$$. Nice work!

 

And just in time for the snow! The problem was in the orientation of the new transmission when I re-connected it to the motor- a detail I didn't pay close enough attention to when I removed the motor from the broken transmission. Should have taken a photo. Though the sweep of the wiper was the right length, attaching the motor with the new trans in the wrong position made it go only half as high on the windshield as it should have, and halfway too low on the bottom where it crashed. Visually, looking at the bottom photo on Hummerz' post above showing a transmission on a tabletop- the 3 short pieces of the transmission linkage that attach to his motor and the 2 splined wiper arm shafts point to about 7 o'clock, which is fine if it's still synced with the motor. But in the process of replacing my transmission, mine was no longer synced. To get it synced so that the wiper swept all the way to the top position, then reversed (or parked) at the proper bottom position, I had to cycle the motor with the transmission disconnected, then rotate the transmission linkage so that the 3 short pieces pointed to about 3 o'clock before re-attaching the middle one to the motor. In fact, one of the long pieces of the linkage was directly over the bolt hole- I couldn't use a socket to tighten the short piece to the motor, had to use a wrench.

Thanks again for the help!

 

Glad you figured it out. Those things are not a bad DIY, but still a PITA if something gets out of sinc.