A few misc questions...

[rusty ol ranger]

Ok guys, now its come time to tackle my favorite sort of issues, electrical *sarcasm* on rusty 2.0 (87 ranger)

1- The wipers are stuck in the up position. When i flick the wiper switch lever i can hear a clicking noise, but nothing moves. The truck has sat for an unknown amount of time, is it possible the linkage has stuck? Or is it more likely the motor?

2- I have one operational turn signal (front left), but no hazards and no brake lights. When you hit the signal or brake pedal the tail/markers stay on, so, if you had that many bad bulbs would it not have the light cut out like normal when one blows? Or is it more likely in the signal switch and/or brake light switch? The highbeams work, so i dont *think* its the switch.

3- The radio dont work. Its the factory radio, the lights come on with the headlights, but no display, no sound, nothing.

4- The door chime sounds more like a faint old school police siren then the more pleasent (but equally annoying) ding. Any ideas?

 

[adsm08]

1) A clicking noise like you describe is usually a failed motor, but in this case could be linkage related. I would start looking down through the cowl and trying to inspect the linkage for damage (if you have't already), probably do it with the wipers on too. If nothing obvious shows up there I'd probably remove the motor and see if it will run disconnected from the wipers, and if you can move them by hand. At that point you should know where your problem is.

2)Fun. I would start by carefully inspecting both rear bulbs. One could be partially blown and the filament for the brake lights touching the other one. If that is not the case I would suspect the multi-function switch. It does a lot of things and the brake light circuit runs through it because it is used for the hazards. The high-beams is one of the few isolated functions in that switch, so that working correctly does not rule out the idea that it is bad.

3) Head unit is probably just dead. You can check the power and ground, but I doubt that is the issue. Should be a red wire and a black wire.

4) Same as the radio problem. The speaker is likely dying of old age. It is up above the glove box, below the little cubby.

 

[rangerenthiusiast]

I definitely concur with adsm08 on the wiper motor issue. I just had to replace it on my Jetta a few weeks ago and it was behaving exactly as you describe. When I turned the wipers on, I could hear things clicking in there, but my wipers didn’t move from the down position. Turns out that the splines on the pin that connects the linkage to the motor were worn down to the point where things just weren’t making enough contact to move things.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Alright, i hope its that straight forward. Luckly the wireing seems to be unmolested (which is more then i can say for rusty #1).

Curious though, are the combo switches the same for tilt and non tilt columns?

 

[adsm08]

Yes they are.

On the first gen trucks the tilt column starts and ends at the steering wheel.