Repairing Wiper / turn signal switch - possible ?

Monkeey

i need an 86'/87' turn signal/wiper assembly but i cant seem to find a junkyard with any civics older then 89 :x
and the closest junkyard that has the part is 2 hours away and wont ship.

is it possible to open up the assembly and fix the contacts and the thing that hold up the wiper arm ? i'm fairly good with electronics but dont know if the 20 year old yogurt / spooge that is dried into the wiper arm has killed all hope of repair....

also what would be a good price for this part in your opinion ?
place hours away wants $35( plus gas to drive there) and ebay dude wants $54 after shipping ( i hate ebay in general )

what would you pay :?:


worst comes to worse ill wire up some sort of crazy set of switches to turn on / off wipers and washer motors

MrLewayne

In my own opinion, if I cant fix it I'll make the drive to go and look at something else. I say since you feel somewhat comfortable in electronics then dive into it and try and fix it yourself! Always the cheapest route. If not, then go drive to the junk yard 2 hours away. It would be worth it as opposed to buying blidly from egay.

udubrx7

$35 is a pretty good price IMO, but plus driving who knows - I would get him to send you a picture of it so you can be 100% sure its the right part before you drive the distance, I've made that mistake too many times.

I know that you can get inside of them on the EF models, I don't think it would be too much to assume that they are very similar on yours. You think yours just has some bad contacts or something? No broken plastic or anything? If it's not physically broken, and you're good at electronics I would give it a shot. Worst case scenario you just have to wire up some weirdo switches to make it work until you can fix it more permanently.

How many settings are there for your wiper speeds? I've got a spare 89 hatch combination switch that has broken contacts for the bright headlamps switch. If you want it for spare parts you're more than welcome to it for $15 shipped. I think these EF combi switches are cartridge type, so I could just slide out the wiper stalk cartridge if that's all ya need.

Monkeey

update time !

i got off work early last week so i said f-it and drove the hour and half to get the part....

i get there and she already pulled the part (frustrating cuz she told me i would need to pull it so i drove home out of the way to grab my tools) then she tells me its going to be $50. she only took cash and i only brought 40 thinking the part was still 35 like we talked about earlier that day. she refused to take anything less then 50, so after some arguing i scrounged up 5 more bucks from change and loose ones in my car and she grudgingly took 45 for it..... then she tells me she was just going to crush the car tomorrow cuz she needed room ....

busting my ballz over 15 bucks when you’re going to crush the car anyway ..... wtf!

anyway, i get home and slap it on .... still doesn't work !
now i have made sure the motors are working and all the fuses looked good ( old but still there) so i thought i just bought another broken switch...
i had box of new fuses so i said f-it and replaced all the fuses in the fuse box
magically it works now .... wtf?
the fuses i pulled were all good, even put them back and it started working with old fuses, tried the old switch and it worked too ~!
i guess something somewhere fixed its self. :?

my hazards still don't work with either switch so i need to check the relay ...

i might open up the old switch just to see if its possible to repair anything inside, might be good to have if anyone else runs into the same issue

MrLewayne

Weird, sucks about the haggling part of the whole deal. Sounds like you may have had a loose fuse or something? Glad its fixed but now its time to tackle the hazards!

sabotage

I have an 87 RT. My wiper switch works, but is mushy and won't stay on unless I fidget with it. Anyone know if this is resolveable and how?
Thanks,
Matt