The breadth and depth of the information on the Internet can help solve practically any technical problem.
Some years back one of our kids purchased a 1993 Ford Escort for a couple hundred bucks-and it was worth every penny of it. Rust holes big enough to throw a softball through, engine with a hard miss, lousy brakes and all but nonexistent springs and shock absorbers, not to mention landfill-quality tires.
These problems were gradually fixed over the next few months and the car actually ran pretty good. Then a problem cropped up that that had me digging a little deeper to find a solution-intermittent windshield wipers. Electrical debugging is not my strong point, but I have the basic tools such as a decent voltmeter, jumper wires, and electrical probes to test for open wires, shorts and so forth. After going through the basics-seeing if the power supply wires were sound, eyeballing all the connections between the wiper motor and the control circuitry, testing continuity wherever possible, I ended up at the windshield wiper control electronics.
Jumping from car to Internet and onto the various repair forums for this make, model and year, I started digging around for information on intermittent windshield wipers. This led me to a forum entry describing the identical problem I was experiencing. Come to find out, the wiper control electronics were purchased by Ford from Mazda. Most of the parts were of the through- hole style-leads penetrating a single layer circuit card as opposed to the more common surface-mount components. The forum entry detailed an electrical component where one of the leads did not take solder properly, thus the intermittent connection.
I removed the wiper control electronics, popped open the case and started scanning for the component in question, and found it. Sure enough, one lead had not been properly soldered. The lead was cleaned and re-soldered, followed by reinstalling the electronics and plugging everything back in. To my surprise-the wipers worked properly.
This was not the first time I have fixed things around the house by finding a detailed piece of information out on the World Wide Web. In addition, being the determined cuss that I am, I would rather repair something than replace it.
Norman T. Neher, P.E.
Analytical Engineering Services, Inc.
Elko New Market, MN
www.aesmn.org