Wipers on a go-slow

I'm pretty sure that my wipers aren't wiping as fast as they were just before Christmas.
I'm thinking bad earth to the wiper motor? Screen washers are fine just the wipers seem to be taking their time doing a complete sweep.
However, the car started making a strange, rapid knocking noise (engine off) when I put it in the garage this evening, that I reckon was a relay switching somewhere under / around the wiper motor. I took the boot trim (that covers the wiper motor, battery etc.) off and couldn't see anything but could feel the knocking. When I pulled out the wipers fuse, it stopped and a quick on-off of the lazy wipers cleared stopped it completely, thankfully.

Anyone had anything like this? Is it more serious than the earth to the motor by the sound of it?

Thanks for your help

Jon

My wipers play silly buggers all the time ..............They sort themselves out eventually

Thanks, it's always reassuring to know when it's just one of those Alpine things to add to the list. I got the WD40 out yesterday around the motor and the various connectors round there. Things might even have been a bit better today.
Hard to tell for just the reasons that you mention!

At least that relay hasn't gone nuts again.... so far....

mine were seized once. They seize up in the metal sleeve right below where the wiper arm attaches.
a biatch to free up too. Alloy sleeve, steel drive shaft....

mine were seized once. They seize up in the metal sleeve right below where the wiper arm attaches.
a biatch to free up too. Alloy sleeve, steel drive shaft....

Thanks for that - certainly worth knowing. I'll get some teflon spray down there asap.
Things seem to be a bit better since I sprayed a bit of WD40 over the connectors and other things I could see when I took the upper boot trim out.

as rupert says........ the spindals are prob partly seized.

the only way to fix this is to remove the wiper arms, spindal covers and nuts, scuttle panels and battery cover.

couple of 10mm bolts at the bulk head holding the complete wiper assembly in. take note of the 4 washers and spacers.

remove this, you will see a coulpe of small cir clips, (if they have not rotted away) remove these, should also be a couple off rubber o rings. pop off the linkage rod connecting the wipers together. (do not remove wiper motor linkage!)

you might be lucky and be able to pull the two spindals free, if not use a soft hammer not to damage the wiper arm threads and drift them out.

clean the spindals and coat with copper grease and rebuild.

put it all together again and you should see the benefit of that!