3278

My 1993 Jeep Cherokee Sport has had a common problem: no wiper unless it's on high, and the wipers stop wherever they are as soon as you turn it off. Thanks to some judicious searching, I quickly diagnosed it was probably the intermittent wiper control box under the steering column. After dealing with some previous owner buffoonery, I got the lower dash trim off, removed the int-wiper box, and plugged the two harnesses together: now, as expected, wipers work on every setting, return to home when turned off, but no intermittent function [which is fine, because I don't use it.

However. When I tested it, a small amount of smoke came out of the turn signal stalk. Weird. I stopped, checked connections, everything seemed fine, so I tested again. Less smoke, and finally none. Weird. So let's look at the int-wiper box itself.



It's hard to see, but there's a burnt trace, and some melted plastic, and char
marks. Looks like a short somewhere, so I pulled the circuit board...and everything looks fine. That implies to me the short is outside the control box, and damaged it. This would also explain the smoke from the stalk. [Also note: my cruise doesn't work, and fixing various vacuum leaks and setting the TV haven't fixed it.]

Suggestions? I'm not even sure how to pull the turn signal stalk, but if there's a short in there, it seems like I probably ought to pull it before the wiper motor or something worse shorts and burns like the int-wiper box. Yeah?