Intermittent Wiper Retrofit

[blb]

I have a '91 Corolla that is not equipped with intermittent wipers. I would like to convert it to have intermittent wipers.

Does anyone here have first hand experience in doing this conversion? If so, what is involved? Do I just need to change the switch, or do I also need to change the wiper motor, electrical harness, and/or steering column?

I have seen posts where people are guessing what needs to be done to accomplish this, but I am asking if anyone has successfully done this and what all is involved.

Thanks.

[eage8]

for a sedan it should be easy. just take the steering wheel off an LE and take the whole turn signal/wiper stalk assembly and swap it. I'm 98% sure all the logic is in the switch.

I never did it to my SR5 because coupes have a different light switch (with 4 positions for the flip up lights...) and I never got around to splicing the 2 different switches together, they only have 1 plug. I think some 90-91 GT-Ss did have variable INT wipers though.

I have a switch I can sell you if you want it. PM me.

[blb]

Ok, thanks.

So on a sedan, the horn pad and steering wheel must be removed in order to remove the turn signal/wiper stalk assembly?

What's the trick to get the horn pad off?

[eage8]

there should just be a few screws in the back of it holding it on. on some steering wheels you need a right angle screw driver, but I don't think I did on my corolla.

[G|F.E.A.D|Killa]

the DLX has the int wipers too. i love them. good luck with your mod man.

[blb]

OK, the intermittent wiper retrofit is done. Everything eage8 said is correct. Thanks again for the information eage8.

I found a combination intermittent wiper/headlight/turnsignal stalk assembly at the local junkyard off of an '89 Corolla (with 286,000 miles on it) for the grand total of $5.00. Disassembly of the plastic around the steering column, the horn pad and the steering wheel is straightforward and rather easy. I got it home and hooked it up to test it and found everything worked except the left turnsignal. The turnsignal switch seemed somewhat worn and had more freeplay than the one originally on my car. At this point, I decided to take the intermittent wiper switch off of the junkyard switch assembly and retrofit it to my original switch assembly. This is rather easy since the two mounting screws for the wiper switch are in exactly the same location on both, and all wire color codes and pin locations in the connectors are exactly the same on both. So after about a half hour of splicing, soldering and applying heat shrink tubing, then reassembly of everything, I have intermittent wipers for $5.00 and a couple of hours total of my time. I made sure to bundle the wiring harness exactly as it was from the factory, including using a wire tie where the factory did and reused all of the factory clips to secure it in place under the steering column.

I hope this helps anyone else out who may be considering this upgrade.