Upgrade your windshield wipers for GOOD! 2001 XJ wiper motor swap

[schardein]

Cool, I'll give that a shot, thanks.

[kentsu66]

@Airborne Janitor, thanks a TON for the step-by-step! My brother @jamespwsullivan just installed a '99 motor. We added a ground wire and re-bushed the linkage. We found that Weather Pack makes a nice round 5-pin M/F shell pair so we installed those to keep the connections dry.

 

Via bench testing, we found that the '87 reman motor (almost 0 miles since install) and the '99 motor operated at about the same speed on Low but the '99 was definitely faster (more wipes per minute) on High.

[Airborne Janitor]

10 hours ago, kentsu66 said:

@Airborne Janitor, thanks a TON for the step-by-step! My brother @jamespwsullivan just installed a '99 motor. We added a ground wire and re-bushed the linkage. We found that Weather Pack makes a nice round 5-pin M/F shell pair so we installed those to keep the connections dry.

 

Via bench testing, we found that the '87 reman motor (almost 0 miles since install) and the '99 motor operated at about the same speed on Low but the '99 was definitely faster (more wipes per minute) on High.

 

Glad it helped! For anyone reading I have a 2000 XJ motor with the renix plug already soldered on for sale. All you gotta do is bolt it in!

 

 

[Salvagedcircuit]

I just finished flushing the old grease from my wiper motor gearbox, added new grease and a separate ground. The performance is identical to before the work. I have the non intermittent wiper stalk.

 

Does anyone know if the gearbox gear ratios changed on the new gearbox vs old?

Seems like I wasted 2hrs and should have just purchased a 97+ motor.

[Salvagedcircuit]

I just followed this guide. old motor was taking 3.3a while on low setting. New motor consumed 1.2a while on low setting. I think I either repacked too much grease in the old motor or the fat lady was singing and I gave her the microphone

[Salvagedcircuit]

 

Chiming in here to confirm that using the newly manufactured wai motor was leaps and bounds better than the stock motor + regeasing. My old wiper motor was squealing bad. You can hear it in the below video. It may have lived another life if I completely rebuilt it, replaced the brushes etc...
But I think this was the more reasonable solution.

Oh, the newly manufactured motor was also dimensionally compatible with the old one and fit in the stock rubber boot.

 

 

 

[AnotherOldJeepGuy]

On 5/17/2025 at 10:55 AM, Salvagedcircuit said:

 

Chiming in here to confirm that using the newly manufactured wai motor was leaps and bounds better than the stock motor + regeasing. My old wiper motor was squealing bad. You can hear it in the below video. It may have lived another life if I completely rebuilt it, replaced the brushes etc...
But I think this was the more reasonable solution.

Oh, the newly manufactured motor was also dimensionally compatible with the old one and fit in the stock rubber boot.

 

 

 

 

@Salvagedcircuit,   Any chance you snapped a picture of the new motor with the old plug installed?  Or if not saved the wire mapping from old to new wire colors?

[Gojira94]

 

Looking at the back of the new connector on the new motor, where the wires from the motor go into the connector, if these are the colors:

 ___________

|  X  2   3   |

|_4__5__6__|

 

Then:

New motor/function/old connector color:

X (no pin/ no wire)

2 White - Park - goes to Gray wire of old connector

3 Red - Switched 12V - goes to Blue wire of old connector

4 Yellow - High - goes to Red Wire of old connector

5 Green - Low - goes to White wire of old connector

6 Black - Ground - goes to Black wire of old connector

[AnotherOldJeepGuy]

I believe it matches!

 

I just pictured and marked up the old one below from the MJ Electrical Manual and was about to start guessing, awesome that I don't need to guess!  Thanks.

 

[AnotherOldJeepGuy]

I accidentally intertwined this thread with the one I started to document what it took to fix mine, I am going to try to get things back in that thread now  so if you have a follow up, please put it there..