sides

Over a year ago, my front windshield washer pump stopped sending fluid to the front windshield on a roadtrip. One moment it worked, the next moment it stopped. The front wipers move, but no fluid. The rear fluid and wipers work as usual. The pump doesn't make any noise when you try to spray the front windshield, but it does make noise when you spray the rear glass. I've tried a number of things to narrow down where my problem could be coming from. I'm at a stopping point and I need some help. My Wrangler is an '07 Unlimited Sahara. My dad drives an '07 Rubicon. This past weekend, we spent some time troubleshooting by switching parts between Jeeps. I'm glad I didn't have to resort to buying parts . I'll summarize what we did below.

-Switched the hoses on the pump. Now I could send fluid to the front by switching on the rear fluid. As expected, no fluid would go to the rear. Now I know that it's only one side of the pump that's not functioning.
-Swapped the pumps between Jeeps. His pump (known good) behaves the same in my Jeep as the pump in question. My pump works perfectly, front and rear, in his Jeep.
-Swapped the switch that controls the wipers (on the right side of steering wheel). Again, no fluid to the front in my Jeep. My switch worked fine in his.
-The switch that controls the wipers connects to the switch (via wire) on the left side of the steering wheel, then more wires go out of the left switch and into the dash (I presume this goes directly into the main wiring harness?). I swapped the wire and left side switch between vehicles. I still have the same problem. My switch and wire worked fine in his Jeep.
-Last, I held a current tester (not a multimeter, but the little pen-like thing that glows red when it detects current) to each of the pins on the connector that plugs directly into the pump. It detected current only when using the back washer, but not the front. I did test both pins during both tests.

Admittedly, I'm a bit out of my depth on this problem. Any guidance or ideas would be much appreciated. I've tested everything that I could think of. I guess all that remains to be tested is the wiring that runs from the switch on the left side of the steering wheel to the pump.

'11BronzeStar70th

Fuse?

sides

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the fuse was the first thing I checked. Also, there is a single fuse for the one pump.

jedg

Wow.. that's pretty danged good trouble-shooting you did there!

It really sounds like you've got a break in the wire between your switch and the pump. That would be tough to track down. I believe the switch on the JK plugs into a mounting point on the column. Perhaps check that the pin that the switch is supposed to activate when running the washer hasn't broken off?

sides

I'll check on that and get back to you. There is a fuse for the pump. How does the wiring work when the fuse box is involved?

ronjenx

You have verified all the mechanical parts of the system work fine in the other JK.
The wires from the TIPM to the pump motor must be good because they are the same wires that carry power to the motor to make it run backwards for pumping fluid to the rear washer.
If you don't find a bad wire somewhere from the switch, to the cluster, to the TIPM, the problem could be in the computer control portion of the system. That includes the instrument cluster, and the TIPM. The best way to troubleshoot them is with the dealer scan tool. It can monitor the communications between computers, (requests sent out and requests received).

jedg

Yeah... I didn't realize that even the wiper system is likely running through the TIPM... man.. that makes it a bit more complicated. dang.

craaaaaig

Sorry to revive an old thread, but does anyone happen to have any further advise on this issue?

My buddy has a 2015, with the EXACT same issue and we can't pin point the problem.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated!