Hey all,

On a 2005 Grand Caravan SXT, do the front and rear washers share the same pump? When I'm looking at the reservoir behind the passenger splash shield, I see a black vertical pump with two hoses at the bottom. The right hose seems to come in from the front, and the left goes up and (??). When I disconnect the right, water runs out. The left, nothing.

On the left side of the reservoir, there's also something with a plug & wires that appears to be attached to something inside.

Which is for the rear washer pump? The front works fine, as does the rear wiper. There's no clog in the actual nozzle, and you can hear the motor when I press the spray button. When I disconnected the right hose, the front sprayer stopped working. When I disconnected the left, it looked like water sprayed everywhere underneath the pump. I tried using a bicycle pump on the left upward hose to blow out any potential inline clog but still nothing (though I can't confirm any air actually passed through). I wanted to switch the hoses, but the right isn't long enough to connect to the left plug.

Can anyone steer me in the right direction?

Many thanks in advance

 

Welcome to DF
OPERATION
FRONT WIPER/WASHER SYSTEM
The windshield washer circuit is protected by a 15 amp Cartridge Fuse located in the IPM. The wiper motor has permanent magnetic fields. The speeds are determined by current flow to the appropriate set of brushes inside the motor. The current flow is controlled by the multi-function switch. The high speed/low speed relays are located in the IPM. The speed sensitive intermittent wiper is controlled by the Body Control Module (BCM). The intermittent mode, with the vehicle traveling greater than 10.4 mph, has a range of 0.5 to 18 seconds. With the vehicle traveling less than 10.4 mph, the time delay doubles to a range of 1 to 36 seconds. The wiper arms will park at the base of the windshield just above the cowl cover after the wiper switch is turned OFF.

The windshield wiper motor and linkage is located in an integral wiper unit at the rear of the engine compartment. The wiper unit must be removed to gain access to the wiper motor.

The front and rear washer systems share the same washer pump motor.

REAR WIPER/WASHER SYSTEM
When rear wiper operation is required, the BCM will provide ignition ON voltage to the rear wiper motor (Export and ATC equipped vehicles only). When the wiper switch is turned OFF, the BCM provides circuit ground to operate the motor until the wipe cycle is complete and the wiper arm returns to the base of the rear window.

Switch only offers an intermittent rear wiper mode. The wiper motor will cycle every 7 seconds. The intermittent delay time is also adjusted based upon vehicle speed. With the vehicle traveling greater than 50 mph, the cycle changes to every 5 seconds.

When rear washer is requested by depressing and holding down the switch, the BCM then provides a ground for the washer motor. Until the switch is released, the motor will be in a continuous wipe mode, then return to an intermittent wipe mode.

 

Thanks for the reply and the welcome. Okay, so it looks like they both share the same motor. Does the left hose lead to the rear washer then? Any ideas on what the problem could be? The hose itself looks like it wouldn't have any debris in there, but like I mentioned, I can't confirm that that I was able to successfully pump any air through it. Maybe a bike pump isn't strong enough to blow anything through a hose that long? I have removed the nozzle and confirmed that no water is getting through, though. Is there a possibility that the hose has a kink somewhere between the pump & the nozzle?


Thanks again!

 

I had the same problem, no washer in the back but front was ok. I found on my 05 GCV that the bottom of the rear trunk area was wet. This was washer fluid. I removed the tail gate plastic sill and pulled up the carpeting, I found a harness of hoses. There is a black plastic hose coming from the front and heads up to the right side of the van and to the nozzle. What I found I the plastic hose looks like a pressure relief valve, small plastic cap that popped of this valve and sprayed fuild all over under the carpet and in the "trunk well". I popped the cap back on and she works.

 

Now that is intriguing & definitely something I never would have figured out on my own . Thank you very much for the advice. I'll have to check it out later on & post the results.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobinkski

I had the same problem, no washer in the back but front was ok. I found on my 05 GCV that the bottom of the rear trunk area was wet. This was washer fluid. I removed the tail gate plastic sill and pulled up the carpeting, I found a harness of hoses. There is a black plastic hose coming from the front and heads up to the right side of the van and to the nozzle. What I found I the plastic hose looks like a pressure relief valve, small plastic cap that popped of this valve and sprayed fuild all over under the carpet and in the "trunk well". I popped the cap back on and she works.

Ugh. Okay, so you were right on the money. I did find the little cap had come off. I popped it back on & and though some water does now come through the washer nozzle, water still sprayed everywhere inside the well (discovered only after a several second-long button press, believing all was now fixed *sigh*) Dug around a little more in the newly created pool and found another little piece that had a spring on it. Popped the cap off, stuck the spring piece inside, and it's ~still~ spraying everywhere, creating sopping wet blankets of the insulation.

Is there a certain way that spring piece is supposed to sit in there? Or is there yet another piece that might have gone MIA?

p.s. It really does seem kind of silly to have a valve like that only inches from all those electrical connectors in there.

 

I didnt know about the other valves that you found, cant help you on which way the spring sits in the valve, keep us posted if you find out more.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobinkski

I didnt know about the other valves that you found, cant help you on which way the spring sits in the valve, keep us posted if you find out more.

It's the same valve. There's the cap that you had mentioned before, and then there's the actual spring valve/spring/plunger inside that. Both the cap and the plunger had popped off, leaving only the washer hose and the subsequent hole in the shell of the check valve assembly. I replaced the spring first, with the plunger side on top, then capped it. It would be so that the plunger would be pushing against the cap and the spring against the bottom of the assembly. I don't think it would have fit with the plunger side down, so maybe there's a washer missing somewhere, too. With as much water as was coming out despite the valve being capped, there's gotta be more to it than just a "leaky" check valve.

If worse comes to worse I'll just replace the whole thing, since I've read that it's not very beneficial to just remove one entirely. I'll keep y'all posted.

Many thanks again.

 

My question is what is this valve for? My guess if the noozle freezes up, the cap will pop off.

 

Our van got totalled on the way home from work Friday. My 27 month old daughter and I were broadsided by someone who ran a stop sign. We were hit so hard that both of the other driver's air bags were deployed. It pushed us into a fishtail and threw us into a ditch. The van rolled over and we wound up upside down. Fortunately, my daughter's car seat did its job and she had not a single bump or scratch on her (I'm now an unpaid spokesperson for Britax, let me tell you). I only have scratches on my hands from the broken glass all over the ceiling when they had to cut my seatbelt to get me out. Every last body panel, corner and edge were in some way dented or crushed. Thankfully, though we lost the windshield and all the glass on the driver's side when the van rolled, all the passenger glass remained in tact so there was nothing raining down on us during the tumble.

I tried posting pics but the files are too large. I'll be sure to post a couple once I figure how to downsize the pictures.

Ugh, now it's back to deciding whether to get another used Dodge/Chrysler van with no long term parts sustainability, or go for a highly overpriced and VERY high mileage Honda Odyssey.