while i was standing in the rod magazine section at Barnes and Noble i was reading through several different mags looking for new ideas/old shit and happened on an article on installing electric wipers in and old Ford truck originally equipped with vacuum wipers. being a real skeptical kind of guy i read on, and lo and behold the setup they were using was the exact same setup as used in a freaking MG midget..... the actual motor pushes and pulls on a coarse cable that runs through small gearboxes that mount under each wiper arm, and 3/8" tubing with flares on it holds the cable in place. i'm no engineer, but i can tell that it would be WAAAAY cheaper to pull these parts from a junked MG or Spitfire and modify them instead of paying through the ass for new stuff. the install was so straightforward that it could have been printed without instructions. sooo... check those British cars the next trip through the scrapyard. save yer money for beer and gas.
Are there any other cars, and what years, that have similar wiper installations? Some of the older British cars are getting harder to find parts for.
I got yer wiper motors right here! http://www.victoriabritish.com/ They're in Lenexa, KS - right down the street from LMC truck - and have been around about forever. Get a free catalog - at the very least, you'll have a parts list and exploded view for reference when going to the junkyard. Here's a pic from their catalog! ~Jason
this has been around for years i installed them in my 57 dodge pu back in 97 i read the same art in custom rodder or hotrod builder about the same time. if you compare to specialty wipers they are basically the but the lucas wipers are cheaper. used in almost all british leyland cars m.gs jaguar rangerovers triumph austin etc. my .02
we've been using these setups for years here, they are a great setup, you can adjust the length of the cable and outer cover too. They are found in lots of English cars, minis, rovers, morris minors etc. Don't know that there's too many over there tho!
FYI guys - all the above described cars are ones Victoria British (link posted above by me) sells parts for. ~Jason
"Wow,Lucas electrical parts that work?"LOL Thanks for the info,I always wondered if one of the 3 wiper systems,would work better on a really short windshield. I suppose it would look weird,but if you could hide them away somehow,when not in use, 3x8" wiper blades would cover a lot more of a chopped windshield than 2. Remember it rains a lot here.
the tried and true fix for Lucas electrics is to take apart every Lucar connector and pop it full of dielectric grease, then pop it back together. now, as far as getting that rare Lucas "smoke" back into the circuit? don't ask me brother i just work on em. some Jags and MG's did use three wipers now that i think of it; most of mine have been two-wiper cars. half the fun of scrapyard scrounging is trying to figure out if that fancy doodad would work on my old car.......
here what a old guy told me about vaccum wipers. the factory put some white grease on the inside of the wiper , this gwhite greae will cake up and slow the vaccum wipers way down or make it not work, cleam out the old grease and lubricate the rubber flap with wd40
I am thinking the Jeep Cher - Sport, 1982 - 01 rear hatch wiper would work. And it comes w/a neat little window washer hose. Bob
I put a late 60's/early 70's Mazda unit into a guy's Cobra kit some few years back. Looks like the 2 blade unit Abomination posted. It fit nice.
I've used the Specialty kits on a couple of '36 Fords. On the sedan, I did not have any problem snaking the easily bent aluminum tubing up the top post. When I went to do my '36 pickup, the aluminum tubing was not getting it. I went looking for options and came across that plastic white tubing they sell at Home Depot for running the water lines to your refrigerator dispenser. It worked well snaking up the top post and it slid tightly over short aluminum tubing stubs that I cut coming out of the motor assembly and the tower mechanism. Everything seems to be working great with the greased up cable running in the plastic tube.
You know, I got to looking at that the other day... and I think they are. They're actually right down the street from where I work! ~Jason
anyone knows what type of electric motor i can use for a 1951 chevrolet pickup 3100 it still has the vacuum wiper..
Here's a thread I started over on the NSRA UK site not too long ago: http://www.nsra.org.uk/newforum/showthread.php?t=18737 There are links to wiring diagrams for the Lucas motors used in these wiper systems. I got an MG setup - the cable is long enough to run from the cowl, up the A-pillar and across to a two-wiper setup on m '36 Pickup...
I have had good luck using the hatchback wiper motor out of small imports. They are a single wiper unit and run out of synch with two. They are small and fit in tight spaces. Junkyard items & cheap.
I used a toyota wiper motor and arm (out of the rear door on a toyota surf 4x4 wagon) it is a nice compact motor with intermitant and high/low speeds, has a short arm and a single pivot. I mounted the pivot thru the centre of the original ford wiper rack (1955 Ranchwagon) and ran the short toyota arm back to the toyota motor , this turns the modern toyota motion into the correct "clap hands" motion at the wipers, also means everything on the outside appears stock. .
Those wipermotors are very good, I think they even used them in Rolls Royces, I have got them on my '34 since 1995, besides Rainex they did their job very well, and we got rain... I changed the gears for more angle and put the motor under my dash, the tube went through the A-pillar. Have a good one this year
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