I have a 40 Chev and am wanting to do away with the original wipers. Does anybody know of a swap that will work?
Lots of swaps available, you can find several bolt in e-motors that will run a couple hundred but most go to the junk yard and find one. Dodge minivans seems to be a popular choice oddly enough. Measure your throw length and go from there,
Old jaguars (and probably other British brands) use a cable driven system that is pretty adaptable. The aftermarket has stolen the idea and made them for hot rods.
Why mess around trying to make other OEM wipers work. Go to Newport engineering, and check them out. They have direct bolt in units that work super. They are great prople to work with, and their units are not all that bad in price. Give them a chance, that is what I use
They are nice but at 209.95 bucks they sure ain't cheap! HRP https://www.newportwipers.com/products.php?year=1940&make_id=1 I use Rain-X myself. HRP
All my hot rods have working windshield wipers but as you already know the original styled wipers are marginal at best. HRP
Newport is not cheap, but they work great, and fit in with no modifications to the car, just unbolt the vacuum motor, bolt in the electric motor, wire in the switch, and presto wipers that work as they are supposed to
The best option by far in my opinion, they can be placed anywhere and work like a dream, the aftermarket rip offs of them are absolute junk, I had a customer have me fit one a couple of years back and it broke before I even fired it up. I only use the genuine English ones now made by Lucas, problem is they are getting a bit hard to come by.. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
The Lucas cable ones are good for an earlier car, with the wiper over the windshield and no room for a decent motor. Recently put the Lucas type on a 54 and the drive motor assembly took up what I considered valuable room in the passenger kick panel area, while there was plenty of unused room in the middle. I guess I would just get a United Technologies (or what ever the brand is currently) motor and adapt it like Newport does. I did this on my '47 Ford, not that complex a deal. Rain-X works great on the road; but stop and go city traffic in the rain sucks without some sort of wiper. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
I have a Newport in there now from 96, it didnt work very well from the word go. Thats why Im looking now while I have to do a few mods and paint.
Newport again, direct bolt in. Mandatory safety item down here. I've adapted BMC cable drives before, you can mount motor and trim cable to suit your application. Recently used and adapted 2sp Hyundai car to a friends Pommy rod with minor fabrication. Good sweep with park provision.
i used vw beatle wiper assembly on my 36 chevy .it mounts under the dash has 2speeds and park. takes up very little room . the arm mounts are 15 1/2 " cc. $15 at the pick and pull.
If you have a Newport and it doesn't work right, have you contacted them? Bob and his wife are super people to work with, and if they don't know there are problems with the product can't fix them. Give them a call
I have used four Newport units, all trouble free. I like driving my rods and want good working wipers in hard rain. If the original linkage is not in good condition then Newport is not at fault.
Bob, at Newport, is a really good guy. That being said, I have yet to use his products, but I've heard nothing but good about them. Both of my '40s still have the stock vacuum motors in them. I took the coupe's wiper motor apart and used a bunch of Vaseline inside it, and it works pretty well, in conjunction with a fresh application of RainX. The Vaseline helps the paddle seal against the housing. I haven't pulled the motor apart, on the stake truck, but I had temporarily installed a vacuum canister, out of a '96 or older Ford Truck (the kind that looks like a coffee can), and it helped regulate the available vacuum, through acceleration. One of these days, when I find a good label from a #10 can of baked beans, or something like that, I will affix it to the vacuum canister and mount it under the hood somewhere. Our local "pick a part" sold me my "can of suck" for less than $10.