Here's my first attempt at an easy tech article for adapting a cheap electric wiper motor to your vacuum/cable operated wipers on 1953-1954 Chevy cars. First you need to get the cable setup installed into the car if it is not already. Mine has been out of the car for a couple years so it took some trial and error to remember how to correctly hook the cables up. It should look like this when your done. Here it is from the outside of the firewall.. I had an electric wiper motor laying around that I thought I would try to adapt to the stock cable set up. It looks like this. Obviously the shaft is super long and it only has one speed but it should be a hell of a lot better than no wipers at all! Then I made a new plate that would align and mount the motor to the existing cable drums. I shortened the shaft and welded on a piece of steel to register into the shaft on the cable drums. I mounted it all up and viola! Electric wipers for ZERO dollars! The motor was given to me and has been on a shelf for years. Parts cut out and painted for good measure! Assembled Mounted. It works!!! I hope you guys like it!
Nice writeup! I used a similar motor on the wipers on my 58 Ranchero, works better than the vacuum ever did!
Cool and simple. I need to do this to my 54 Chevy also. What self-reversing motor did you use that matches the sweep of the 53-54's wiper transmission and what did you use for a switch? I don't think my vacuum switch is going to cut it.
What I've seen guys use here is most any motor from a rear window wiper from an SUV... I have one from an Isuzu Trooper stashed for my '50 Chevy.
The motor I used was given to me so I don't know exactly what it was for. It came with a tiny wiper arm about 4 1/2" long. It has a 90 degree sweep. It would have been better if it swept a little farther. Rustynewyorker is right though, you can use a rear window motor off of an SUV/minivan etc... This is just what I had on hand. I am just going to hide a toggle switch under the dash.
You can probably set it up to use any knob-activated switch right in the stock spot on the dash, too. Yeah, the 55-57 Chevy motor is easy to install, but have you priced one lately? I can buy those SUV wiper motors in most any you-pick yard for like $20, if even.
nice and simple. I have one of these motors sitting on the shelf. Just wish I hadent shaved the wipers from the firewall now!
Simple and clean, I like it. That's going to come in handy down the road on my Hudson. Thanks for the write up.
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