I am cheap so I always use junk yard '72 - '75 vintage VW wipers. Cut off the vintage car transmissions, weld their actuation rods to the VW ones, make a motor mounting bracket and I have almost free 2spd electric wipers. Done it on a '53 Chevy pickup, '36 Pontiac, '40 Plymouth, '40 Willys pickup.
I used one of these on my '36 Willys. It is in the headliner. I think they were originally for Jeeps. available on ebaY as are rotary switches. One-wire hookup, can't get simpler! I keep the wiper arm and blade under my seat, only put it on in rain. Wiper switch on left. Wiper installed. Removed.
There are those of us who actually put real miles on our cars and even in the middle of June or July drive far enough that we may hit a gully washer rain storm or worse. Not everyone closes the garage door back down if we see a scary cloud or if the weather report isn't great if we want to go somewhere. In my case I figure to put around 15 K on my truck the first year I have it back together going to a list of bucket list events some that have been on the list for a long time. If you really plan to drive you need good equipment or suffer the consequences of cobbling something together or relying on Rainex or other snake oil concoctions to hopefully keep a downpour off the windshield so you can just see at all.
Those Jeep wiper motors work with one wiper but it gets pretty hilarious when a guy tries to run two and they never sync.
X51 on Newport. If I need to install a wiper motor, and Newport has one to fit, it gets that, without question.
I have the same wiper motor on the coupe, single wiper and Rain X, works great when I need it. Also has automatic park, very high tech for the drag coupe, LOL.
If you don't want to pay their price, you can man up and alter a "junk yard" modern wiper system to fit and function in your car. I have done 4 of these modern conversions on my stuff. It requires a lot of time, a lot of thinking through the process, and a bit of custom fabrication, but it can be done. An important starting point is if you still have the OEM wiper posts and linkage in your car. If not you get to modify something modern to fit, that makes the entire process a bit more difficult. If replacement wiper arms and wiper blades are available for your car, that helps a bunch too, but that too can be overcome with a bit more effort. If none of that stuff is available or present on your ride, when you go junk yard cruising, recruit all of that stuff as well, preferably off the same vehicle. Making a single wiper work is much easier then making a pair of wipers work. Making a pair of wipers work increases the challenge. Assuming you need everything, and a single wiper will work (I'll cover the wiper pairs in a different post if anyone wants to know). At the junk yard, a few things are very important. 1) How far the wiper sweeps. The wiper sweep is how big of an arch the wiper blade makes as it travels across your windshield. Wiper sweeps can range anywhere from 90 degrees to 180 degrees, there are several choices between those two. Where that wiper post (and the wiper motor if its one unit) is located on your vehicle, and how far the wiper can actually sweep across your windshield is important with a single wiper, but gets critical with a pair of wipers. 2) Where you will be able to mount that wiper post (or the wiper motor if it is one unit) matters. With a single wiper , it is best if the center of that wiper swing is at or near the center of your vision, so it clears as much of your windshield vision as possible. That wiper post (or motor) needs to fit the body of the car in such a way that the post is square with the windshield through the wipers full sweep. Modern wiper arms are spring loaded to hold the wiper against the windshield. That wiper post has to be positioned so the arm puts the correct down force on the wiper. Too much down force, the wiper can stall and burn up the motor, scratch the windshield, or cause wiper linkage problems. Not enough down force and cause the wiper blade to miss clearing the complete windshield with in is sweep. If you do not have room inside of the car to mount the wiper post/ motor unit, then you need a wiper motor and a wiper post (or 2 wiper posts with 2 wipers) and linkage between the post and the motor. Setting up the linkage to work is the hard part! It is time consuming and every location and line up of the linkage is critical. 3) The length of the wiper arm and the length of the wiper blades. This may sound stupid, but if the wiper post is 2" away from a 12" high windshield, a wiper set up with a 20" arm and a 26" long wiper blade just isn't going to work. Generally, the wiper arm connects with the wiper blade at the center of its length, and usually the wiper arm can be cut shorter, as long as the arm can still put the proper spring pressure on the blade against the windshield. These days, finding short wipe blades is getting tough without buying specialty blades. Some wiper blades can be cut shorter, but most o longer can be. The wiper arms only fit certain wiper posts, and wiper blades only fit certain wiper arms. Careful selection of the parts in the junk yard are very important to the success of the mission. Its easier to test fit things at the Pick N Save then it is at an auto parts store, just keep track of what the parts you choose came off of. Then when buying replacement parts, you buy them for what ever the donor was. Choosing the right junk yard parts is the easy part! Mounting the wiper post is the next challenge. You will likely need to fabricate some sort of brackets to mount the wiper post/motor into your ride. The posts that bolt on using the wiper post itself are the easiest, as long as everything fits in the required area and you have access to the electrical connections. You may only have to enlarge the existing mounting hole. Not many modern wiper posts mount this way. You have to create what ever you need, then make sure everything is water tight or you may get wet feet in the rain storm. Once the post has been mounted, you simply need to fit the wiper arm to the post, and the blade length, and modify them however they need to be modified to place the wiper blade squarely against the windshield, in the proper position so it can make the entire sweep with out making contact with the windshield mounting rubber or the car body. Any contact will make the wipers bounce off the glass, will damage the wiper blade, possibly the arm, motor, linkage, and the car body or glass rubber. If you have a separate wiper motor and wiper post, you will need to make, or modify the linkage between the motor and the post. That linkage needs to be on the same plain as the motor and the wiper post arm and in a straight line. The wiper motor arm, the wiper post arm and the linkage has to clear everything throughout its operation. All the mounting needs to be strong and secure. Then you need to add a wiper switch and wiring. I have done this 4 times. Two wiper set ups is much more complicated then a single post wiper. I'm going to estimate I have between 15 and 20 hours in each wiper assembly. Every vehicle adds its own complexities. If you still have the OEM wiper posts & linkage, and can still het blades, and just want to add a modern wiper motor, I can walk you through that process too. Setting up the linkage is the hardest part and that can be very time consuming.
All of this is why the Newport kits are so nice. They do all of this, delivering a bolt-in solution that works like OEM. Yeah, they're not cheap but what is your time worth? I've done a couple of home-brew conversions, never again...
Yes, the entire purpose of this was so the guys can ask themselves how much their time is worth. Without any idea what they are getting into, or how long a do it yourself project like a wiper system takes to work through, the cost of your time invested, and resources involved really doesn't mean anything. When you hear from a guy with experience doing this tells you he had 15 to 20 hours invested with each system, you have a time value to compare to.
Are your original wipers still on the truck or removed ?? I read all the posts but did not see Ricky.
On my Oz 1940 Dodge I installed a Lucas(?) cable operated wiper motor, cable, tube and bracketry years ago obtained from an English car, Morris or Hillman, can't remember which, mounted the motor in the space beside the glove box and cowl.....the benefit of the OEM cable operated gearboxes is that they can be mounted to give either "wave your hands" or "clap your hands" operation............I needed the "clap your hands" mounting........used various OEM wipers and arms over the years but decided to get some Newport Engineering wiper arms 4 yrs ago, they fit & work perfectly........my oz 2 cents worth.........andyd
My VW motor system takes maybe 3-4 hours (not counting the Pick-A-Part trip of course!) to perform if the car is under construction. Of course, if were a retrofit on a running car it becomes more problematic but so do all other options. My approach to rod building is enjoying the time. I really don't count time or money. If I have it, I use it, if not I save up. It's the enjoyment of the journey for me, not necessarily the destination. rejuvenation of a junk yard part is the ultimate joy.
I'll bet I spent less than an hour installing my Newport. That included the switch bracket, wiring, everything. I bought their two speed switch. One could use a cheaper switch I suppose. I chose to use theirs.
Cable drive from English cars are an option as you can mount motor at dash level and snake cable drive up the pillar to header
Ok Im calling Newport. Even though my truck is in Los Angeles you never know when you might need wipers. Thanks Jerry
The Jalopy Journal
