Done -- it was getting to me, too!

I couldn't tell if that was a parking switch problem or what! It seemed to stop consistently in the same place.

 

I'm going to try the ground wire first, but I think the original wires from the switch to the motor might be the problem, since they have some exposed wire (like the rest of the truck).

I actually hooked the ground wire to the motor while I had it removed to make that modification easier. I just need to finish the job by finding a good spot to hook the ground, cut the wire and add the connector. I used about 8 feet of wire so I can run it wherever I want.

 

I ran the ground wire yesterday from the motor body to a good spot on the dash. Today it's raining again, so I tested them. Both speeds operate smoothly. No intermittent wipers... which is good because they are stock. So... it was a good reason to go outside and start the truck again. Right?

I found a couple more small leaks into the cab. I am learning how that old rubber windshield seal does almost no good.

My headlights were a question mark too, since the wires were disconnected when I got the truck. Well, they're still disconnected, because they're rotten. But I wanted to see if the lights would work, so I used my battery charger to test them. The right side works for high and low beam. The left side does not light, but the wires are particularly rotten, so I may just need to replace that to make it work. Something else to do inexpensively. Yay!

 

Good to hear you got the wiper going.....another thing to check off the list.

I bought some new plugs for the headlights and just rewired everything from the radiator forward with new wire. It was fairly simple...

 

That's my plan also. I will eventually have new wiring throughout the truck. I want to also replace the running lights receptacles with 2-wire plugs so I can use them as turn signals.

 

I would check out iaepowerproducts.com. They have access to a lot of wiper motors, wiper blades and wiper assemblies. Great customer service as well.

 

Joe, do you recall how you lined up the gear boxes to be in proper sync? Mine sort of go "out" to "in" like you described, but it is not clear to me just where to set the gears. Also, mine cover a very small arc; probably due to the PO modification to get the '53 wiper motor to fit the '52 F1. I will also consider some modifications to increase the arc.

 

Figured out that the gear positioning was more about getting both wiper arms to be in sync (i.e., both at 3 o'clock) so that they hit full left together, and then full right together.

BTW this motor is date stamped July 1953.

 

I'm confused by the statement "to get the 53 motor to fit the 52". The motor pictured is a 51-52 factory motor.

Don't the two gears rotate in opposite directions? I don't have that style any more, but that is my recollection.

 

Now to figure out how to get more arch out of the wipers. They seem to achieve about 90 degrees sweep now, with the PO retro fitting the wipers to the '52 F1. In the image below I stopped the wipers at full sweep, and then positioned the driver's side wiper to my target full sweep position. So the difference between the passanger side (about 90 degrees) and the repositioned driver's side (about 135 degrees), or 45 degrees is the increased sweep I want to achieve.



So, without resorting to trigonometry, if the wiper mechanism arm is 1.242" (pivot to pivot, as depicted below, sorry for the upset de-down image) and achieves 90 degrees, then 50% less length (should achieve another 45 degrees, right?

 

I say '53 motor because that was s the date on the motor, versus the pickup is a '52. I don't claim to know any more than that.

I think you are right, the arms may turn in opposite directions, but the key for me was to get the arms to both be full right at the same time and then full left after 180 degrees turn, opposite directions or not. In the end they were in sync going left and then together going right.

 

Unfortunately, I have a lot of (bad) experiences trying to achieve the things you are. A couple comments:
-- at road speed, the wind will take all slack out of the linkage as they go to the left (DS), so leave some margin or the DS wiper blade will be over the rubber on the windshield.
-- as far as increasing the sweep, your approach is correct. I had the measurements of the C-to-C on the pivots, can't find it. I'll see if I can get it in the morning.
-- because of the lap weld on your pivot, the linkage will be at an angle, which will affect sweep somewhat
-- do you have the strap connecting the two pivots and the motor? Or are the pivots just mounted to the cowl with no support?

 

Ross, thanks for the tips/insight. The pivots on mine are mounted to the cowl without additional support.

Well, perhaps I should have started with the trig. I got my grandson to model the revisions with his robotics set, which determined that about a 25% reduction in wiper pivot arm length would give another 45deg sweep, not 50% as I speculated above.

So the I decided to check the logic and come up with more precise revisions based on some true calculations, as follows:


Measure the wiper from pivot to tip (14.625"), and from tip start to tip stop and a little more (DS: 25.25", PS: 27.625"). Use this to compute degree of target sweep/arc (DS: 119deg, PS: 141deg, one angle of a triangle). Subtract the sweep angle from 180, and divide the result by two to get the second and third angles of the triangle (DS: 30.5deg, PS: 19.5deg). Measure length of initial arm at motor (0.75", pivot center to pivot center), multiply by two to get one triangle side (1.5"). Use the triangle angles and one side to compute the other two sides, which both will equal the target length of the arm attached to the wiper (DS: 0.87", PS: 0.796").

By comparison, the current sweep angles are computed based on the triangle formed by the 1.5" motor arm sweep and the wiper arms at DS: 1.15975 and PS: 1.22675. Thus the DS: sweep is currently 40.6deg, and the PS: sweep is currently 75.4deg.

Based on this the wiper pivot arms should be shortened some 25% on the DS and up to 35% on the PS.

For me, that was an exercise. Now I need to consider actually doing the modification.

Chuck

 

Sorry for the delay, I did find and measure the stock pivots. C-to-C the pin for the linkage is 0.960" from the pivot shaft.

 

Thanks again, Ross.

0.96" pivot arms would achieve a 103 degree wiper sweep for me, based on my measurements. That would be a nice improvement over the 81 degrees I an currently getting on the DS. (Don't know how my prior calculation came up with 40.06 degrees, most have been a typo.)

I am guessing the pivot arms I currently have came from another rig, perhaps to resolve stripped pivot drums. I am going to try to get a couple originals with the 0.96" length. I saw some on classic-haulers.com, so maybe there are some to be found.

Chuck