Hey Folks,

Sit down, open a cold one and let me tell you a story about what a special kind of idiot I am; special, as in Special Ed, er, Special John.

This has to do with the wipers on my 1960 F-100.

Mike (Krautwolf) and others may recall that I'm also converting the vacuum wipers over to electric. I had all the parts last weekend and just had to put them in once I found the time this week. So I put the motor in, installed the linkage, hooked up the two connecting arms and ... it's wrong. The thing works fine electrically and mechanically, but the rotation at the wipers is wrong because the linkage that attaches to the motor output shaft is at the wrong angle. This results in the wipers initially moving in the reverse direction before traveling in the correct direction. No problem, you say, just reposition the wiper blade arms so they account for the little jog of reverse travel at the start and you're there. Well, not quite; the driver's side isn't too bad, maybe 1-2" off the bottom of the windshield, but the passenger side's ridiculous, needing about a 45 degree angle up to prevent downward motion into the cowl/hood. Technically it'd work, but having that wiper sitting up there the 99% of the time when the wipers are off would make me crazy; it's just wrong.

So, I get on the phone with the guys at John's F-Funhundred where I got the linkage arms initially. John explains that the problem was aligning the motor output shaft linkage arm horizontally in the parked position, the other linkage arm, that controls the passenger side, is positioned about 30 degrees relative to the output shaft arm and that's the one you want horizontal in the parked position. The guy says just rotate the entire linkage assembly to the angle you need and you're done. Fine, but I can't do this because mine's mounted to the motor via a double-d slotted hole, not a splined shaft and it only will fit one way. The guy says yeah, that's a problem, but see if you can adjust the park position cam on the motor; the older motors had an adjustment there to take care of this exact problem; see if the '89 F-150 motor you've got has a similar adjustment.

Fine, so I take the whole motor apart and find out, no, the cam that actuates the park switch is machined right into the steel output shaft and gear and isn't going anywhere. Lovely, there's $80 down the drain to the machine shop and they're gong to have to do it again: weld material into the arm, filling the hole, mill it down flat, then cut the DD hole at the correct angle. I put the motor back together, which's a real pain, because there's 3 spring-loaded brushes that need to be held back while you put the shaft back in; I'll spare you the details but it isn't easy with only paper clips and lacking 4 hands. I fire the thing up a few times to make sure that it still runs and is in the parked position when it stops.

So it's back to the shop Friday; they yuck it up, see what needs to be done and do it. Another $80, but it's looking good now and that's life, live and learn. Get back home, install it last night and ... something's wrong: the thing won't stop/park; runs right through the stop sign. Runs fine in low and high, but interval stops only for a split second, no matter what time delay you've got dialed in, and does another revolution. Same thing for off, thing won't stop, pauses for a brief moment and continues on in low speed for another rotation.

Geez, I'm wondering if I burned something out in the delay unit that's causing it not to stop. Do some diagnostics, but this failure mode isn't covered in the Ford book. After lots of head scratching and Web searching I find a reference to the delay units going bad due to bad solder joints around the relay; mine look fine, so that's no help. Bag it, I'll just put in a regular 2 speed switch, no delay, until I can repair the delay unit or run down another one. It's a different switch, so I go out today and find it for $30; get back home hook it up and ... the parking deal is erratic. Sometimes it turns off and parks, sometimes it doesn't. Man, this is nuts, maybe a bad ground with me standing on the motor onto the metal floorboard; break out the jumper cables, get a direct ground to the battery and ... same thing. Something's gotta be wrong in the motor with that park switch.

Take the motor back apart and find that the one of the 3 screws that holds down the plate holding the brushes and park switch is loose, right at the terminal where the park switch gets its ground contact. That's it and would explain the erratic operation. Go to tighten it and ... it's already tight. Pull out all 3 screws and find that one is maybe 1/32" longer than the others and that's the one I randomly selected for the park switch ground when reassembling the other day; what baloney. Exchange the screws, tighten it up, we're good, this is going to work. Get back out to the truck, test it with the 2 speed switch, works like a champ. Test it with the delay unit, works like a champ, high, low, intermittent, park; we're good.

Install the motor, hook up the linkages, turn it on and ... the linkage angle in the parked position is wrong. When I parked it before the second trip to the shop, it was off, due to the loose park switch contact. Now I get to go back to the shop again on Monday, shell out another $80 for the privilege of getting laughed at again; it's a good thing I'm a strong man.

And an extremely dopey man, too. Let's see, by the time I'm done this set-up will have cost me $50 for the motor, $30 for two linkage arms, $80 machining costs, another $80 machining costs, a $30 2-way switch I don't need and, come Monday, another $80 in machining costs. I can't count that high. And countless hours of my seemingly worthless time tackling what should have been a straight-forward piece of cake.

Like I said, a special kind of idiot.

JB

 

You get pictures?

 

*****,

Pictures will follow once I have this mess buttoned up.

 

John -

You talked me out of changing MY wiper motor.

BTW, how do you know that this "last" trip to the machine shop will fix it? Maybe we'll get another installment. (hehehe)

 

Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to modify the arm than the motor? cut the connector off rotate it to match the motor shaft position, weld it back on- DONE! Could even be tacked in place and tested before finish welding.

 

Randy Jack,

I didn't mean to dissuade anyone from changing out to electric wipers; just avoid the mistakes I made. Another installment is forthcoming, complete with pix, once this little soire is complete; we can only hope tomorrow's trip to the shop is the last for these wipers (we'll see). The key things, as I see it now, are these:

1. There are two linkage arms. The shorter arm attaches to the motor output shaft and the longer arm; the longer arm attaches to the shorter one (at about a 30 deg angle) and the passenger side connecting arm. The correct parked position of these two linkage arms is with the shorter arm pointed up toward the driver side wiper and the longer arm HORIZONTAL above the motor ouput shaft.
2. Before you machine the end of the shorter arm to attach to the motor output shaft (e.g., a Double-D slot/hole), make sure the motor is in its parked position; verify this by cycling the motor several times and ensure that the output shaft is stopping at the same angular position.

AXracer,

You raise a good point. The short linkage arm is a z-shaped piece with a Double-D hole at one end (where it attaches to the longer arm) and another Double-D hole at the other end (where it attaches to the motor output shaft). Now that the shaft end DD hole is in (albeit at the wrong angle), the linkage arm could be cut and rewelded with the output shaft hole at the right angle. Cutting the shaft end of the arm with a hole saw would leave a circular mating edge to rotate and reweld to. I'll discuss this with the shop tomorrow and see if this saves any time and money.

John

 

I have never appriciated my wipers as much as I do now. and it's even a sunny day outside.

 

You're a better man than me JB - I started down this road back in '01 - said the heck with it and cleaned and re-installed the vacuum wipers. Been that way ever since - I even had to disconnect the second wiper cause linkage slop would bind and stop the wiper. Found I can see the whole field of vision just fine from the driver's side. Passengers give me a little frustrated look when it's raining..................

 

it just seems to me that it might be easier to alter the linkage than to go though this process

 

Maybe its not such a bad thing that we are in the middle of a drought and havent seen anything even remotley looking like rain in so long I can't remember....

I feel your pain! I hate it when you go out to the shop to attack what shold be a simple straightforward modification and things go all haywire on you. It happens to all of us at one time or another.

Keep your chin up, just think, this will make a great story in a couple of months (when the pain starts going away) when shared over a frosty beverage or two.

Bobby

 

Well, my heart goes out to you, "been there, done that" in many ways on many projects. I'm still fixing to make my own electric wipers, so maybe I'm the bigger dope! '52's appear to be even worse

At any rate, you've given me plenty to think about when I get around to doing mine. I think I'll make the output arm 2-piece with slots and screws, so I can index it anyway I want, like an adjustable camshaft gear. At least until I have things all figured out, then I can weld it.

 

What did I do right? Was it because I had 2 speed electrics to start? I'll re-read the saga and see if I can come up with an answer..............

 

John, if I read right you used an '89 F150 motor.. try a Ranger motor ($30 at the junkyard), modify the the mounting plate so it bolts parallel with the top of the firewall, and modify the F100 output arm keyway so it fits over the Ranger motor output shaft.

 

Mike,

I ended up using the '89 F150 motor. The only difference I could tell from the Ranger motor was the length, and I solved that by making the covered bolt hole on the mounting plate a bolt slot; loosely pre-install a bolt and washer in that hole, hang the triangular mounting plate (with motor) on it, then rotate the whole deal up and insert the other two bolts. You still have to use an open-end on that covered bolt head, but it's not too bad.

The output arm I got from John's F-Funhundred had a round mounting hole for attaching to motors with a splined output shaft. The machine shop's been filling, milling and cutting a Double-D hole to attach to the motor, just like you did. The problem is that the rotational angle I've been having them put the DD hole has been wrong. I'm wondering if the connecting rod lengths running from the motor to the two wipers are different in your '59 and my '60; like I said in my original crybaby post, the first setup I tried was dangerously close to what's shown in your gallery and the result was wrong, wrong, wrong. For equal length connecting rods (which mine seems to have), the math I've boned out seems to say the "second" linkage arm (the longer one with the dogleg in your photo) needs to be horizontal in the parked position for correct operation. We'll see.

John

 

I had the advantage of having the original output arm to use as a template for the double d hole and length for the replacment motor' s output arm. I just laid the original on top to the replacement to mark it for the machinist.