1950s 1955 Eldorado - Older electric wipers not working.

[Lockhouse]

Hi all,

I've got a '55 Eldorado and the wipers have stopped working. I have an older style Delco electric replacement (pictured).

The wiper motor is running, the central spindle is turning and there is the wiper swish-swish noise coming from the motor itself. However, there is no movement in the cabin at all - the main wiper pulley is not turning. The wipers are not jammed - you can move either wiper and it moves the other with very little pressure, there's a little slipping of the cables but nothing untoward.

My next steps are to take the wiper motor off and bench test it but has anyone had anything similar occur? The wiper motor is probably 25 years old and I know I can get a New Port replacement but need to prove that it's the motor and not the mechanism before I go down that route.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Andy

p.s. It's an absolute pig to get to as I'm not gifted in the height department!

[Cadman-iac]

  Andy,

 I'm not sure what exactly the Cadillac electric wiper motor looks like, but the one you show in your picture looks like it's from a 55-57 Chevrolet.
 The problem with these is that the park position is opposite of what the Cadillac has. The cables on the Chevrolet are crossed between the wiper transmission and each wiper arm shaft, so the arms operate like they should.
 On a Cadillac these cables do not cross, they run straight from the transmission to each wiper shaft, so if you're using the Chevrolet motor, as soon as you turn it on your wiper arms are going to want to drop down instead of lifting from the bottom of the windshield.
 Ask me how I know that, lol!!
 It's possible to make the Chevrolet motor work, but it requires that you re-route the cables and cross them opposite of what they are now.
 It's not a job that you want to get into with an assembled car.
 You would be better off locating a Cadillac motor.
 I hesitated in answering this as I'm not positive about your motor, but it looks identical to the one I have, and I know it came off a 56 Chevrolet.
 Hope this is helpful and good luck with your car.

 Rick

[Lockhouse]

Hi Rick,

That's really useful. Thank you for taking the time to reply. It does indeed look like a tri-chevy motor. I'm hopefully going to have some time to remove it tomorrow and take a look. I think I'll probably go the New Port replacement route if it's not fixable.

Best regards,

Andrew

[Cadman-iac]

  Have you checked the mounting on your motor, make sure that neither one of the screws that hold it in place has come loose, allowing the drive on the motor to pull away from the wiper transmission?
You said that it has stopped working, so when it was working, did the wiper arms make the full travel from the bottom center of your windshield out to the edge and back like they are supposed to? Or have you always had a problem with this? 
 You also mentioned that you could see that the wiper transmission was not moving. Can you see if one cable runs from the top of the transmission to the top of each wiper arm shaft, and the other one runs from bottom to bottom like they are supposed to, or if they have been crossed to make it work with a Chevrolet motor?
 The motor itself may have an internal problem that is not letting it drive the wipers.
Just thinking of other things that it could be, in case I'm wrong about that motor being from a Chevrolet.

Rick

[Lockhouse]

Hi Rick,

I took the wiper motor out today.

The motor was OK - the bracket has sheared off the shaft that attaches to the pulley in the cabin so I will need a NOS or used replacement as it's not fixable.

The Cadillac part number is "466 5839 Drive, Auxiliary, Windshield Wiper Motor".

The Trico part number is 88180-15J. I note that from 54-57 all Cadillacs had the Trico part that started 88180 and then ended 13J, 15J, 19J etc. Are they all the same part for these years or is a 88180-15J a one year part - any ideas?

Best regards,

Andy

[Lockhouse]

This is the fixing onto the bulkhead where the fixing has sheared off the shaft. I don't believe this is original. I think it's off a '56/57 Corvette and it's a one year only part. Almost impossible to find a good replacement. Not sure whether to try and get it welded or to try and get an original part and replace the motor with a New Port one.

[J. Gomez]

Andrew,

The transmission shaft end should have a rectangle piece "U" shape which the wiper motor mounts (you can see it on the attach picture), this is press mounted on the shaft so if you still have it you can try and weld it back.

Also the main issue with the conversion kit from New Port is the bracket where the electric motor mounts is generic for other GM models. So on the Cadillac the way it mount the motor will interfere with the air cleaner housing so it will not seat properly.

I did the conversion but had to modify the bracket (cut and weld it back yellow traces) so the motor will seat horizontally for the air cleaner to fit correctly (second picture with labels), also had to drill an access hold for the mounting screw (red circle).

If your motor is working and you can place the piece back on the transmission shaft I would just stick with that layout since it worked before.   

Good luck..!

[Cadman-iac]

  Andy 

 If you're going to attempt to repair your part, just remember that if you get the connector piece off of the original location, it will cause the wiper arms to be out of position. There's no adjustment to this system unfortunately.
 So just make sure that it's in the correct position on the shaft before you weld it.
 I don't have any extra transmissions for the wipers, but it's probably the same one for 54, 55, and 56. Someone with a parts book can tell you for sure if that's correct. Clay has one I know, so he could verify that for you.
  Good luck with your repair if that's the route you decide on.
 I am not sure if it can be done on the car and be sure you get it in the right position. To be sure it's welded straight and in the right spot you're probably going to have to remove it from the car. And this way you can spin it to make sure it doesn't wobble. Any wobble can make problems for you, like it won't engage completely and could jump out of the drive.
 Just things to consider when you make your decision.

 Rick

[Lockhouse]

Thanks Jose and Rick for the replies and the photos. Very much appreciated.

I've taken all the parts off the car and it does look repairable to my untrained eye - there's only one way it can go back on. I'm taking it to a specialist machine shop tomorrow or Friday to see if they can braze\weld it. It will be a whole lot easier than having to get an original pulley and a new wiper motor.

Interestingly although the pulley and retainer didn't look identical to the original, on the back it had the correct 1955 part number, so I assume it was a later generic GM replacement.

I will let you know how I get on.

Best regards,

Andy

[PHIL WHYTE CLC 14192]

Andy, I may have a spare 1954 one and I'm only in Essex. I may have a chance to have a dig for it tomorrow.
Phil

[Lockhouse]

Andy, I may have a spare 1954 one and I'm only in Essex. I may have a chance to have a dig for it tomorrow.
Phil

Hi Phil, that would be magic ta. I'm going to try and get mine repaired as it's the easiest thing for me to do but if I can't then that would be my only option. I'm down near Winchester in Hampshire but come from Essex originally.

A

[Lockhouse]

Hi,

Good news\bad news. After a local machine shop rewelded the wiper shaft, I've spent a pretty gruelling day refitting it and all the cables back together (cables back correctly) The original issue is fixed. My passenger wiper is working fine, but the driver's side is not working correctly. One end of the cable is tight and the other end is loose. I think this might have been a problem all along that was disguised by the wiper shaft snapping and has now got worse.

I know for '55 you push the shaft in to retension the cables before fitting the wipers. I'm not sure this is working.

If you look at the video, you can see the wiper pulleys - one is slipping against the other - this obviously isn't right - is it fixable though?

Best regards,

Andy

[Cadman-iac]

 Hey Andy,
 From looking at your video, it appears that the wiper shaft lost its grip on the drive pulley, so any adjustment "distance" is just taken up by the lack of movement of the shaft itself, if that makes sense. I'm not sure if I'm using the correct terminology for this, but I can see what's happening.
 You may need to pull that shaft assembly out and take a closer look at it. It could be something as simple as debris between the "clutch" and the drive pieces.
 I've completely disassembled mine, even though they were not meant to be repaired. And I can probably explain what you need to do to accomplish this, but it'll have to be tomorrow as I'm out of town today.

Rick

[Lockhouse]

Thanks Rick - I understand what you mean, appreciated.

I'll remove the shaft in a few days and take it apart in the workshop and see if I can see the problem- hopefully, it's just stuck on an internal ridge or something.

I'd do it tomorrow but we've got two events his weekend, one in the '55 so fingers crossed it doesn't rain. I've "upgraded" the autronic eye connections so I can just pull the dash in and out quite quickly, which helps.

I will post again when I've investigated further.

Best regards,

Andy

[Cadman-iac]

  Andy,

Before you go ahead and pull the shaft, I was thinking about it and it might just be a sticky shaft in the bushings, maybe from dried up grease, or a groove worn into the shaft, hard to say. Have you tried to pull upward on the shaft after you pushed it down to center the cables? It might just have a point where it snags and won't go any farther without assistance. The spring that is supposed to push the shaft back outward/upward, could be too weak to move it past the snags.
Lifting the shaft should free it and lock up the "clutch" if that is in fact your problem.
Could save you some time, and it doesn't hurt to try it. If it doesn't work, well you were going to pull it off anyway.

Rick

 Edit: to correct the spelling mistakes that auto-correct either didn't catch or actually inserted.
 Ain't technology wonderful?

[Cadman-iac]

  Ok, Andy, I'm home now and I just grabbed the box with my wiper system in it to look at the shaft.
I rebuilt 2 sets of these, one for the car and the other for backups if I ever need them.
Even though these were not meant to come apart, it is possible to do just that. I filed the bottom end of the shaft to remove the swedged portion so that the bottom piece that goes over the shaft will come off. But before you remove it, take several pictures of the end and the relation of the bottom piece to the shaft with the shaft rotated to the park position, that's with the cable on the top pulled all the way out which leaves the shaft and arm on the park position.
Then you need to mark both the shaft and the bottom piece  so that you know which way it goes back on, otherwise you are just guessing and you might have to pull the shaft back off the car to correct the mismatch.
Here's a picture of how I marked mine so there was no mistake about how it goes back together.



You can see there are two marks on the shaft and the bottom piece, plus I marked the larger diameter piece with a marker where it lines up with the guard for the cables.
Another thing that you need to do before removing that bottom piece is to drill a small hole through both parts for a roll pin. Do this before you file off the swedged end while everything is locked in the right place. This is what will hold it all together after you file off the swedged portion.
And if you happen to get the hole offset to one side just a bit, that's even better, because the pieces will only line up one way then. After putting it back together, if you can't see thru the hole in both pieces, then it's not positioned correctly and you need to take it apart and try again.
And the shaft and the bottom piece are both splines, so they don't slip once assembled, so you can't twist them apart.
(Word of warning, the bottom piece is pot metal, so it's fragile, be careful with it).

So there's a spring  that acts as a tensioner guess, it's been far too long since I've taken these things apart, and even when I did it, there wasn't a diagram of parts with descriptions for reference. So unfortunately I'm relying on my memory for this.
And unfortunately I didn't have my phone with camera at that time either, so no pictures of the disassembled shaft assembly.
I did have a very small digital camera then, and I'm searching for anything I might have taken of this thing. I don't know if I can transfer a picture even if I find one though.
I'll let you know soon if I have anything.
And you let me know if you want to try to repair your shaft assembly yourself, and I'll do what I can to help you with it.
Get back to you soon.

Rick

 Oh, and my motor has a squared off end where yours is rounded. I kept thinking that the rounded one was the Chevrolet motor, but it's the squared one that is Chevrolet.
 Here's a picture of mine.
 It's been too many years since I've even looked at this stuff, so I apologize for the mistake about yours.

[Lockhouse]

Wow Rick - huge thanks, really mate - that's awesome. There's so much there I won't be able to check until I actually take mine off and compare it with yours, but what a great reply.

A

[Cadman-iac]

Glad to be of assistance.
Here's another thing I've forgotten about. On the cables, the ends with the crimped lugs on them have two different colors for each shaft assembly, for the driver's side and the passenger side. One cable end is copper colored, and the other end is a silver, or a steel color.
On the driver's side, the copper one is the one that raises the arm and blade, while the steel-colored one lowers the arm and blade.
However, that's exactly the opposite from the passenger side. On it, the copper cable lowers the arm while the steel one raises it.
And on your transmission, the little brackets or clips that the cable ends go into are also color coded. Both copper ends go to one clip, and both steel-colored ends go to the other clip.
On mine, the clips are copper steel colored, but the copper is just a paint, and most of it has worn away, but you can still see it.
Here are more pictures of what I'm referring to. I kept looking at the transmission and wondering why I had marked it with a "C" and an "S", then I checked the cable ends and remembered it.







Hope this helps out somewhat. Let me know what you are going to do and I'll try and help.
By the way, I went through 5 memory cards looking for anything on these and found nothing, so I guess I didn't take pictures.
Probably just as well, the screen on that camera is 1.5" X 2", so it's hardly worth messing with.

Rick

[Cadman-iac]

  I just noticed that your transmission base mounting plate is a different shape than mine.  But mine is a 56, so that might explain it.
I also noticed that yours looks like the threaded hole on the right might be messed up, like the screw was cross-threaded maybe?

[Cadman-iac]

  Here's more information on the wiper shafts.
First though, I looked for any 55 parts I thought I had, but it wasn't until I located the spare 56 parts that I remembered that when I bought the 55 for parts, the guy I got it from had also wanted parts, and he had stripped it of the complete wiper system, supposedly because it had an electric wiper motor. So I don't have one to compare with the 56 parts.

Anyway, on the shafts, that big spring with the end sticking out to the side is a stop for the arm, although I'm not sure exactly how it's supposed to work. Even when it hits the stop, the shaft continues to rotate until the motor and transmission reverses. I think it is supposed to "give" when the arm reaches its maximum travel, but not sure.
The piece that it is attached to has another little wire end poking out, and if you move the end to the right, it releases the "cap" and stop spring.
See pictures for example.





In the second picture you can see the spring clip that keeps the cap that holds the stop spring in place. (What a mouth full) lol!!

Anyway, after you remove the cap, THEN you can drill the end of the shaft and the other piece that is left on it. In this next picture you can see how they locked them together.






  Before you remove the cap and stop spring, you should probably mark the cap and the big flat piece below it so you can re-install it in the same position.
Then drill your hole, then file off the swedged end, then mark the shaft and the other piece so there's no mistaking how it goes back together. This is all to make it easier for you later.
Ask me how I know all this. Lol!! I learned that the hard way!
Then I promptly forgot it all, until I started messing with it again in order to tell you how to go about it.
  Makes me wish that I had just written it all down somewhere. But at the time, I didn't know about this forum, and I never figured I'd be explaining the process to anyone else.
If I could only remember half of what I've already forgotten, I'd be a happy man!

Here's a few more pictures of the shafts. Mainly just showing the markings that the factory put on them to identify left and right. Hope this helps too.









  These last 4 pictures are of a set I haven't rebuilt yet. I thought I had, but after looking at them again, I can see I hadn't.

 Something else about these that I remember, is that there are 2 brass bushings in the shaft housing, and on the set I rebuilt, I believe I drove them out and cleaned up the shaft and the bushings, then drove the bushings back into the housings. Then before I installed the shafts, I added some lithium grease to the housing and bushings.
 It's a bit of work, but well worth it in the end.

  Rick