1950s 1957 Vacuum Wiper Conversion

[Cadman-iac]

Lincoln, as well as other brands, had vacuum wipers till the sixties!

That's true, I had a 60 Rambler when I was still in high school with vacuum wipers, and because of the small engine, every time you gave it gas the wipers would slow to a crawl or stop altogether, making driving in the rain a real experience.

Rick

[dn010]

I'd take the vacuum wipers over the hydraulic (from power steering) wipers my 66 Thunderbird had when it kept throwing power steering belts...

[Cadman-iac]

I'd take the vacuum wipers over the hydraulic (from power steering) wipers my 66 Thunderbird had when it kept throwing power steering belts...

 That's an option I've never heard of before. Not only can you not see then, but you lose your steering assist as well.
 That should be a lot of fun.

 Rick

[Kurt Kjelgaard]

Thanks to all for digging into this.
Rick, a lot of good info from you. Thank you.
(On a side note about the coupler/coordinator thing - could it be that Chevrolet just had a different name for it than Cadillac?
This happens today in the airplane world - Airbus and Boeing have different names for the many of the same systems - just to be different, I guess.
For example the hydraulic systems in Boeing airplanes are numbered 1,2 and 3 while Airbus calls them green, blue and yellow)

I will think about what to do - I will probably go cable operated sliding switch for a New Port motor,
push button vacuum control for the original washer bottle system and act as the coupler myself

[Cadman-iac]

  Kurt,

Between car lines like Cadillac and Chevrolet, I can understand the difference in names/descriptions, but I got both names from the respective Cadillac service manuals, 1956 and 1957.
So Cadillac/GM  publishing editors didn't catch this one for whatever reason.
 As a partsman for GM I've ran into this issue many times, but usually between the service manual and the parts books. This is the first time I've caught one between years of service manuals.
At least we were able to figure out the mistake to clear up the confusion.
I'm sorry my idea wasn't as simple as it sounds. But at least I caught it before you tried it.

I've got more pictures to post on this, but am currently experiencing some issues with posting them. I figured that this would be a good place to post everything since I had brought it up initially, anyone else looking to convert from vacuum wipers could see what's involved either way.

Rick

[J. Gomez]

Great idea Jose. I must confess, I didn't realize that Cadillac had switched to a sliding wiper control switch for the 57. But the basic operation is still the same as the 56, it still moves a cable to turn on the wipers, and a button to activate the washers.

 Rick

Rick,

I wanted to make the enclosure for this setup better after I had it install for a while, "BUT" since I decided to convert the washer to electric as well I "benched" that project. I had to make some mods to the spare original dash switch to accommodate the dual rotary and push electric switch for both.

I will think about what to do - I will probably go cable operated sliding switch for a New Port motor, push button vacuum control for the original washer bottle system and act as the coupler myself

Kurt,

If you ever want to venture into the abyss by converting both the wiper and washer to electric (you may need to find a donor washer bottle and the push switch for the conversion), mimicking the old function of the coupler/coordinator with the electric setup is easier.
You can add a "diode" from the washer pump over to the "L" and when you press (hold) the washer the wiper (low speed) will operated and since the slider switch still in the same position the wiper motor will auto park once you release the washer switch.   

Of course you can also try a more fancy approach and add an electronic timer circuit to keep the wiper "X" second active after releasing the washer. 

As a partsman for GM ........

Rick

PS now you know why you can't order the new vacuum wiper motor at the dealer, Rick forgot to submit the TTY "teletype" request over to the GM warehouse.        

[Cadman-iac]

Rick
PS now you know why you can't order the new vacuum wiper motor at the dealer, Rick forgot to submit the TTY "teletype" request over to the GM warehouse.     

Nobody ever told me I needed to update the whole system, so I only made a note in my own parts book.
Too soon old, too late smart-ish, or in my case smart-ash!

  Rick

[Kurt Kjelgaard]

Jose, could you elaborate on the diode thing, perhaps with a diagram?

[Cadman-iac]

 Now that I've got the posting problem solved, this is both a Cadillac (bottom) and a Chevrolet (top) vacuum wiper motor. If you will notice, the control cable attaches from the left on both of these, but they are facing opposite directions. This is because Cadillac had to mount theirs upside down in order to clear the large air filter housing, whereas Chevrolet mounted theirs 180 degrees opposite from Cadillac.
 Since both vehicles have the same design wiper blade arc, meaning that they both meet in the middle when parked, this means that the "paddle" inside the vacuum motor is on opposite sides in the park position.


  This picture shows both vacuum and electric wiper motors for a 56 Chevrolet. Notice the position of the vacuum motor in relation to the electric motor. This is how they both would mount, with the motor hanging downward on the mount. (For whatever reason this picture rotated 90 degrees to the left when posted).


 This is the Cadillac vacuum motor and the Chevrolet electric motor in the position each would mount on the bracket.
 This is the main reason why the Chevrolet motor is a pain to use on a Cadillac. It's not impossible, just difficult, and requires several modifications to several areas, mainly to the center pulley mounting plate, and the swapping of the cable positions on the center drive pulley. The other big thing is the air filter housing will not clear the electric motor, so another one would have to be used.

 Rick

[J. Gomez]

Jose, could you elaborate on the diode thing, perhaps with a diagram?

Kurt,

Diagram attach, the push button will go to the electric washer pump adding the diode (e.g. 1N4007 brake lines) between the push button output for the washer and the slider switch for the wiper motor (e.g. yellow side "L") will allow the wiper motor to active as long as the push button for the washer is press "on". Once you release it the wiper motor will go back to its parked position.

HTH

[Kurt Kjelgaard]

I get it, thank you.

But is a 3-pole switch necessary?
The two "upper" poles in your diagram are connected in parallel.

[J. Gomez]

I get it, thank you.

But is a 3-pole switch necessary?
The two "upper" poles in your diagram are connected in parallel.

Kurt,

Yes, the 3-pole/3-position switch I used each row is independent connected from the others.

So if you numbered each contact 1, 2, 3, and 4 and the rows as Top, Middle, and Bottom when the switch is slide on the far left contacts 1 and 2 are making on rows "T", "M" and "B" individually, so in this position +12V is only apply from 2B over to 1B for the park Blue.

When you slide the switch to the middle position the +12V is now place from 3T, and 3M over to 2T and 2M for the low speed Yellow.

When you slide the switch to the far right position you now placing +12V from 3T, 3M and 3B over to 4T, 4M and 4B for the high speed Pink.

My reasoning for the 3-pole is to allow the motor load to be share across multiple rows, so on low speed you will have two rows and on the high speed you have three rows to feed the motor.

You could probably get away by using a 2-row/3position slider but in my case I did not want to risk it.   

HTH

[Kurt Kjelgaard]

Jose,

I understand how it works and your line of thought - to distribute the load.

Do you know how much current the motor pulls in low and high?

Kurt

[J. Gomez]

Jose,

I understand how it works and your line of thought - to distribute the load.

Do you know how much current the motor pulls in low and high?

Kurt

Kurt,

The instructions suggest to fuse the power at 4A but I'm not sure if that is under or over rated. I have not done any measurements to validate their suggestion in low or high in the car. I know there is a good torque by the gears so it is possible 4A is inline for the motor under high torque loads but.