[AMC-List] electric wiper motor upgrade? (58-62)

[farna@xxxxxxx]

I'm not sure the headlight switch will work, but I've done such an upgrade. It's not exactly easy. I used a mid 50s Chrysler wiper motor on my 63 American. It stuck out a good bit further than the vacuum motor, but the motor on the Americans is right under the cowl vent on the outside, not buried behind the heater housing like it is on the big cars. I took a couple of the vent slots out, pushed up the wire, then covered with body filler. Once painted the slight bulge was hardly noticeable -- only a couple people commented on it over the 10 or so years (and several shows) I had the car. 

On the big cars this simply isn't an option because of the way the motor is mounted. It's really squeezed in! But there is a neat junkyard solution! You need the wiper motor, pivots, and cables from a Jaguar, MG, or other British car -- including a Metropolitan. These use a motor mounted off to one side with a drive cable. The cable and pivots are sort of like a rack and pinion -- the cable is the rack and moves back and forth, the pivots are the pinions and do the same. One of the pivots can easily be removed and mounted upside down from it's original position. That will give wipers moving to and away from each other instead of parallel. The only problem might be that the cables aren't long enough on the smaller cars, but should be fine on the Jaguar. The motor can be mounted anywhere in the car or undeer the hood. The cable is flexible enough to go around a curve if necessary. Several aftermarket systems are based on similar components. 

As for the switch, and three or four position rotary or push-pull switch will work. I got one from a mid 70s Ford truck for my 63 Classic and mounted a spare knob from some other dash switch. You can use a standard three position switch (off, low, high) and forget connecting park. I ended up disconnecting the park function on my car when something went wrong in the park circuit anyway. Once I turned the wipers on they wouldn't go off until I shut the car off and it sat for a while. 

--
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Independent 
Magazine" (AIM)
For all AMC enthusiasts
http://farna.home.att.net/AIM.html
(free download available!)

original message -----------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 11:22:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Justin Shelton <justinshelton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [AMC-List] electric wiper motor upgrade? (

Hi, Guys:
I'm curious if any of you have upgraded from vacuum to
electric wipers on a '58 - '62 10 series.  I was
looking at the so-called "universal" motors at JC
Whitney but am concerned about whether and which one
will fit.  Not a big fan of the vacuum wipers (they
are either painfully slow or dizzyingly fast, and it
takes too much fiddling to get them at a perfect
speed!)

I have my '62 wagon's wiper motor exposed and figued
now's as a good a time as any to replace it.

I was thinking I could pull a headlight switch from my
parts car and use that in place of the wiper pull
know, that way my dash would still look right.   

- Justin
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