Wiper problem

[prorac1]

while building Jason’s 63 valiant, we did the humpectomy on the firewall, using the wiper motor, pivots, switch, and linkage from the donor 1965 valiant.

The problem we’re having is when the wipers are at rest, at the bottom of the windshield, and when you turn the switch for the wipers on, they go DOWN, before they go up and start their arc.

Only when you first turn them on.

It’s a complete mystery. Lol. And we’re just digging into it.

From pictures I’m finding on the internet, we have the linkage hooked up right.

And the motor parks in the same spot every time. And I remember the wipers working in the 65 before I parted it out.

Anyone ever run into this before?

Thanks. Eric

 

[RedFish]

The park switch is mounted on a plate the back or outside of the gearbox. It has a few small screws around it to loosen and rotate it so the motor stops at the what we may as well call top dead center, right in the middle of the stroke direction change. This is a fine tune adjustment. Smallest move makes a difference. Look for some hash marks. I don't know they all have them. Mark its position before loosening the screws. Adjust, test, repeat.

 

[prorac1]

The park switch is mounted on a plate the back or outside of the gearbox. It has a few small screws around it to loosen and rotate it so the motor stops at the what we may as well call top dead center, right in the middle of the stroke direction change. This is a fine tune adjustment. Smallest move makes a difference. Look for some hash marks. I don't know they all have them. Mark its position before loosening the screws. Adjust, test, repeat.

Ok. Thank you very much.

The strange part is that we never opened the motor when we swapped it in.

What could we have changed?

Thanks again. Eric

 

[RedFish]

Ok. Thank you very much.

The strange part is that we never opened the motor when we swapped it in.

What could we have changed?

Thanks again. Eric

Don't know. I know the slightest difference in pitman arm geometry would cause stroke change. If they didn't need fine tuning the ability to do so wouldn't be present.

 

[prorac1]

I’m pretty sure we found our problem. Now we just need to dig into it and figure out how to re-clock the park position.

This first picture is in the park position before we pulled it out of the parts car.

The second picture is when we installed it in the car. As you can see the park position is in a different location and the geometry is off.

The strange part is, we didn’t take the motor apart or really move anything that we remember. So I don’t know how it got changed.

 

[Riddler]

I had the same issue. The arm that bolts onto the motor is out 180*. If you didn't remove that then the entire motor is in upside down.

Riddler

 

[RedFish]

You could pull the pitman arm, rotate it 180 on the shaft and try again BUT... pull the wiper arms first, cycle on/off to park and reinstall arms.
I saw wipers remove fresh yellow paint from a hood once. Forget what car it was (AMC Hornet maybe?) , just glad it wasn't in my bay.

 

[prorac1]

I had the same issue. The arm that bolts onto the motor is out 180*. If you didn't remove that then the entire motor is in upside down.

Riddler

You could pull the pitman arm, rotate it 180 on the shaft and try again BUT... pull the wiper arms first, cycle on/off to park and reinstall arms.
I saw wipers remove fresh yellow paint from a hood once. Forget what car it was (AMC Hornet maybe?) , just glad it wasn't in my bay.

As you can see from the pictures above, it’s not off by much. It’s supposed to be at 9 o’clock and we have ours at 7 o’clock. We’re going to work on it tomorrow and see what we can figure out. I get out of work early, and dad is going to start working on it in the morning.

I’ll post what we fine here. Good bad or otherwise. LOL

And yes, it removes some paint. LOL. Luckily we have some touchups to do before this is all said and done in a couple of weeks, but it still sucked, and we both screamed like women when it happened. LOL

 

[RedFish]

As you can see from the pictures above, it’s not off by much. It’s supposed to be at 9 o’clock and we have ours at 7 o’clock. We’re going to work on it tomorrow and see what we can figure out. I get out of work early, and dad is going to start working on it in the morning.

I’ll post what we fine here. Good bad or otherwise. LOL

And yes, it removes some paint. LOL. Luckily we have some touchups to do before this is all said and done in a couple of weeks, but it still sucked, and we both screamed like women when it happened. LOL

I'm sad now to know you weren't warned in advance. Hopefully not too much damage done.
So you pretty much know now that is was put together 180 wrong. I really don't know how much gap there is in the electrical park switch, how much over throw would exist from one side to the other. 180 at pitman just might fix it. If not, the park switch is adjustable.
I was working for auto service center that did various repairs for a couple used car lots. So this cute lil gal bought a car with a wiper problem. She brought it to be fixed on the car lots dime. The guy doing the wiper motor R&R, and our boss man, were much more interested in her than any work being done. I never will forget the look on her face when Danny turned the switch on. All the flirting ended. The shop paid for the hood repaint.

 

[prorac1]

I'm sad now to know you weren't warned in advance. Hopefully not too much damage done.
So you pretty much know now that is was put together 180 wrong. I really don't know how much gap there is in the electrical park switch, how much over throw would exist from one side to the other. 180 at pitman just might fix it. If not, the park switch is adjustable.
I was working for auto service center that did various repairs for a couple used car lots. So this cute lil gal bought a car with a wiper problem. She brought it to be fixed on the car lots dime. The guy doing the wiper motor R&R, and our boss man, were much more interested in her than any work being done. I never will forget the look on her face when Danny turned the switch on. All the flirting ended. The shop paid for the hood repaint.

Don’t worry, there wasn’t too much damage done. Two small gouges, one underneath each wiper. We have some re-sprayed touch up work to do on the Cowell anyways so the sanding and blending will be the hardest part. No big deal, we get the paint ourselves, and will do the touch ups also. LOL.

We do feel a little bit silly that we didn’t check this first before putting the arms on. Stupid mistake, lesson learned. LOL.

I will be honest though, I don’t quite understand the 180° off. The way I’m looking at it, we’re only a little bit off. Maybe an eighth of a rotation.

The only thing I can think of, is that somehow, in advertently, the arm on the motor got moved without power to it. I don’t know if that would cause the park position to move or not.

The first cruise in of the year is May 1. Prom is May 4. So we have a deadline. LOL.

Hopefully we can whoop this thing tomorrow. We have a spare 1963 wiper motor sitting on the bench that we can experiment with before we tear the installed one out of the car. Because that won’t be fun. LOL

Thank you again for all the assistance. We greatly appreciate it.

 

[RedFish]

See the thing is, I dont know what position the wipers were in originally/when the first pic was taken. The wiper arms may have been in up position before removal.
The pitman arm can be located on flats either one way or the other.
You could remove the wipers, remove and rotate the pitman 180 degrees, run on/off to park, reinstall wiper arms and try again. There may be enough variance in the electrical park switch and/or linkage to make this small difference.
On the other hand...
A few degrees can be corrected by rotating the park switch plate. Look at the engine bay side of the gearbox,,, Round plate with 3 or 4 small screws around it? Hash marks cast or stamped near the edge of it? 2 That's the park switch timing adjust.
In my opinion and mechanical sense, When the wiper arms are at the bottom of the stroke the pitman arm should be in a prepared to push position so it pushes the linkage, arms, snow, etc... Then the pitman is pulling in down stroke.
I would have to refer to my car to confirm what I think is correct and what you have now is backward. I will go look at mine shortly and post what I find. So don't do anything yet.
I don't know everything, just barely enough to get by.

 

[RedFish]

Well sir, A huge "I'm so sorry" to you. Don't know why I hadn't recognized this as early A and quite different from 2nd gen'. I don't know where your park switch is located or how to adjust it.
I can say that I found my pitman arm fully extended, more or less parallel with the cowl at park position. Pulls linkage for wipers up, pushes for wipers down.

 

[prorac1]

Well sir, A huge "I'm so sorry" to you. Don't know why I hadn't recognized this as early A and quite different from 2nd gen'. I don't know where your park switch is located or how to adjust it.
I can say that I found my pitman arm fully extended, more or less parallel with the cowl at park position. Pulls linkage for wipers up, pushes for wipers down.

I kinda figured you were thinking this was a 1967 and up car. Lol. It’s cool. I appreciate you trying to help us.

We figured it out and it’s all fixed.

The arm had to move an 1/8th of a turn.

We also had a grinding noise inside the motor from a bent brass contact. So we removed the motor, used the brass plate and plastic gear from the parts wiper motor and got it all back together quiet AND parked properly.

Thank you again for the help.

And, the park clocking is a slide plate on the rear like the newer ones.

 

[RedFish]

The park switch is pretty much the same only not accessible under the hood. I learned something here too so thank you.