Wiper motor change questions.

[69427]

I was messing with the distributor the other day and got a decent look at how stinking big the wiper motor setup is. Anybody ever weighed one of these things? I've never spent much time thinking about the details of the wiper setup, but I'm curious if a possible later model unit might be a touch lighter. Any Corvette specific functions in the current setup that would need to be considered if doing an update?

thanks.

 

[JeffP1167]

I was messing with the distributor the other day and got a decent look at how stinking big the wiper motor setup is. Anybody ever weighed one of these things? I've never spent much time thinking about the details of the wiper setup, but I'm curious if a possible later model unit might be a touch lighter. Any Corvette specific functions in the current setup that would need to be considered if doing an update?

thanks.

My 82's is a very compact unit.

 

[mrvette]

IF you still have the wiper door setup, you are going to have to redo the new motor assy for the function of the red wire going to the lid switch, that kills the wiper motor from operation until the lid is fully up....

if you swapped to a full length hood like later sharks, you have no issues....

:shocking:

 

[BBShark]

Did you look at your 84 to see if that wiper motor might work?

 

[big2bird]

I was messing with the distributor the other day and got a decent look at how stinking big the wiper motor setup is. Anybody ever weighed one of these things? I've never spent much time thinking about the details of the wiper setup, but I'm curious if a possible later model unit might be a touch lighter. Any Corvette specific functions in the current setup that would need to be considered if doing an update?

thanks.

All the C-3 wiper motors are the same, with the exception that the later ones took off the pump, and changed it to a small electric pump at the bottom of the reservoir. Yes, they are heavy.
You can take the pump off the earlier cars, and install the blank plate off the later ones.
We did that on Scotties 72. Not much weight savings, but alot neater/more dizzy clearance.

 

[mrvette]

I was messing with the distributor the other day and got a decent look at how stinking big the wiper motor setup is. Anybody ever weighed one of these things? I've never spent much time thinking about the details of the wiper setup, but I'm curious if a possible later model unit might be a touch lighter. Any Corvette specific functions in the current setup that would need to be considered if doing an update?

thanks.

All the C-3 wiper motors are the same, with the exception that the later ones took off the pump, and changed it to a small electric pump at the bottom of the reservoir. Yes, they are heavy.
You can take the pump off the earlier cars, and install the blank plate off the later ones.
We did that on Scotties 72. Not much weight savings, but alot neater/more dizzy clearance.

I assume that '72 has a later hood, and not the operating door..??

 

[big2bird]

I was messing with the distributor the other day and got a decent look at how stinking big the wiper motor setup is. Anybody ever weighed one of these things? I've never spent much time thinking about the details of the wiper setup, but I'm curious if a possible later model unit might be a touch lighter. Any Corvette specific functions in the current setup that would need to be considered if doing an update?

thanks.

All the C-3 wiper motors are the same, with the exception that the later ones took off the pump, and changed it to a small electric pump at the bottom of the reservoir. Yes, they are heavy.
You can take the pump off the earlier cars, and install the blank plate off the later ones.
We did that on Scotties 72. Not much weight savings, but alot neater/more dizzy clearance.

I assume that '72 has a later hood, and not the operating door..??

Correct. All that wiper door nonsense is gone. Much cleaner/more reliable.

 

[mrvette]

I was messing with the distributor the other day and got a decent look at how stinking big the wiper motor setup is. Anybody ever weighed one of these things? I've never spent much time thinking about the details of the wiper setup, but I'm curious if a possible later model unit might be a touch lighter. Any Corvette specific functions in the current setup that would need to be considered if doing an update?

thanks.

All the C-3 wiper motors are the same, with the exception that the later ones took off the pump, and changed it to a small electric pump at the bottom of the reservoir. Yes, they are heavy.
You can take the pump off the earlier cars, and install the blank plate off the later ones.
We did that on Scotties 72. Not much weight savings, but alot neater/more dizzy clearance.

I assume that '72 has a later hood, and not the operating door..??

Correct. All that wiper door nonsense is gone. Much cleaner/more reliable.

:club: I like mine, because it's totally unique and I electrified it...with intermittent wipers too.....

 

[JeffP1167]

Maybe my 82's wiper motor is like a iceberg then, you only see a 1/3 of it hahaha

 

[69427]

Did you look at your 84 to see if that wiper motor might work?

Yeah, several times. But as usual with our cars, crap is packaged in there so tight it's hard to get a good look at things. It appears that the motor portion may be a touch smaller on the '84, but I can't get a tape measure in there to get an accurate measurement. Perhaps at the next swap meet I might be able to see both of these things out of the car for comparison. If I was better at looking ahead, I would have measured the setups when I had the engines out of the cars.

I'm still trying to get up to speed on the wiper door interaction with the motor supply voltage to make sure I know if there's some gymnastics involved if/when I find a replacement setup.

 

[mrvette]

Did you look at your 84 to see if that wiper motor might work?

Yeah, several times. But as usual with our cars, crap is packaged in there so tight it's hard to get a good look at things. It appears that the motor portion may be a touch smaller on the '84, but I can't get a tape measure in there to get an accurate measurement. Perhaps at the next swap meet I might be able to see both of these things out of the car for comparison. If I was better at looking ahead, I would have measured the setups when I had the engines out of the cars.

I'm still trying to get up to speed on the wiper door interaction with the motor supply voltage to make sure I know if there's some gymnastics involved if/when I find a replacement setup.

YES, there is most definately a interaction....several of them, really....one is when the door opens fully, it activates a large microswitch in a bracket just to the pass side of the dizzy on the firewall, that enables the motor to run at all....red/wh and red wire to the motor....so it runs to the park position, pushes a vac sw via the pass wiper blade, enabling the suck to go through to the wiper vac solenoid, which then closes the main suck circuit to the vac canister....

the wiper motor is special to these cars.....I fail to see how to know the blades are in park so to allow door closing you have the typical inline plug with blu/green and 12 volts switched on the yellow....but if you use that position to stop the wiper, it has NO power to park.....I solved the problem another way with my electric conversion,

I have never seen another wiper motor with that interrupt power wire, not that another motor can't be adapted, I suspect it can.....

:suicide:

 

[BBShark]

I have a smaller modern wiper motor that I used for a work project. I think it's from a Ford with an 8 or 10 pin connector. I don't know it this has a park position which is key for use on a C3. I'll see if I can find more info.

 

[BBShark]

The motor that I have does not have a parking function. I think the C3 motor has an eccentric output shaft cam that pulls the wipers down after they are stopped. Maybe there is some other way to do this? This function would be a necessity on 68-72 cars (unless you wanted to drive around with the wiper door up).

I haven't seen many new cars that have hidden wipers.