Has anyone heard of swapping their 57 cable / pully style windshield assembly with a 58 solid rod style? The body shop unfortunately took my cable and pully system out when they painted the car and I now have the pleasure of reinstalling it. I was told it is a nightmare. Someone mentioned they new a guy who installed a 58 assembly in his 57 Del Rio along with the aftermarket electric motor and it works great. Does anyone have any experience with this. Thank you, John Brady
Well, not a '58 assembly, but I did build a complete hard arm assembly to facilitate using a roundy-round Mustang wiper motor located inside the cowl.
That said, be aware that the '57 Ford repair manual has a routing diagram of the cables that is WRONG. There is a very good thread here, on this forum, in the tech area on the correct assembly with pics and diagrams. The thread is pinned to the top of that board, so easy to find. Let us know how the '58 hard arms work out,if you go that route. frankly I've never heard about that option
Since the 58 has the wiper motor inside the car, under the cowl, I imagine it would be a fairly involved procedure, especially if the car is complete. I suppose the easiest way would be to find a 58 parts car, and cut out the mounting bracketry for the under dash wiper motor, but guessing that would be a bigger job than putting the factory cable and pulley system back in .
In my old memory, I had forgotten that....thanks for the reminder. Yeah, like what I did, not for a car unless in construction stages. As a tease, it IS very nice having multi-speed intermittent wipers, lol.
To add, even if changed to '58 motor, are they even available?
https://57fordsforever.com/smf/index.php?topic=8407.0
It certainly is interesting that Ford used a very different wiper and linkage design in each year of the 57 thru 59 Ford cars. 57 with the wiper motor under the hood, with the cable and pulley arrangement, then for 58, put the wiper motor underneath the dashboard, with steel links from the motor to the wiper pivots, then in 59, put the wiper motor back under the hood again, but with steel links under the dashboard. Plus on the 59s, there is no removable cowl panel between the back of the hood, and the windshield, and no screened cowl openings for fresh air into the interior, or the heater. For those 3 years, there was many similiarites, but also many differences as well.
Add to the a 60 wiper motor (under the dash) would bolt up to the 57 plate and work as it should.
John, it is really not as bad as you might think. I assembled mine as the first project when I bought my car. I had a factory manual that has a bad diagram but I figured out how it had to go. The trick is putting a "pin" to hold the spring tensioners. The write up in this forum is great. It may take a couple of hours but I think it is a lot simpler than cutting up the cowl for the '58 stuff.