Late model OEM wiper motor park position

[RICH MUISE]

Does anybody know if the '97 Mustang wiper motor I'm using has an internal adjustment for the park position? I'm trying to avoid having to make a wiper arm with a rectangular hole clocked in exactly the right position. That's going to be a PITA without machining facilities, so I'm hoping there's and easier way. It would be a dificult part to make even with normal small shop equiptment.

[6cyl57]

I don't have an answer. If you can  get me dimensions and even a hand drawn blue print of the
part you need. I maybe able to make it. I have some access to a HAAS VMC  and  CNC lathe.

then we all could have electric wipers...... this is for a 57 isn't it?

[RICH MUISE]

I've been out of the machine shop trade for 30 years...what's a Haas VMC? (verticle machining center?) The part may require an EDM, or broaching aquiptment, or a filing machine.
Yes, it's for my '57. I'm using a '97 Mustang wiper motor so I could make full use of my 97 Mustang steering column. Actually,I won't be able to check the park position on the motor until the car is almost completly wired, which means drivetrain and front nose installed. Very complicated multi function switch and includes wiring goes thru a control module that has 7 wires plugging into the wiper motor. I have to finalize all the wiring that comes off the multi function switch before I can test it running thru the modul, and therefore the park position. I can however temp. bypass the module and run the motor so I can make final adjustments to the hard arm system I made for it.
Before I can activate it thru the switch, I have to hook up everything that is associated with it:headlights, hazards,washer,turnsignals,ignition switch,etc.... Anyway, It'll be a long time down the road before I know where it is parking itself, and thus what I need to do to fix it. At this point I'd just like to know what I'm going to need for that, but get the rest of it completed.
Rich

[JPotter57]

Rich,  why dont you just find the hot wires, the ground, hook it to a battery and run it?  If you have to use a switch, just get a simple two or three speed switch, connect the wires, power it on and then see where it parks.  There is no reason you cant do that, it is an electric motor, it will work without going through the module and switch.  Try it and see what happens.  It would be better that waiting until the car is painted wired, upholstered and final assembled then finding out that the wiper parks on the cowl cover...not cool.

[6cyl57]

Rich,yes the Haas is a vertical milling machine. If this will be a one - off piece ,I maybe able to get that done
on  the manual equipment also. I maybe able to some broaching also, if I have the correct size broach.
don't have an EDL but do have a few lasers that I might be able to use. These will cut 19 gage (maybe less) up 3/4 steel.

I think J has a good idea.

[rmk57]

the boat wiper motor I used had a left or right park option by removing the back cover and moving the drive arm to either the left or right side of the sprocket. My motor moved back and forth not 360 degrees so it may not work out for you.   

   Randy

[RICH MUISE]

James...exactly what I am planning on doing. The motor position makes it dificult to get inside the connector when it's mounted under the dash, so I've got an extra connector I was going to use and to just hook up the power and ground wires to a temp. power source. The problem is I don't know if the park position is internal to the motor, or one of the control module functions. As I mentioned 7 wires going into that motor. One is high, one is low, one is ground. The other 4 wires are intermitent and ?? (maybe the park). I've got a spare I played with a bit, and I'm going to double check to make sure, but I believe the motor just stopped wherever it was when the power was disconnected. I will have lots of adjustment to do before I even put the wiper blades on the first time. When I do I'll just make sure the splined posts are in their lowest position, and put the blades also at the bottom, that way they can't run down to the cowl area.
6cyl57...thanks for the offer I'll keep it in mind when I figure out what I need.

[RICH MUISE]

The wiper motor in the car is a rebuilt one I had purchased. I was looking at the instruction/info sheet that came with it and found my answer to the park question. In the troubleshooting section, it says if it doesn't park correctly, it is a bad governor..which I believe is what I've been calling the control module. Also, I was correct...the motor just stops wherever it's at when the power is disconnected.
I've made up a temporary connector to bypass the module which will allow me to run the motor while mounted in place so I can get all the hard arms adjusted correctly. The park position won't affect the operation of the arms, just where it stops, so I can modify that later, without changing anything else.

[RICH MUISE]

Well' I finally got back at it yesterday. First thing I did was make up a connector direct to the wiper motor to bypass the control module and switch. I had a nifty idea that worked out real well. I had been using a drill motor rechargeable battery to temp power things as I wired them, but it was a pain in the butt trying to keep the wire leads from falling off the battery. I had an extra drill motor, so I cut the housing off above the switch, leaving just the two wires that ran to the motor. I now can wire things solidly, and just pull the trigger when I need power. The really neat thing about using it on the wiper motor is I can just creep the wiper motor along, or run it slow, or fast. I know next to nothing about electrical stuff, but so far I haven't had any problems with the 18 v battery. I'm carefull not to run it thru electronic stuff though. ( al least most the time). The only problem I've run into with it is blowing out a licanse plate lightbulb, but it turned out it had a 6 volt bulb in it. Anyway..for sure I'm not saying it's ok to use an 18v low amp power source, I'm just saying I do and haven't had a problem.
I unhooked everything and started with the first hard arm, getting it adjusted to where the 105* of sweep is clocked just right. To start, I adjusted the arm so the wiper post arm was just making contact on the side of the cowl on the full down position, then backed it off 1 turn, or .050 (I'm using 1/4-20 threaded rod). The pic shows the wiper post arm in the full up position. That arm is from the '97 Mustang wiper arms I hacked up. It is welded to the bottom of the '57 wiper post. I cleared out the Mustang wiper post arm in the corners so it would clear the '57 cowl.
Running the wiper motor even at high speed is nice and smooth. I've got A wiper!!
Today's project is to repair the damage done a few weeks ago when I accidently powered up the system, and exposed a weak link. Once I get that done I can hook up the rods that connect the passenger wiper.

[Frankenstein57]

Nice work with the broken drill power source, I'll bet you wake up in the middle of the night with ideas

[RICH MUISE]

I do, but usually my wife just tells me it's late and she's got to get up early.

[Zapato]

I do, but usually my wife just tells me it's late and she's got to get up early.

truer words seldom spoken...........

Zap-

[hiball3985]

Great idea Rich. I have no idea how much amps one of those 18V batteries puts out, all my tools still have cords. Just for fun you should hook it to a 12V light bulb and see how long it last 

And some worthless trivia for the non electrical people: Even though we refer to our systems as 12V, the components, accessories, bulbs etc are actually designed for 14V. Alternators/generators feed close to 14V into the system. I don't know about the new electronic/computer nightmare cars.

[RICH MUISE]

Forgot to post my final pics on this last week. I replaced the short section of tubing I had welded to the cowl with a heavy duty bracket that screws to the cowl with (7) 6-32 button head screws. This worked out really well..the new design seems to handle all the torquing that was going on there quite easily..when I was doing my final tweeking, I had just held it in place with two small spring clamps and it never moved.Shown in the second pic, this is what changes the direction of the passenger side so one is cw and one is ccw. The arm rotates on a hardened 3/8" shoulder screw in a bronze bushing. I welded a hex connector type nut to the angle iron.
The sweep seems to be adequate, and everything runs quite smoothly. It is however alot noisier than I'd like it to be. This is from the carburetor swivel linkage I used where I couldn't use the oem Mustang swivels. It was easy to pinpoint..even with me being 1/2 deaf...the oem's are quiet, the others just make too much noise when it reverses direction.
I'm gonna leave it as is for now, and keep my eyes open for pivots more oem design. The oem's are a metal swivel encased in a plastic housing, and are originally attached to the hard arms with a swedging process. Because of the plastic, the posts cannot be welded.

[Ecode70D]

Rich
   You know that you are never going to deliberately drive it in the bad weather.  You are doing a nice job on them.  Remember when you lived out here you and had to take your car in for  a yearly inspection and they put an inspection sticker on the car?  Did you ever stick steel wool into your mufflers to quiet them down?  I'm pretty sure that they don't do the inspection thing on the old cars in Az.   Do you have to do inspections  in Texas ? 

    I'm leaving the vacuum wipers on mine.  The only time I'll need them is for the inspection.  If I get caught in the rain, out comes the Rainex.

    I probably would not have admitted all these things when I was on the job. though.