Restoration

As street rods and other project cars have improved in quality, they are now being used as daily drivers or for long-distance travel, instead of simply for sunny-day shows, club events, parades or Sunday drives. This means that less-glamorous items such as windshield wipers are especially needed. Not only that, in order to meet state registration requirements, more and more handcrafted automobiles have to be fitted with functional windshield wipers.


Several aftermarket companies offer kits for installing custom wipers. One example is the Lucas kit offered by Finish Line, Inc. The motor is a Lucas 14W two-speed wiper motor. The motor includes a "park" position so that when the switch is shut off the wipers return to their normal resting place.


The system features a separate motor (which can be mounted in any number of locations), a pair of wiper transmissions, and a worm-drive cable. Such a system is versatile for a wide variety of project cars since the wiper transmissions can be placed virtually anywhere, and the worm-drive cable and tubes can be altered to fit the individual application.

Installation Tips
The accompanying photos here show most of the installation steps. After the holes are drilled in the body, the transmissions (with angle spacer attached) are pushed through the holes from the underside and are held in place by the spacer, a bezel and a nut.


The traditional way to sleeve the worm-drive cable is with flared 5/16-inch copper tubing. We found this arrangement to be noisy, so we used 5/16-inch truck airbrake line or hose, which not only makes for quieter operation, but also is easier to install. This high-temp, Teflon-lined hose is simple to cut and fit.

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Photo Guide

Lay out all the parts from the kit.

Remove the cover from the drive.

The cable hooks onto the gear arm and is fitted into the housing.

The correctly assembled unit looks like this. Next put the cover back on the gear drive.

Hold a wiper blade in your hand and position it in on the windshield. Manually sweep it back and forth to determine where the mounting hole needs to be drilled.

Use the spacer provided with the kit to determine the correct angle and drill a pilot hole. Next drill the full-size hole.

After trial fitting the first wiper transmission, determine the location for the second wiper transmission. Check the sweep of the second wiper so you have overlapping coverage on the windshield. Then drill the second hole and mount the second transmission for a trial fit.

Now thread the worm-drive cable through the transmissions.

After carefully determining how much worm drive cable is needed, cut off the excess, leaving enough for a complete cycle of the wipers plus approximately four inches.

Position the electric motor and drill the mounting holes. Temporarily mount the motor. Next measure the distance between the motor and the closest wiper transmission, and also measure the distance between the two mounted wiper transmissions.

Cut the first piece of truck airbrake hose to the exact length so that it butts up against the motor on one end and the first wiper transmission on the other. Add a piece of shrink-wrap to hold it in place.

Heating the shrink-wrap produces a neat, tight seal. Next cut a piece of truck air hose to fit in between the two wiper transmissions. This piece does not need to be attached because it is held in place by butting up against the two wiper transmissions.

For the end covering we used a 5/16th flared fitting attached to six inches of truck air hose, secured by shrink-wrap and attached to the wiper transmission.

Here is the complete unit just prior to final installation. Next the switch is installed in the dash, the wires are connected and the installation is done.



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