#1  
Old 01-18-2020, 11:08 PM
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Speargun Speargun is offline
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Lightbulb DIY Hidden Wiper Motor

While I have been waiting on parts for my new engine, I've been doing a few mods to my '67 bird.
I started with Closing off the cowl air intake to keep leaves and rain out of the cowl area. The Classic Auto Air A/C recirculates cabin air and I don't have kick panel vents so fresh air from the cowl isn't needed.

Then I decided that I was really tired of having to take the wiper motor off any time I need to pull the drivers side valve cover so the wiper motor is going inside of the cowl.

I started with a VW Jetta wiper motor and bent a piece of aluminum for a bracket.
You'll need three 6mm bolts to mount the motor to the bracket and you old wiper motor arm.

In this picture, the side of the angle facing the relays is actually the top and will attach to the underside of the cowl.
Before you mount the motor, measure the arm you took off of your old motor from the center of the pivot opening to the far end. Mine was just under 2 3/8".

I measured from the top side of the bracket down the side and made a mark at 2 3/8". This is where I drilled the hole for the motor shaft to go through.
This is important as I want the arm to be as close to the bottom side of the cowl as possible when it rotates.



Below is a shot of the motor mounted inside of the cowl.
Because the motor has moved the arm and pivot point closer to the firewall, the clearance for the arm to rotate becomes an issue. Bending the bracket a little tighter than 90* helped to keep the arm from hitting the bottom of the cowl as it rotated.
***This part will take time & adjustments to get right***



Another thing I did was to clip the corner off of the transmission arm to get a hair more clearance.


Here's a shot looking through the old motor opening.
I cut a cover plate out of sheet metal that will cover this hole. I also put some hot glue on the terminals for a little extra protection.
I fed the wires going to the wiper switch through the firewall just to the right of the opening.



Now for the wiring:
You'll need 5 (2.8mm) terminals with covers. They're the same as the tiny terminals on some speakers. I picked up a box of these from Amazon.


Here's the connection for the motor. If you can find the correct plug for it from a donor car you wont need the terminals above.

The terminal on the left is the ground (31).
The second from the left is low speed (53). -Blue wire.
The center (31B) will be 12v+ to the park relay #86.
The fourth from the left is high speed (53a). -Red wire.
The last terminal is a 12v+ (53b).



And the wiring diagram:
The wiper switch only grounds the high or low wire to activate the wipers so it will be wired to the ground side of the relay coil.

When the switch is turned off, 12v+ is fed through the high & low relays to the park relay. It also feeds 12v+ to terminal 53b on the motor. When the motor is anywhere, but in the parked position, 53b feeds 12v+ to terminal 31B which activates the park relay to feed 12v+ to the low speed terminal on the motor.
As soon as the motor rotates to the park position, the connection between 53b & 31B is opened which causes the park relay to stop sending power to the low speed terminal and everything stops.


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1967 Firebird Restoration 2005 - 1/25/2017
  #2  
Old 01-19-2020, 11:32 PM
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amcmike amcmike is offline
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Very cool Speargun! What generation Jetta is the motor from?

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  #3  
Old 01-20-2020, 12:31 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amcmike View Post
Very cool Speargun! What generation Jetta is the motor from?
IIRC, it's from an '85 VW. They used the same/similar wiper motor for a long time so I don't think the exact year makes too much of a difference. Volvo even uses a wiper motor that looks almost the same. The only difference you might run into is way the terminals are arranged.

Here's that label from the motor I used:
I bought it several years ago, possibly through ebay, and it's been sitting on the shelf ever since. I didn't have any luck finding an exact match through Google though.


Here's one on amazon for a '94 - '96 Dodge Ram that looks the same and is only $30.
Windshield Wiper Motor fit for 1994-1996 Dodge Ram

I think that pretty much any wiper motor that looks similar and has the 5 terminals needed (possibly 4. One is a ground) will work.

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1967 Firebird Restoration 2005 - 1/25/2017
  #4  
Old 01-20-2020, 01:01 PM
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Speargun Speargun is offline
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An easier mod to get the factory motor out of the way would be to use one of these smaller motors and mount it to a plate bolted over the original wiper motor opening. I've seen these kits selling for $250 & up for something that could be done for $50+/-

Random pic from the internet:

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1967 Firebird Restoration 2005 - 1/25/2017
  #5  
Old 01-23-2020, 04:47 PM
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RocktimusPryme RocktimusPryme is offline
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I like it. And I love guides like this, Ive written a couple myself on the Galaxie pages. I wish more people would document and post their DIY stuff with instructions.

I almost tackled the mini motor like you have posted above instead of buying the kit. I decided to just deal with my factory motor for now and use shorter valve covers.

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  #6  
Old 01-23-2020, 09:33 PM
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Speargun Speargun is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RocktimusPryme View Post
I like it. And I love guides like this, Ive written a couple myself on the Galaxie pages. I wish more people would document and post their DIY stuff with instructions.

I almost tackled the mini motor like you have posted above instead of buying the kit. I decided to just deal with my factory motor for now and use shorter valve covers.
Thanks!

I'm a DIY kinda guy and enjoy the engineering and fabrication side of it and don't mind sharing. I had to fabricate a lot of things when I built my '67 Bird and have done a few write ups like this one & the custom motor mounts for the car.

Now I'm looking into doing a wiper delay using a Land Rover delay relay and will post it up when/if I can get it to work.

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1967 Firebird Restoration 2005 - 1/25/2017
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