The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Interiors Finally Figured Out My Vacuum Wipers

I had my vacuum wiper drive rebuilt Ficken a couple years back. Bench tested it, worked perfectly. Installed it , fiddled with the dashboard valve, didn’t work. Forgot about it for 2 years, didn’t need the wipers anyway.

Now I’m getting set to install a radio and dashboard speaker. It occurred to me that my access to the wiper drive will be limited after the tunes are installed, so the time to figure out the wiper problem is now.

I removed the unit and connected it to a vacuum source. (aka shop vac). The arm would cycle over to one end of travel and stay there , over and over. Gee, it worked so well the bench…. guess I need to call Ficken tomorrow.
Just as I was wrapping up for the day I noticed a plastic panel on the top of the unit. I fiddled with it and found that it slides back and forth… never noticed it before. I got to wonder what it is for, plugged in my vacuum source again, moved the slide and VOILA!!! Back & forth , back & forth, back & forth, like clockwork.

All this time I thought that the dash valve was the sole control for the wipers. There must be a small gauge cable that connects to that slide , something I’ll need to source.

As Les Nessman said:
With God as my witness I thought turkeys could fly.