The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Interiors vacuum wiper reservoir

I am looking to put in a reservoir for my vacuum wipers. I was wondering how much air I need? aka how large to make the reservoir?

Thanks,
Steven

What ever you put in will have to have a check valve in order to provide help to the wipers.

A half-barrel sized beer keg sounds about right. A full barrel would just be over-kill.

I bought one from Jegs or Summit for my Galaxie, as it uses vacuum for all the actuators to open and close HVAC doors. It was really nice and very reasonable.

How much volume would that be? I think it is SCFM.....

OK, Denny, I am counting on your logic and skills.

Here is a quote from the H.A.M.B.: "A vacuum canister with check valve plumbed into the line, mounted on the firewall or up under the dash, can give you 10 to 12 additional swipes and takes out most of the hesitation related to their operation."

How big a tank for 10-12 uphill swipes with a well-maintained wiper motor?
How big a tank for 20-24 swipes.

The hydrovac system on my 2-ton 54/55 GMC has a reservoir-tank that is about 1/2 gallon.

A dual-action fuel pump with a reservoir tank might be nice?

the original one [factory?] in a 57 panel I had was the exact size of a tomato juice can, don't know how many swipes, but it's not likely it would've helped much under a constant acceleration load uphill

Bill

The last one I saw was in a Ford Thunderbird, I know, I know. Any way it was a perfect match to a 3 pound coffee can. The old all metal ones with the ribs around it. It did help open the headlights and was just on the inner fender. So what is the volume? Very rough guess: 4 inch dia. and 9 inch tall close to 113 cubic inches. So the 1/2 barrel size sounds about right. Keep cold and open with friends.

Does it operate antiquated vacuum wipers? I believe that vacuum wipers are much more demanding of vacuum than HVAC doors.

Thanks all! This will get me in the right direction. I'm thinking of using some plastic pipe along the inside of the frame?
Tim- Is that the fuel pump with an extra vacuum? I do have one if, the pumps interchange with 235's 54-62? I am showing limited knowledge here.....

Steven,

I think the dual-action fuel pumps should interchanged 54-63; however, the angles on inlet/outlet ports/lines on the fuel pump might be a little different over those years.

Wait to hear from others.

If you want to be exact in your sizing, measure the volume of the wiper motor chamber (in cu/in), multiply it by the number of cycles you want for the wipers reserve and add 20% for the weakening vacuum near the end.

Those large coffee can sized units were used in a lot of cars in the late 60's and 70's. Should be able to find them pretty easily. They has a check valve on top.

Some of the Mopar cars in the 60s and maybe 70s had vacuum wipers. Were they as bad as what we are dealing with, and did they have the reservoir cans?

52Carl,
Just to clearify. "half-barrel sized beer keg"? Are you saying a real beer keg? = U.S. brewers sell beer in .5 barrels of 15.5 gallons?

And that is why you invite friends.:) There were some 1/2 sized ones used back in the day as fuel tanks on dragsters. Light, aluminum and small so worked out well for the application. About 7 gallons as I recall.

I thought about making one for my Galaxie by using a new gallong paint can/lid from hardware store. All you'd have to do is have inlet and outlet and on the outlet side you could plumb in a cheap one way valve toward the engine. I was going to mount both inlet/outlet on the lid and JB Weld the lip and tap it into place. But, Summit had them fairly cheap so I just went that route. You could have as big a reservoir as you wanted to build and have space for, all you gotta have is inlet and outlet, the actual one way valve doesn't even have to necessarily be mounted in the vacuum can. I think Ford must've bought surplus coffee cans, because that is exactly what the stock one in my galaxie looked like, a coffee can.

One thing about the "coffee can" look is the ridge rings around the sides of the can. They strengthen the side of the can.

A one gal. paint can can deform under vacuum much easier than you would imagine.

Just to clarify, I am mostly full of crap. However I would not be surprised if the volume needed would be larger than the big soup can-sized reservoirs. For whatever reason, these 6 cylinders, at highway speed, don't make enough vacuum to run the wipers. So unless you are allowing the throttle to close from time to time while you are cruising on the highway, you will run out of vacuum in the reservoir. (Now that sounds stupid. Vacuum is the absence of air, so how do you run out of what was never there?)

Has anyone built or purchased a reservoir to put inside the fender? Post pics if you have please. The advanced design truck seems to have a lot of room. I have thought about using 3- 3"x24 or so" PVC pipe inside both fenders??

Hey Stove, give it a go. We have 'thought' this topic into submission. Now someone needs to try something.

Exactly!

Lots of talk here about a ' reservoir' buffer or ballast tank but
I've yet to see anyone actually try it.
Here are a variety of Vacuum Jars that I use here at home for
various projects. The largest would be about the size of the
previously mentioned 15 gallon beer keg. That will vent up to
atmosphere thru a relatively small 1/8"npt valve in a matter of
seconds. With out a substantial pump exceeding the leak rate,
even the smallest leak will not allow a decent vacuum to be
pulled on any of these jars.
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/155947894

Please, someone try a tank full of vacuum and get back to us with
your results.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny, I am the one working on 52Stoves' truck. The vacuum wiper is something we have been considering, it isn't something we are working on.
It is an interesting topic, I've been looking the fuel pump/vacuum source and an altenator with vacuum but perhaps some testing as you suggest is a good idea.
Let me kick some things around, I'll post the ideas/methods/pieces and maybe we can do some kind of a definitive tech piece.

Beer keg hunh! Well I just so happened to have a tapper left
over from a project that hasn't got off the ground yet:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/155948778/large

Tapped a couple of holes in the top for the hose barbs, got the
hose hooked up and all I need now is for the rain to stop and
the road to dry up some and I'll see just how effective a 'BIG'
vacuum reservoir is when you have to climb a hill or run along
at 55mph at 75% throttle.
Don't think I'll be able to close the hood though with the
kegger under it.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Oh, and oj I might as well throw this in while I'm thinking of
it. The fuel/vacuum pumps that are being sold now really don't
work in my opinion. Don't know whether the valve circuits they
use are different than the original AC pumps or what but it
didn't make a bit of difference when I put one on mine in fact
it might have even gotten worse:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/137141442/large

DG

Here is the late 50's - early 60's soup can version by Trico these should be readily available at a wrecking yard and would seem to be an easy install.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/advance-design_parts_co/14177411581/in/set-72157631868452754
https://www.flickr.com/photos/advance-design_parts_co/14178067752/in/set-72157631868452754
Here is a dealer installed powered alternative in 6 or 12-volt versions to solve the issue, the label on the box describes it perfectly. This unit carries GMC (1937-53) Master Parts Manual reference and part numbers.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/advance-design_parts_co/11597350134/in/set-72157631868452754

I'd be real surprised if the 'soup can' reservoir made any
difference for more than a few seconds. But.....gimmie enough
time and I might just find somethin' around the barn that would
yield the same volume that I could try, that is after the beer
keg experiment. You don't suppose you could come up with any
tape measure dimensions for the can size of that Trico can???

Now that Electro-Vac does, look like it would work but what are
the chances of running across one of those. How in the world
you find this stuff is a constant puzzle to me Brad. I could
scour ebay 24/7 and still never see any of the things that you
seem to have on the shelf.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny, the cans originally used were exactly the shape/size of tomato juice cans .... terminology is confusing things, those cans aren't "reservoirs", they're buffers, to prevent wipers stopping totally under short sudden acceleration - the 57 ambulance panel I had, had one installed, wouldn't have kept the wipers working with much loss of vacuum for more than a couple seconds, enough to let the engine vacuum rebuild after hitting the gas, and it just [usually] prevented the wipers from stopping altogether, just slowing temporarily

the only real solution to the drawbacks of vacuum wipers eventually took over > electric

Bill

Wouldn't argue with ya there. With the 6v & 12v wiper
conversions that we have available it's really a no brainer.
I got caught in a really bad down pour day before yesterday and
had to drive 20 miles dancing on the throttle ever few seconds.
Must have used a gallon of petrol extra because of
the accelerator getting pumped so often.
Leave the vacuum hose run thru the firewall and no one would
know you even had electric wipers installed. I'm beginning to
go from a 95% purist to a 90% in my old age I guess.

Reservoir, buffer, accumulator or what ever you want to call it,
the whole point is, it still taint gonna help you keep those
wipers running under open throttle operation now matter how big
it is.

DG

Be careful if you plan to buy an after-market 6v radio for your 1954 truck, Denny. If you have an original radio, the GM optional electric wiper is the only one reported to fit with the radio/speaker in place.

I wonder if you could tee a couple of lines, one from full manifold vacuum and one from ported vacuum to the vacuum wipers, with some kind of check valves in them? That way you would be making vacuum whether you were on the throttle or not. Just a thought.

I don't know how to 'link' things, but if you go to ebay and search 'altenator vacuumpump' a slick gizmo will pop up from an industrial application that is an altenator with a vacuum pump on the backside. A little checking around and you'll find them for very reasonable money. It looks like it bolt right in where a 12v altenator would go. I suspect it would create vacuum at low rpm, I don't know for sure.