The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay electric wiper replacment

thought I would share my experience on replacing the vacuum motor on my 3100, not the easiest thing I have done, radio grill must come out, easy to get the old one out not so easy to bolt the new one in, its huge and and needs shimed downward. New motor didnt clear the OEM choke cable so that got replaced with a new one that was longer with more slack, new motor didnt come with all the hardware needed, support bracket isn't bent correctly so that need tweeked. crank on the new motor fell off while installing it because the factory didnt tightened the set screws, check yours first....., wipers park in a different position every time, needed some TLC to make that go away, new wiper knob didnt fit the new switch had to drill that out

all in all better than the tired old vacuum pump but dont think its going to work like a factory OEM wiper

better than the worn out motor but dont think its going to be as nice as an OEM motor

switch was so big the wires would not clear the top of the motor so I shimed the motor downward and had to still bend the switch terminals out wards

bell crank fell off cause both set screws were loose, check yours

and the new knob hole was way to small to fit on the new switch, easy fix, just drill it out

Replaced mine with one from newport engineering. Had zero problems. John

Same here on the Newport unit. Easy install, no problems.

That is a Classic Parts of America part number. A good unit. Classic sells several conversion units. In the description of each motor, it states whether it clears the choke cable or not. The only one that does state that it clears, is one of the 12V motors. The subject of the choke cable clearance and the terminals needing bent is covered here on Stovebolt in several past posts. Most, if not all, of these Classic Parts motors are Newport Engineering units.

Some can be used with original knob, some can not. I thought the knob and shaft were a "D" press-on fit. Must be a set screw if you can "drill" it out.

Many assembly line components are shipped with loose screws. Workers tend to over tighten, over torque, damage things. So they are told not to torque hardware. Automated torque drivers don't work to prevent and automated drivers can cause problems. Lots of consumer items are shipped with a bag of hardware or loose fitting hardware. Unnecessary and costly quality control inspection is thereby eliminated.

Wipers stopping at a different position each time would be an electrical miswire. Park is electrical. The only "tweak" is wire it correctly.

Newport makes all 12 volt wiper motors. Not 6 volt. As I inquired when I ordered. If you look at the op s box it looks to be made by counter part. Off shore

I've only installed a couple but the NewPort Engineering was great....and if you order correctly will miss the choke wire.
.....sadly its to late for Woof, he's already spent his money.

...not sure if JCarter still sells the Newport unit but I purchased mine from him cheaper than I could buy it directly from Newport....but that was a few years ago. (about 5)

If you get tired of only having 2 speeds (and if your truck is a daily driver and you're not worried about driving in the rain), you might want intermittent wipers someday. If so search and you'll find the circuit I posted a year or two ago making this all possible. You can even select the amount of delay when you're building the circuit.

Counterpart seems to be a huge wholesale company. Probably Chinese. No website when g o o g l e d. Classic parts does identify which are USA made and you can see the Newport logo on some.
Some 12V on Classic site are not labeled USA, so those would be the "off shore". As said, none of the 6V say USA made and Newport does not have a 6V unit. Newport mentions knob modification.

Some off shore stuff is good , some are not.

Counterpart is the wholesale side of Car & Truck shop out of orange, CA. They are importers of many truck parts and wholesale to a lot of retailers. Some of their stuff is good and some crap. WES

The above was copied and pasted from the site: www.67-72ChevyTrucks.com
It was posted about 10 years ago and a discussion followed on that site...as you might expect.

There are lots of comments floating around about these two operations. I suppose you can make up your own mind.

I agree.

Bottom line after all this is:
Woof359: Good job on making it work and thanks for the info.

My Newport installation went OK, some parts missing, promptly replaced, directions sort of vague.

Might be easier with a 6 volt truck to use a resistor and 12 v unit.

Ed

Would not trade my vacuum motor for a dozen electric. Sent my motor to Ficken about 40 years ago and then put an electric vacuum pump from a Mercedes diesel where the battery box used to be. Has UNLIMITED number of speeds and is unaffected by pull on engine so no stop going up hills. I guess with an electric vacuum pump it could be called a "hybrid".

didnt see any foot notes on cable clearance, no biggie, new cable works so much better, yes the chrome plastic knob has a set screw, only one wire to hook up the wiper, missed the posts on others wiper installs. got it in, no rain expected for the next decade here just HOT and sunny, well go look for the other wiper post, Many Thanks

Good deal. Maybe there was no note about the choke cable. But I don't really know who you bought it from. The note I am referring to is at the bottom of This page.

see it now,new cable works so much better, miss the old knob tho,

It’s easy to tell (on Classic Parts) which wiper motor is made by Newport and subsequently made in the USA. Just look at the price. They sell for $249.95 vs the import a $174.50.

I just got done installing my electric replacement motor from car and truck orange co. , much larger than oe vacuum motor , sat in nice but,motor is very close to speaker grill ,motor wont fit up against the firewall has to be reversed so doubt i would ever be able to get a speaker in there , had to pull wiper arms of inside cab , brass bushings were to small to fit on the bar so had to remove them and use the plastic ones provided , seemed to work good , adjusted the wipers on the windshield to good park position, not bad for an offshore brand . we'll see how long it lasts .

I just got started on this on my 55.1. I was surprised to find the wiper transmission arms had brass bushings (about 7/32 ID). All the aftermarket ones seem to have the 5/16? hole and use the nylon bushings, What gives? Can the brass bushing be removed without mangling the arm, or do I need to replace them? How did you do it, mikeg?

regards,
Leon

Well, that didn't work. My 55.1 has a GMC cab. The dash is dished in where the Chevy speaker grill is. The Counterpart brand wiper motor is too large to fit in the space. Does anyone know the dimensions of the Newport assembly for the 54-55? I'm wondering if its thin enough to fit the GMC dash.

Leon

I got a Newport wiper for my 55.2 gmc, Newport sent their selection.
Ed

I called Newport and talked with one of their techs. He seemed confident that it would fit. He said the motor is on the firewall side of the mounting lugs. That is different from the Counterpart one. Its motor is on the dash side of the mount. The attached pic of my dash shows why that's problematic.

Leon

I got the Newport wiper motor in. It fits very well. One problem though, is tightening the hold-down screw on the passenger side. It's nearly inaccessible with the motor in place. I'm thinking of using a GM radiator shroud clip instead of the screw on that side.

I think I've had a breakthrough in mounting the Newport wiper motor. I removed the motor from its bracket. Without the motor attached, the attaching bolts were reasonably accessible and I was able to mount the bracket. Then, the motor could be reattached to the bracket with reasonable access to its mounting hardware and the setscrew for the bellcrank.

That worked! I got the motor installed and wired up. I made a replacement bellcrank to fit the brass bushings in the wiper linkage. Re-installed the linkage and it seems to be working fine. Now I can climb one step up out of this rabbit hole and get back to work on the dash upgrade. I've attached a print for the bellcrank in case anyone might find it useful/amusing.