The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Windshield Wiper Motor

1950 Chevy Truck - Not really sure where to put this one, so I will start with the General Truck Talk. The original wiper motors in these Chevy AD series trucks (Trico) operate off the engine vacuum as we all know. Having an issue with one that operates fine bringing the wiper arms up, but there it stays. if you turn the knob to the off position, then the wiper arms return to the bottom of the windshield and stay there until you run them again. So instead of the normal running of the wipers when you turn them on, you just get the blades to go to the up position and that's it, no return stroke. My truck is all stock and I want to keep it that way so I am fine with vacuum wipers. I don't purposely drive in the rain, but if you get caught in some, wipers are nice to have. If any one has had their wipers do the same, how did you remedy the problem. Thanks in advance!
Tom

3800GUY,

You are not alone in suffering from this predicament. Check out this previous conversation on the topic you asked about.

Boils down to your vacuum operated motor needs some TLC and quite possibly a rebuild.

Others will chime in here with more recent info and suggestions soon.

Dan

Having messed with a couple of wiper motors, I think your issue might be easily fixed. That assumes that the sweep to the top of the travel is strong, and the return sweep is as well when you turn the wipers off.

There's a toggle arrangement that switches the direction and it may be stuck, or the linkage inside is detached. Remove the small cover on the side and investigate. If you manually move the motor to the full sweep position, you should see the mechanism switch over. It may just need a little lubrication. That's what that thread the Dan linked to was talking about.

If that doesn't work send it off to Ficken Wiper Service and he'll rebuild it for you.