The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Panels 'N Burbs 1949 Panel Wiper Question

It is probably a long shot, but I will present my question in the hope that someone might have crossed this bridge before. I discovered that apparently the wiper transmission/linkage and therefore the mounting bracket of my Panel track windshield wiper motor is different from the 1/2 ton trucks. It looks like they delineate between the LD (light duty?) and HD (heavy duty?) trucks in this regard. I have posted a pic of the assembly manual and the pic on the left is the LD bracket that is mounted on the centerline of the cab and the pic on the right is the HD bracket that is mounted to the left of centerline and is canted. Surprisingly, the pic on the right is what I have on my panel truck instead of the one commonly encountered.

I was hoping to just buy an electric conversion (via New Port per the comments that I have read on the forum) and move on. Now that appears to not be an option. Luckily I do have the transmission/linkage and it looks to be in workable condition after clean-up but my question is simple....does anyone know of an aftermarket electric wiper motor kit that fits my configuration or is this another unexpected custom design task? Before I set off investigating various wiper motors and coming up with a solution I thought I might ask. Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

My 47 GMC panel and my 47 GMC 1/2 ton pickup have the version on the right that you have. I tried the electric wipers and they did not work for me.

I never gave it much thought. I put in a Newport motor years ago. Recently a shop broke one end of the transmission/linkage so I ordered a new one and it fit. I only replaced the long linkage.

I have these pictures from my build, it looks like I too have the same as it is a 1 ton panel. Maybe I got it to work because I didn’t know any better. It is a fiddle and a pita to get it set up under the dash though.

The Newport motor is good in that it allows you to use the later spring loaded wiper blades, but it is just as slow as the vacuum mechanism. Awhile back I saw something about someone selling a modified Toyota wiper motor on e-bay for our trucks. I never looked into it, but I’d like to get a more robust motor.

Oh wow. Thanks for the replies. I emailed New Port to see if they had any input but I never got a reply. It did look like the bracket interface to the wiper motor was the same in the assy manual so I "thought" the difference could be solely in the linkage. I would assume both stock configurations use the same vacuum wiper motor so that adds up.

New Port did reply to my email and confirm that the wiper motor mounting bracket that is in my panel truck (offset to driver's side) is the one that they typically see in the trucks and their system is designed for this bracket. So that makes the 12v electric conversion a bit easier.
I still don't understand which trucks have the center bracket as shown in the manual. The assy manual shows an LD and RD model. Not sure what differs between these two designators. Light Duty/Regular Duty, Left Drive/Right Drive.... I have no clue, but I thought I'd close out this post so if someone goes down the same rabbit hole then they will know the conclusion.

LD stands for Left hand Drive and RD for Right hand Drive. All the AD truck wiper motor brackets I've seen are as shown in the "RD" drawing, even though they re all "LD" trucks. GM has been known to makes mistakes (oops) in their published documentation. Ask anyone that has done a lot of searching through GM Master Parts Books.

Lol... thanks for clarifying. That is what was tripping me up. I figured it was left and right drive but the drawings looked opposite of what I was seeing on the vehicle. I looked under the dash on my 3600 truck and it looked the same as my panel (although the motor is missing). So back to original plan to just use the New Port system. Thanks to everyone for all the comments.