34 Cabriolet windscreen wiper

fiver

fiver

Member
Some of you must think this is a silly question but is this wiper motor on my 1934 Ford Cabriolet upsidedown? This is how it was when I bought the car and judging by the rest of its bits someone just put it back together for sales purposes not knowing what they were doing so there are quite a few things in my car that aren't the way they're meant to be.
Don't ask me if it works I've got no idea because I don't even know HOW it's supposed to work :confused:
Brace yourselves more silly questions to follow! :D
 

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Firstly you need to have proper vacuum for your Trico vacuum motor to function properly. You can bench test your motor with about 14” of vacuum and if I remember correctly this is how much vacuum your flathead should produce when idling. With good vacuum your wiper motor should run and if it doesn’t most likely your wiper motor will need a complete rebuild.
 
Before tearing it apart, put a little ATF in it, work it by hand every once in a while, then drain ATF and test with vacuum. Worked for me.
 
That wiper motor is upside down. The roadster and phaeton wiper motors were oriented that way with the bowl on top, but not the cabriolet. The vacuum inlet tube should point to the closest windshield post, the left one in this case. A correct cabriolet wiper motor has two square studs that rest in indentions in the header tin. You can check when you pull it off to re-orient it, you may have the correct wiper motor but it is definitely upside down.

I've got other pictures, but this is the most entertaining one that I have that shows the bowl of the wiper motor. You know Otis wouldn't be caught with his wiper motor in the wrong position.

The bowl position would be right if it were in Steve's roadster, but then the vacuum inlet would be wrong.
 

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fiver,

As Randy said, the wiper motor is shown mounted upside down in your photo. The wiper motor in your photo appears to be correct for a '34 cabriolet. You may want to invest in a copy of the EFV8 Club's 1933/34 Restoration Manual that contains much information and mostly color photos that will answer many of your questions.
Best of luck with your cabriolet.

Walt K in PA
 
Many thanks to you all who took the time to answer.
I've now ordered the restoration manual and hopefully it'll shed some light into what's wrong and what's correct with my car.
 
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O.K now I feel stupid if I would have expanded on the photo of the wiper motor I would have seen the inlet on the wiper motor was facing the wrong direction. Randy thanks for correcting my error, to error is human to forgive is divine! :-(
 
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