Gotta love vacuum wipers. A friend in high school had his granddad's old plumbing truck. We have a long steep hill in town and the wipers would stop as we tried to go up. Jim
I actually just got mine working earlier today so I haven't driven in the rain yet. I hope that my good running 4.3 v6 makes more vacuum than the original inline six. I tried holding the lever on the wiper motor with it turned on and almost got a couple of broken fingers. I have had several old Chevys in days gone by that had V8s in place of the original inline six and they worked good. As often as it has been raining here I won't have to wait long to try them out.
I was not satisfied with the performance, or the lack thereof, of the vacuum motor so I have now converted to electric by using the rear wiper motor from a '91 Chevy Caprice.
I made a mounting bracket from aluminum. See the pic. The bracket is marked for some material to be removed. I made a new bracket to fit onto the splined shaft of the Caprice motor to attach the original linkage to.
My wiper conversion is now complete, except for mounting a switch and connecting the wires. I might do some more trimming on the aluminum mounting bracket and will probably paint it black. I have run the wipers with jumper wires and I am satisfied with the way they work.[cl
I actually took everything back apart and drilled a couple more holes for the linkage to connect to, so I would have full travel on the wipers. I figured out the wiring. Of the three wires, one is ground, one is hot only when the wipers are turned on, and the third is hot all the time for the park feature on the wipers. All is working well for now. I hope it stays that way.