A few days ago, I mentioned that the cables from the left wiper transmission were approximately equal, yet on the right trans, the inner (upper) cable was always longer than the outer (lower) cable. Well, to put some closure on this, everything hooked up just fine. I used the excellent article by Joe Calcagno from the Restorer CD-ROM. I do have a few thoughts not covered previously.
1. I found it easier to hook the cables up with the motor NOT mounted on the plate. This way, for the second cable (the hard one) on each transmission, I could rotate the wiper motor plate rotor (it wouldn't rotate if the motor was on it) so that the cable end would slide in sideways, rather than wrapping around and then slipping into the slot. This way, less slack is required.
2. If you do hook up the motor first, make sure the rotor is not 180* off. If that happens, you will have to swap rotor groove pairs (1&4 vs 2&3) for the two transmissions. I'm not sure this is really a problem, in fact, my car was originally hooked up this way (factory or Bubba?). But in our neverending quest to be like everyone else, it's probably best to do it the way Joe draws in his article. Of course, if you do the cables first, this "error" is not possible.
3. Have your helper who pushes on the trans while you pull out slack wear gloves. Otherwise, your aggressive cable pulling may result in the trans top trying to bore a hole into the hand of your former helper.
4. There are stops on the transmissions themselves that limit the trans' travel to about 2/3 of a turn. These serve no purpose in the actual operation of the wipers. The motor stops all by itself in both directions without any assistance from those stops. I mistakenly thought the opposite, so I sent a trans to Mary Jo to fix one of the stops. Her husband did fast, excellent work, but it was a waste of $60.
5. If you think #4 proved I'm ignorant, check this: I tested the motor before installation. Hooked up some battery leads, slid the slider (switch) and presto, perfect operation! Now, this is all new stuff to me, so I wasn't sure which position was off. I tried all three positions, but the wiper was still moving in all three. Uh, oh, must be a short or something! An embarrassing amount of time later, I realized that in "off," the wiper first moves the wipers into "park" before stopping. I had been impatiently moving the switch to other positions before it parked!
6. The bark of this job was much worse than the bite. On my car at least, there was sufficient slack that I had each cable hooked on pretty much by the end of my first "Get the **** on there, you *****."
7. Finally, I believe the difference is length of the passenger side transmission cables is actually necessary because of the geometry of the whole thing. Of course, I could be wrong.
1. I found it easier to hook the cables up with the motor NOT mounted on the plate. This way, for the second cable (the hard one) on each transmission, I could rotate the wiper motor plate rotor (it wouldn't rotate if the motor was on it) so that the cable end would slide in sideways, rather than wrapping around and then slipping into the slot. This way, less slack is required.
2. If you do hook up the motor first, make sure the rotor is not 180* off. If that happens, you will have to swap rotor groove pairs (1&4 vs 2&3) for the two transmissions. I'm not sure this is really a problem, in fact, my car was originally hooked up this way (factory or Bubba?). But in our neverending quest to be like everyone else, it's probably best to do it the way Joe draws in his article. Of course, if you do the cables first, this "error" is not possible.
3. Have your helper who pushes on the trans while you pull out slack wear gloves. Otherwise, your aggressive cable pulling may result in the trans top trying to bore a hole into the hand of your former helper.
4. There are stops on the transmissions themselves that limit the trans' travel to about 2/3 of a turn. These serve no purpose in the actual operation of the wipers. The motor stops all by itself in both directions without any assistance from those stops. I mistakenly thought the opposite, so I sent a trans to Mary Jo to fix one of the stops. Her husband did fast, excellent work, but it was a waste of $60.
5. If you think #4 proved I'm ignorant, check this: I tested the motor before installation. Hooked up some battery leads, slid the slider (switch) and presto, perfect operation! Now, this is all new stuff to me, so I wasn't sure which position was off. I tried all three positions, but the wiper was still moving in all three. Uh, oh, must be a short or something! An embarrassing amount of time later, I realized that in "off," the wiper first moves the wipers into "park" before stopping. I had been impatiently moving the switch to other positions before it parked!
6. The bark of this job was much worse than the bite. On my car at least, there was sufficient slack that I had each cable hooked on pretty much by the end of my first "Get the **** on there, you *****."
7. Finally, I believe the difference is length of the passenger side transmission cables is actually necessary because of the geometry of the whole thing. Of course, I could be wrong.
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