1963 hydraulic wiper motors?

[Beach Bum]

My 1963 HT not only came with an empty engine compartment, but also holes in the top cowl where the windshield wiper motors are supposed to poke through. I know that in 1963 these motors were not electric, but hydraulic and ran off the power steering pump. And I think this was the only year that Ford used this rather peculiar approach to windshield wipers, yes? My question then:

Since I have no wiper motors at all, should I attempt to put in new/rebuilt hydraulic motors and the necessary plumbing or covert to the electric motors from the 60 - 62 models? I must say the whole idea of using power steering fluid to make the wipers work seems kind of bizarre yet fascinating to me. How well did this technology hold up over the last 48 years?

Expiring minds want to know.

[timewarped1972]

i know they made them through 67'. i had a 67 when i was in high school. i remember taking it to sears (this was before i did all my own stuff) and the young mechanic kid wondered why in the hell i had my power steering hose going through my firewall!!! lol...

i don't completely understand that "over engineering" it probably got borrowed from some psychodic gizmo a lincoln had....i guess the idea was at slower speeds they went slower and faster at faster speeds, depending on what setting it's on....sort of a built in delay like you have now on a modern car, but, NOT. the more i think about it the more i can't believe they took the time to design that...musta had some left over tranny valve bodies or somthing....maybe electric windshield motor failures were high back then;-)

you can get the hydro motors but they are year specific i think...meaning it wasn't the same motor for all years (another screwy waste of somthing, lol) .....so you need to watch that...

[Jim Wulf]

My 1963 HT not only came with an empty engine compartment, but also holes in the top cowl where the windshield wiper motors are supposed to poke through. I know that in 1963 these motors were not electric, but hydraulic and ran off the power steering pump. And I think this was the only year that Ford used this rather peculiar approach to windshield wipers, yes? My question then:

Since I have no wiper motors at all, should I attempt to put in new/rebuilt hydraulic motors and the necessary plumbing or covert to the electric motors from the 60 - 62 models? I must say the whole idea of using power steering fluid to make the wipers work seems kind of bizarre yet fascinating to me. How well did this technology hold up over the last 48 years?

Expiring minds want to know.

'63 was the first year for hydraulic wipers in Thunderbirds, and Ford used them in Birds for several years after that. The motors were made by Trico, as were the wiper arms and blades, washer nozzles, & washer pumps. They are actually very reliable, and have the added benefit of being continuously variable speed. The '63 pump is specific to the '63 model; the design changed in '64 with the new body style and cowl design.


The entire system shouldn't be difficult to source from a used parts vendor - and I have a complete system on my present '63 parts car, though I haven't looked at the condition as yet. These pumps sometimes leak at the shaft seal, but there is someone listed in Hemmings that rebuilds them - I've used him and he does a good job.

I think trying to use a '61-62 electric system might present installation problems because of the electric motor under the dash that needs to be connected to the wiper transmission arms through the cowl, but I'm not sure of that.

[Beach Bum]

Thanks for the info. I did a closer inspection today and from what I can tell all of the under-the-cowl hardware and plumbing seems to be intact -- only the shafts that come up through the top of the cowl and hold/move the wipers blades seem to have been removed and are missing.

Of course, I have no idea how much of what is under there is functional -- all of the tells I've found seem to indicate that this car was last on the road in the Chicago area in 1987 -- but since Jim says this hydraulic wiper drive system works well and seems to hold up over time, it looks like the thing to do is go ahead and recondition what's in there and go with the exotic technology. Besides, I really do love infinitely variable windshield wipers. Was this the first appearance of them in mass-produced American autos?

And while I know I'm being wishful I might as well ask: I don't suppose there's any relatively easy way to remove the cowl or otherwise get into it to recondition the system?

[scumdog]

My '66 has this type of wiper motor - and mine leaked like a sieve when I first bought th car.

I thought it was the seal in the steering box at first but the fluid had run down the cowl onto the road on both sides of the car - had me scratching my head trying to figure out how a steering box could leak out at the passenger side of the car!

I sent my wiper-motor away (12,000 miles away and back!) to a rebuilder, from memory it was through one of the parts suppliers (Nicks/Tbird Nest/Larrys or similar) and had it shipped back, it now works great - and infinitely adjustable for speed.

The one downside is you can't turn them on to clear the screen when you parked up and the motor isn't running.

[Beach Bum]

So, how did you manage to get the motor out to send it off for reconditioning? The shop manual says to "remove cowl top panel" but offers nothing more about how to do that. Are there hidden bolts in the underside of the cowl panel somewhere that I just am not seeing? The picture in the manual seems to indicate the entire cowl is only held down by the bead of sealant on the underside, but that doesn't seem right?

[Alan H. Tast]

Take some time and study what you're dealing with. The cowl panel is not only held in place by the screws into the cowl ledge, but also by screws at the rear corners of the panel/base of windshield pillar that can be seen when the doors are opened, plus there are three chrome-plated screws through the top of the panel toward the rear of the vent openings. Along with these, the cups for the wiper shafts are retained by chrome-plated sleeve nuts that are screwed onto the wiper shaft bases: if, as you're saying, the wiper shafts are not in place, then all that should be holding the cowl in place are the aforementioned screws.

[Beach Bum]

Alan,

Thanks for the details... I was thrown off by the fact that the illustration in the shop manual don't show *any* screws or bolts -- and usually the break-out illustrations in the manual do. Beyond that, since this engine compartment was stripped and worked over before I got the car, I can't be sure if screws/bolts that were once there have been removed and thus no longer visible. This should get me through the process, however. Thanks again.

[tbird]

Beach Bum
You need to get yourself a set of Jim Osborne Assembly Manuals for the body and electrical details, you can not restore a Tbird with a shop manual.