Help with 1957 Buick Wiper

[Brandon Todd]

Soon I am going to try to get the old vacuum wipers running again on my '57. The switch, bezel, and button was missing from the car when I got it, so I am not sure how it is all supposed hooked up. I was hoping that someone here could help out and tell me what else is missing from the car. I have the bezel, and can get a new switch and button, I am just not sure what else is needed.

 

I will include a picture of what linkage I had when it came with it. 

 

Any help is appreciated! Thanks a lot!

 

Brandon T.

 

Edited May 27, 2015 by Brandon T (see edit history)

[Caballero2]

Brandon:

This link discuses the conversion of a vacuum wiper motor to an electric using the original controls.  There are photos that show the configuration of the push button/control cable lever.

(Also see the link in post #14)    -     Dan

 

http://forums.aaca.org/topic/152159-1957-water-pump-oil-pump-main-engine-vacuum-pump/?hl=%2Bwiper+%2Bcoordinator#entry724404

Edited May 27, 2015 by Caballero2 (see edit history)

[buick man]

Good going Brandon in attempting to restore your vacuum wipers.

 

Here is a diagram that will show you what vacuum lines are needed and where they go to hook things up. The 1957 is almost identical to this except where the water bottle mounts I believe.  Anyways, the wire on your inside drivers's side slide control lever is shown as well as the small vacuum tube and where they both go to.  The connections are principally for the vacuum lines starting from the drivers control onto the center firewall mounted central wiper control motor and then to the wiper transmission.  Also included are the connections to the windshield washer bottle. Note also that from the central firewall mounted central wiper control motor is a vacuum line that is metal which runs down from the central control along the passenger side area of the rear engine down and into the crankcase near and just above the engine oil filter mounting boss just below the passenger's exhaust manifold.  This line connects though the block and down into the engines oil pump where as the Gods would have it, is mounted the vacuum pump for the wiper system.  It is mounted on the lowest base area of the oil pump and is driven by the oil pump idler gears which in turn are driven off of  the distributor boss gear itself.

 

Take some photos with good back lighting and show us what you are working with.  Take a photo of your engine bay as well as the firewall area.

 

Hope this helps !

1956_Buick_Vacuum_Diagram-2.pdf

[Brandon Todd]

Hello all, and thanks for your replies. I'll have to take some additional photos. I do know that I am missing some vacuum lines at the firewall. However, my main concern is I am not sure what plugs into that piece that I have attached above. Does the lever and button plug directly into that piece, or am I missing something in the middle? 

[Caballero2]

You are missing the wire that connects the lever through the cable shield to the coordinator on the wiper motor.

 

This diagram might help..

Dan

Edited May 27, 2015 by Caballero2 (see edit history)

[buick man]

Thanks Dan for coming through with this schematic for the 57.  This is an important schematic and with that said, might we suggest you repost this jpg at a higher resolution then the 2 Kb as posted.  The trouble is one can view it when clicked upon on this topic page but if copied onto our hard drives for future reference, it is too small to expand for viewing and gets distorted.  At any wheres between 450 Kb & 1Mb it would make it viewable upon expansion.  

[Caballero2]

Click on the thumbnail, lower left corner.  You will be surprised.

 

If I can locate the original file in my archives,  I will PM you with it.  -  Dan

Edited May 28, 2015 by Caballero2 (see edit history)

[Brandon Todd]

You are missing the wire that connects the lever through the cable shield to the coordinator on the wiper motor.

This diagram might help..

Dan

Thank you so much for that diagram! That is extremely helpful! I appreciate it! Edited May 28, 2015 by Brandon T (see edit history)

[buick man]

Dan, thanks, but I already have this schematic on my hard drive but just brought this up in case others were having the same rendering problems I was having.

O.K. I understand what's up now. Your right Dan, This is on me.   I have a Mac and before the recent changes were made to this site, I could just click on the posted image(s) and save it to wherever I wanted on my Mac and things would be at a viewable file size automatically.  With the new renditions to the site I was unable to save your posted file in a readable size since I did not notice the new "save" button in the lower right corner.  If one hits that then one can save it to one's hard drive and open it in a view size.  Just an extra B.S. step I need to take now since they"fixed & improved" the site.  Guess this is for all the Windows folks out there. Go figure.  So all is square with the universe once again.

 

Edit: So with this new setup, just how does one go about Deleting an entire post response as you could do it before they made the changes to the site?

Edited May 29, 2015 by buick man (see edit history)