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Flipping wiper motor

4K views 31 replies 6 participants last post by  95wagon 
#1 ·
Alright guys, let me know if I’m missing something here. Running into some clearance issues with the valve cover/coil bracket combo I wanted to use on my LS swap (LSX B15 comes with tall style VC’s ). Flipping the wiper motor upside down seems like it would be an easy way to fix the issue. It lines up perfectly with the linkage and it seems like it would be easy to throw some riv nuts into the firewall. I wouldn’t have to weld up the hole as I would if I moved it over to the left either.

The motor just rotates in circles, so I don’t think it would affect anything. Only issue I foresaw was the resting position would be differeNt , but I’m thinking that could be easily fixed by welding up the old slotted hole in the linkage and adding a new one clocked correctly so the wipers sit in the cowl when the motor is on the off position.

man in missing anything here that would make this harder than I am anticipating? I’ve seen plenty of guys shift it over, but never flipped so it’s making me a little nervous that I’m missing a potentially hard to fix issue.
 

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#2 ·
Flipping it will work, but you'll need to flip the short offset arm on the wiper motor too else your wipers will "Park" in the up position :). The nut is an oddball (M7x1.0 if I recall) so don't loose it! It's keyed with a pair of parallel flats so you should be able to just flip it 180 and put the nut back on.

In other words, loosen the nut on the wiper shaft, remove the wiper motor assembly, flip wiper motor assembly 180 and re-assemble the nut on the shaft with the bracket in the same position.

Make sense?
 
#4 ·
My personal experience, you can't flip it over and reposition the arm.
If you watch the action of the motor when it parks, it will become apparent.
When parking, the centerline of the shaft moves sideways after stoping .
If the motor is turned 180, no matter what you do with the arm, the park action will be wrong.

My solution was to move the motor to the right about 3 inches, and lengthen the link the same amount.
If you are retaining the factory underhood electrical center, things get interesting.
Moving it to clear, it starts climbing the inner wheel well and gets too close to the hood.
I had to sink the center into the inner a bit.
 
#10 ·
My personal experience, you can't flip it over and reposition the arm.
If you watch the action of the motor when it parks, it will become apparent.
When parking, the centerline of the shaft moves sideways after stoping .
If the motor is turned 180, no matter what you do with the arm, the park action will be wrong.

My solution was to move the motor to the right about 3 inches, and lengthen the link the same amount.
If you are retaining the factory underhood electrical center, things get interesting.
Moving it to clear, it starts climbing the inner wheel well and gets too close to the hood.
I had to sink the center into the inner a bit.

Yep - you're right, I forgot about the eccentric movement for Park. I'm very deep in the electronics/controls side of these, but have not delved too deep in to the mechanical side of them yet.

Thinking about this a bit more thought (and probably sticking my other foot in my mouth :)) If you were to flip it 180, the park position would lift the wipers up a bit instead of pull them down a bit (I think?). Maybe one could install the wiper motor at 185 or 175 degrees to compensate for this with a little compromise on wiper full stroke or having them park completely under the hood. Might be a better compromise compared to moving it over a few inches and all the cut/fab that will require?

Another long shot option is to lower the motor. If a Duramax will fit without relocating the wiper assembly, I'm sure an LSx will too :)
 
#5 ·
Awesome! For some reason I had the angles in my head wrong and I was thinking I’d have to notch a new slot into the wiper linkage, but you’re right, I think just the 180 flip would work. And I see what you mean about making sure it is an exact 180. What I will probably do is bolt the linkage up so that the wipers are “parked” and then drill my holes so that I know the wipers will park correctly

I’m thinking I’ll have to move the fuse box if I remember correctly where it sits, but that shouldn’t be a big deal as long as I have enough slack in the harness.
 
#6 ·
Eek Gerry, thanks for your reply. That’s what I was afraid of, I was hoping it only rotated, but moving left to right would definitely create an issue. Ugh, offsetting it isn’t a big deal but my firewall is already all painted, motor in, I really don’t want to have to weld up a block off plate and have to repaint it all (also don’t want a gaping hole). Bolting on a block off plate would just look trashy. This could get interesting.
 
#7 ·
That is EXACTLY what happened to me.
Engine was in and then I went to mount the wiper motor and although it would fit, it looked like sh*(^**t and the cover would not clear.
I machined up a stepped plug, bonded into place and blew in the paint.
 

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#13 ·
Gerry, your stepped block off plate looks great! unfortunately I don't have access to a milling machine, but looking at your setup it seems like it is all pretty well hidden by the wiper motor itself anyway. Just putting a painted piece of aluminum behind it bolted at 4 corners with some stainless hardware might not look too bad. I'm trying to pick up a TIG welder soon too, so I should be able to possibly weld up a block off plate with a much smaller heat affected area than my MIG so it hopefully doesn't compromise too much of the surrounding paint in the areas that will be hard to touch up.

Didn't want to add that kind of time to the project, but not looking like it's going to run before the snow season kicks in here anyway so I guess i've got the whole winter to find more work to do on it LOL
 
#14 ·
I have had the motors apart.
Do not see any flipping of parts changing park direction.
Maybe someone smarter than I could figure something out in there but I did not see a way.

The block off plate, i used panel bond, did not weld.
As for the step in the plate, PM or email me
 
#15 ·
Gerry has this right. I also looked at the possibility of flipping the motor, ruining one from the junkyard trying to figure out if it would work. I just wish I had grabbed the linkage arm to make the extension when the time comes..
 
#16 ·
Rotating the wiper motor about 20~30 deg, counter clockwise, and making a new arm, or modifying your current one would be the easiest fix. All of the rest of the issues would disappear. You can use rivnuts to attach the motor at the new angle.

Modifying the arm would require cutting the slot for the shaft so that it rotates it to the new orientation, then filling it with weld to make sure it does not rotate on the shaft. Another option would be to cut the end off the arm, and weld it back on at the appropriate angle.
 
#17 · (Edited)
Rotating the wiper motor about 20~30 deg, counter clockwise, and making a new arm, or modifying your current one would be the easiest fix.
Is that what you did ?
Do you have pictures?
Your firewall must be a lot different than mine . Look at the original mounting holes in relation to the cowl box and its contours.
If you have done this and it works, awesome,,,,
 

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#18 ·
I did not look at the firewall for mounting, but a 1/8 inch plate on the outside would facilitate mounting the wiper motor to the firewall.

On my 454 conversion, the wiper motor misses the valve cover by about 1/4 inch, but I did adjust the cowl about 1 1/2 inches to allow the valve cover to be removed.
 
#20 ·
RatSSled,

The two options suggested here differ in ,
One has been done,
One was a shoot from the hip, not been done, idea.
Take a good look at your firewall, do you see how you could rotate the motor 25-30 degrees counterclockwise?
Add to that, you would loose 30% of the park stroke.
If someone has successfully done this,,,, please,,,, lets see it.

Engine in, while ours differ in fat block vs ls,
mine was done engine in.
 
#21 ·
RatSSled,

The two options suggested here differ in ,
One has been done,
One was a shoot from the hip, not been done, idea.
Take a good look at your firewall, do you see how you could rotate the motor 25-30 degrees counterclockwise?
Add to that, you would loose 30% of the park stroke.
If someone has successfully done this,,,, please,,,, lets see it.

Engine in, while ours differ in fat block vs ls,
mine was done engine in.
You would not lose anything if you modify the arm. It is a matter of mechanics. The motor will still do the same motion, the output is changed to compensate for the change of position. There is no need to change anything unless you want more clearance above the valve cover, as wiper motor clears the valve cover without modification. It is just close, and you must remove the wiper motor to remove the valve cover. Either way it seems like a good bit of work for minimal results.
 
#22 · (Edited)
The parking motion is , shaft cams over in the gear moving the shaft sideways .

EDIT This motor type does not reverse into park as some others do but the sideways parking of the lever is the same.
I was envisioning the different type but with same result

If you rotate the wiper motor 30 degrees,
The parking motion will move the arm end upwards at a 30 degree angle reducing the actual sideways movement.
Where the arm is located does not change this.
Stock, the arm stops near level, then shifts sideways .
Your way, after repositioning the arm,
The arm will stop level but the parking action will move the stationary arm up at a 30 degree angle.
Because of this, the parking action will be reduced by about a 1/3.
I base this on,
If you turned the motor 90 degrees, there would be zero parking action.
30 degrees would be a third of that.

If you go and actualy do what you are proposing Fred and it works with no loss of parking function, along with adressing the shape of the firewall preventing you from rotating the motor without major modification, I will retract my statement that it will not work correctly.

I studied this all and actually tried rotating, and repositioning be I relocated my wiper motor.
Yours is currently in the stock position, right Fred?
 
#24 ·
I have not looked at the back for any linear motion. I did not note that the arm moved in a straight line at any point, I assumed that the the arm just rotated further on the shaft, and the parking motion was just an additional rotation beyond the arc it takes to make the blades move across the windshield. I will check the motion out to see if it has linear motion. I did not have to deal with any adjustments, because mine is still in the original position.
 
#27 ·
If symmetry is not an issue, I guess you could rotate it a tiny bit as you move to the passenger side as the hump above the motor mounting would start to clear.
I GUESS you could maybe gain a smidge of clearance without killing the park stroke.
This is a guess , BECAUSE I HAVE NOT ROTATED MINE.
 
#28 ·
How did you locate the new bolt holes, which are all on different lateral lines, so that it kept the same vertical alignment?
It looks like mine came out a little lower, or is tilted down to the left, because my left most bolt is slightly lower and into the previous access hole.

192587


How I did it (line was level)...
192588
 
#29 ·
Ah ha, I know why it's slightly off level. The car is slightly off level due to the slope of the garage floor.
So the new location is slightly lower. But I can fix it when I weld the blind nuts to the back side.
 
#30 ·
Yeah, I scribed arcs ,triangulating off the other holes once had the first.

If you look at the cowl inside picture, you will see a threaded flat bar going across the two passenger side bolt holes.
These gives the panel a little beef and much easyier than trying to weld a nut on the inside.

No comment on the video Fred ??
 
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