LocostUSA.com

Okay - I cut the cable! First, I cleaned off as much grease as I could with a wire brush & solvent, then I wrapped the cable - tight - in masking tape. I used a zip disc on my angry grinder to cut it...not much to that.

The good news is that it didn't..."sproinnnng!". Actually, nothing at all happened, a huge surprise to me, given my proclivity to have weird things happen all the time.

Still, I wanted to be sure it would stay un-sproinged. So, as per my plan, I used my Miller MIG machine to make a teensy, tiny weld on the end, joining the outer spiral to the steel core, and...it worked!! I used a fine sanding disc on one of my die grinders to buff the sharp points off it & give it a bit of a conical profile, then tried feeding the cable through a spare wheelbox. Slid through there with zero effort. It's nice when a plan comes together...did I mention that I LOVE my Miller MIG?!?

Many thanks to all those who chimed in with sage advice!!! Your assistance is MOST appreciated!!

A couple of pics...(pardon the grimy weather-beaten hands). Sorry about the cheesy cell phone pics, but...it's what I had at the time.

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Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

Congrats on your successful effort!

_________________
Mike - Read my story at http://twinlakesseven.blogspot.com/

That'll work

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Chuck.

“Any suspension will work if you don’t let it.” - Colin Chapman

Visit my ongoing MGB Rustoration log: over HERE

Or my Wankel powered Locost log : over HERE

And don't forget my Cushman Truckster resto Locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=17766

Nicely done Mike. The extra effort with the MIG bead is well worth it in peace of mind.
As J
D would say 'Good on ya!'

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Larry in Seattle

Thanks! I suspect the MIG weld was unnecessary, but it's definitely worth the peace of mind for all the 2-3 minutes it took to accomplish. I mounted my wheelboxes (made little 20-gauge shelves, welded to the front hoop of the scuttle, as I was worried that the torque of the wiper system might tax the structural integrity of the thin aluminum skin), and tried operating the wipers. It's a bit awkward, as there's no glass in the windshield frame yet, but it did illuminate that, despite all my exhaustive calculations beforehand, I'd mounted the driver's side support box 2" too far to the left. Of course, I'd welded it in securely...

Turns out, I have a 110*-sweep gear in the wiper motor, and I only have 80* available on the driver's side (as the windshield frame leans inward at the sides), so it was necessary to move the box over far enough for the wiper to sweep without the blade hitting the frame

It also turns out that I'd shortened my wiper arms about 1" too much to suit the revised locations of the wheelboxes. Thankfully, I had a spare pair (from England) to modify. Not as nice as the ones I'd over-shortened, but acceptable for the time being. Of course, with the reduced lean-back angle of the windshield (compared to the MGB the wiper system came from), the little chrome angled ferrules were waaaay off the correct angle, so the wipers were almost on their sides at the park position. Ideally, the wiper arm shafts should present at 90* to the windshield...and with the chrome ferrules, it was only 50*-60*. The ferrules needed to lay much flatter (and so, had to be much longer, with a finer angle). I had to turn new ones (well, one long one, cut in half diagonally to make two) on the lathe out of 1" aluminum, then diagonal cut the piece on my little wood-cutting bandsaw, and then file/sand the angled surfaces. I got it up to 80* for the arm-to-glass angle, but that's as far as it's possible to go, due to the size of the mechanism on the back of each wheelbox. I'm using the longest-shaft wheelboxes you can find, so as to get as much lay-down angle as possible without the back plates of the wheelboxes hitting the skin from underneath.

It's amazing how complex & time consuming some of these little details can turn out to be.

Now, to mount the motor on the horizontal scuttle shelf, calculate where on the vertical panel the cable guide tube will go through, and make a hole for it. I want the guide tube to be reasonably secure, yet not touch the aluminum panel itself, as I figure it would rattle and buzz. Thankfully, I'm an inveterate scrounger/packrat, and amongst my collection of junk I've found on the side of the road, I have a thick body plug with a hole in it that will do the job nicely.

The fact that I have to remove all this stuff for frame paint & inspection, then re-install it all, is daunting... My long-term goal is to (hopefully) have the car to a complete bolt-together collection after paint, with not a single fabrication left undone, so all I have to do is assemble it, skin it, get it inspected, and drive it.

Wish me luck...

_________________
Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

Good to see!

Cheers,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

Nice work and yeah, getting the wipers to work right is tedious work. You covered just about everything to cover on the wipers. Except...... the angle sweep of the wipers can be changed by swapping out the wheel in the wiper motor. or you can modify it by drilling and pinning for less angle. I don't remember too much about it and don't have any pictures to jog my memory. For the chrome ferrules, I found that plastic electrical conduit cheap, was the right size, and easy to work with soooo......

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Chuck.

“Any suspension will work if you don’t let it.” - Colin Chapman

Visit my ongoing MGB Rustoration log: over HERE

Or my Wankel powered Locost log : over HERE

And don't forget my Cushman Truckster resto Locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=17766

Yeah, I did think about ordering a new drive gear for it...problem is, I need the full 110* sweep for the passenger's side! It's never easy, is it?

In retrospect, I probably should have gone for the conduit, buuuut - I had this really nice aluminum, and it polishes up soooo nice, and a little extra bling never hurt anyone, so...

I've done that in a bunch of places on the car now. The 14 gauge aluminum vertical & horizontal firewall scuttle panels got scratched up around the periphery while I was cutting them out of the sheet (jigsaw turned out to have a burr on the steel foot ), so I had to sand & polish the scratches out. By the time I was done, I ended up with pretty much a mirror polish, on both of those panels. That's a whole lotta bling, right there!! So, now, whenever the opportunity presents itself, I'm "blingin' the bits". I actually kinda like it!

I've got to post a couple of pics -

_________________
Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

Re-reading your post from Friday morning, Chuck's response, and now this post, I hope you do post some photos of your work (& rework). My plan was to use the same cable wiper set all of you have, which is an early MGB unit. There's more to it than I expected, honestly.

When looking around for some removable scuttle ideas, I bumped into a build log at the UK builders site that uses a similar, but visually different system, given only as "a Lucas wiper system." It looked similar mechanically, but the little wheelhouse pieces appear to adjust somewhat in terms of position on the rigid tube. Perhaps there are alternatives to the MGB units if they are hard to adjust?.

Some time back I had an idea to look for a windshield mounted wiper setup similar to the old Model A/Model T system (not that I'm old enough to have ever seen one, little own work on one ). The wiper motor is exposed and has the switch on it. The wiper shaft can go through the window frame above the glass, or clamp over it, like so:


I've actually worked on cars belonging to my high school friends that had an arm that connected to a wiper blade on the passenger side. So, the motor drove both blades. I've seen electric and vacuum versions of these. They were dealer-installed options way back when, I believe.

Also, I wonder if you could get away with these? I'm not planning to drive mine in the rain, but I may have to have wipers as basic equipment. I'll check my Highway Patrol docs to see.

Cheers,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

While the majority of folks here are far more talented than I, I suspect it will still be an advantage to newcomers to see how my wiper system ended up (even if it only serves as an example of how to avoid all the mistakes I made along the way!!), so I will post a few pictures once I get home from work. *Sigh* - the trials & tribulations of a long retired guy with an ex-wife who still makes him her meal ticket...on the "good news" side of the ledger, my second wife (the one I should have married originally) says I'm on the "Freedom 92" plan...meaning I can actually retire, for real, when I'm 92 years old.

Woohoo!! Only another 29 years to work!! Then, I can finally realize my goals of taking up skydiving, parasailing and parcours!!

_________________
Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

Well, here are a few pics of my wiper system to date. Without the glass, testing the wiper sweep is a matter of running the system an inch at a time & checking the range, etc., but all seems to be good at the moment.

My rubber pass-through for the wiper cable housing didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, as the angle of the tube through the vertical scuttle panel is pretty acute. In the pics, I've removed it. I figure on using a firewall plug from some other car (the ones used to pass wiring, clutch cables, etc. through the firewall)...I foresee another scrounge session at my local wrecker in my future.

The scuttle panels, wiper motor support, wiper arm ferrules are mirror polished, I assure you! 'Course, after handling them all while manhandling a greasy wiper inner cable, they're all covered in grime, so you wouldn't know it...they're shiny under all that grime, I swear it!

Anyway, hopefully this will give an idea of what I've done. 'Course, I still have to add the washer system, although that should be a doddle (we'll see about that!) as there's no fabrication to be done - just drill for the nozzles, bolt the bottle into place, and run wires to the switch...

_________________
Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

Your work sure looks good, Mike. I'll come back to that below.

I recently bought a rubber grommet kit (actually 2 of them) from Amazon. I'll pass on a search that should get you a decent list below. I bought one kit that has holes, but seals things going through it, like fuel lines. I also bought one that has just blank plugs. In part to cover things like drain holes in the transmission tunnel, but also, so I could cut slits or make holes for odd items. Perhaps a blank plug with the right slit or "cross" in it would work for your wiper tube? These kits are pretty cheap, like 10-11 bucks, USD. Here's a search that should get you a bunch of them:

Grommet kits ==> https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_s ... J84M4FY7VX

Your wiper system looks top notch. The same is true of your nice bolts and countersunk screws on the firewall shelf and the windshield frame. I'd definitely be interested in taking a look at those in detail. I'll check your referenced "outside" build log.

What process did you use for the countersunk screws around that "hatch" shown at the right of the photos, about half way on your firewall shelf?

Cheers,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

Thanks, Lonnie! The little hatch on the shelf opens to give access to the fuse panel. There's a steel box under the hatch, and I made a spring-loaded finger-push latch so the door can be hinged open for access. The screws around the hatch door are actually countersunk 1/8" rivets. With careful use of a good countersink on the holes, they can end up really flush & smooth - I like the "finished" look it gives.

The countersunk screws holding the shelf itself down are 1/4"X20 stainless Allen-head screws. There are steel tabs beneath, welded to the frame. It's tricky getting all those things to line up precisely, as there's zero room for error. It looks nice when it's done though, and I really wanted a smooth, flat shelf. I have NO idea why I wanted it, but I did. The vertical firewall, on the other hand, is attached with stainless 1/4"X20 button-head screws, as smooth & flush doesn't matter there.

I definitely need to update my build log - I've done a fair bit since my last update, although most of it is detail stuff.

Thanks for the Amazon info! I'm going to do some searching for plugs etc.!

_________________
Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

You did good to install the wipers with the scuttle still apart. I waited until my car was built and never did finish getting them in. I cut the gear cable without any problems, and got the spindles in, but I doubt I could install the motor and thread it through the gear boxes now without taking the dashboard apart. And even then I wouldn't be sure it would fit.

Wipers are a nice-to-have item, particularly on foggy mornings when the windshield starts to mist up.

Here, they're mandatory if you have a windshield which, in the "Pacific NorthWet", is pretty much a must. It doesn't matter how nice the weather is, it can change to miserable in a heartbeat. The old expression hereabouts is "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute...". 'Course, if you have a windshield, heaters & defrosters are ALSO mandatory, which adds a whole new level of crowded behind the dashboard!! BTW, electric heater/defrosters are prohibited - they MUST be part of the liquid cooling system if the engine is liquid cooled. Too bad - that would have made it easy!!

Here's a closer look at the hatch & finger lift door (pre-polishing...)

The hatch itself:


and the spring-loaded finger lift "in action" (allows the fuse panel door to be lifted up on its hinge, and the door etc. remains flush when the finger lift is allowed to close). BTW - the flat metal spring that closes the finger lift is made from a piece of leftover metal strapping from a stack of lumber. The stuff is great for making flat metal springs - it's blued, it has a nice spring temper, it's easily shaped, and...it's FREE!!



As I don't have a mill, making the little finger lift door was...fun. I cut the piece from 1/4" aluminum, larger than the opening, and cut all the way around the periphery with a hacksaw to the depth that would give the correct size to fit the hole. In essence, this left two lips. Then I used the hacksaw to remove one of the lips, and a bunch of file work to get it all to the right thickness, so the door would be flush with the top of the hatch. Phew...that was a bunch of work!

_________________
Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/