Packard Forum Index » Project Blogs

This guy rebuilds vacuum wiper motors and it's reasonably priced. He doesn't sell rebuild kits. He rebuilt mine works great. Make sure, if you have one, that your double-acting fuel pump is working and the vacuum side is plumbed correctly.

Ficken Wiper Service

Agree on Ficken as it is about the only game in town. If your car is stock you will not have the aux vacuum section on the fuel pump but an aux pump driven by the oil pump in the crankcase. If you have the Olds or PI pump conversions the aux pump will be removed and then you might want to consider changing the fuel pump to one with a vacuum section. Add new metal tubing to plumb it in series just as the 54 and earlier cars were done. Make sure the balance valve and old tubing to crankcase pump is removed or if you want to keep the stock look and windshield washer original, plug the old aux pump port on the valve before connecting the rubber hose to the original tubing. With either pump you might change all the rubber hoses along with the motor rebuild.

On the carb kit Daytona Parts supplies a good kit many of us have bought and generic 4GC kits are also available from our vendors.

Thanks for the info guys. It has an Olds oil pump, and the fuel pump is there but not hooked up (electric in tank). Was talking to Ross and he thought wipers would run fine off the engine vacuum.

I'll have to check in the hose situation. The engine is not original to the car, olds conversion too, plus it has electric wipers now, so who knows what was done or not.

Quote:

I expect it will too. The only reason for the aux pump is to provide a bit of a safety margin when engine vacuum quits. The aux pump provides vacuum but at a much lower volume which is only sufficient to keep the motor slowly moving. Doubt you would be running the car at full throttle or have it under a heavy load very often and that would be about the only time the aux pump would take over.

Since your original pump is gone, if you still have the balance valve and line entering the block port do make sure that any remaining plumbing to the old pump is well capped so you do not have a hidden leak. The selection feature of the balance valve and the second check valve just before the line connects to the block port cannot be relied upon to prevent a leak.

It looks like some stuff was capped off back there. Again I really don't know, but when I pull off the carb I'll take pics and we can figure it out

I drive this car like a grandma, I don't think I've had the pedal more than 1/2way down.

You clearly didn’t know my grandma!

Last time I had my car in the shop they said there was too much slack in the e-brake cable to adjust it properly. What can I do to tighten or replace the e-brake cable so that my e-brake will work properly?

If the cables are really stretched which is sort of questionable and cannot be adjusted following the procedure and suggestions Ross made some time back, the proper fix would be new cables. Our vendors may have NOS or there are places that will custom make them.

For a short term repair there is an old shade tree fix using cable shortening devices to take up slack. Here is a photo of the most common type but there are other styles that may work as well or better depending on where or on which cable has the issue. Amazon has some of the various types.

Attach file:

---

  shortener.jpg (29.96 KB)

Ross Miller has video on adjusting brakes including the emergency brake watch it and I would get another mechanic Emergency brake part about eighteen minutes in to video
youtube.com/watch?v=T1Zc3aW18Z4

















action=click

According to Ross the parking brake cables won't stretch. Go through the procedure he outlined in the video and see how it does.

-Kevin