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Unless the vacuum leaking and hissing thru that open port is extremely high and the vacuum source is very low the small hoses should not have anything to do with the wipers moving or not. If the motor is not working you may need to look elsewhere for that problem.

All the small hoses do is activate a piston inside the motor to change position of a part that determines the sweep range. With the lever in one position the wipers do a full arc and in the other, a faster motion because of reduced travel but a smaller area directly in front of the driver is all that is wiped. Advertising claimed that reduced arc speed up feature was for use in heavy downpours and I suppose they might have a point because the action is quite fast compared to the regular high speed.

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Yes EXCEPT they are not the same length on the motor end. Just remove the knob (same as all) then the lever (don't lose the spring or special washer) and you will see a panel nut for a 5/8" socket. Unscrew and drop the switch, then swap the hoses. Takes like 2 minutes.

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That's possible, but virtually all the V8 cars use a whip there not a jumper. So this one (rear running lights) should be available.

Though Kevin I believe that you are supposed to attach it to the ACC terminal on the starter switch. Only logical place if they gave you a ring terminal.




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To answer your question here, this is off a factory schematic of the push button system, and then the mating connector as shown on the factory wiring harness. There are no revision notes to indicate its prior absence, but the dwg itself is only from Armistice Day of 1955. I suspect they were shipping 56's before that point. I suspect the headlight switch connector would have been the place before then.

Another clue comes that the manual transmission 56 senior harness (yes really) was drawn up June 23rd; obviously it's missing the Push Button stuff but it's curiously also missing the hand brake light circuit. I would have assumed the manual cars would have had it from the factory, but apparently not.

That pod light power has always been a question so glad to see the preferred inline connector is documented. Wonder if that happened when they changed the early yellow PB control power wire in the main loom coming from ballast resistor to white to eliminate the confusion with the yellow wire from the park button. Around that same time must have been when they also changed the PB actuator harness by running a separate orange power wire all the way from the fender relays to the pressure switch instead of having the pressure switch spliced in the harness to the R/W wire feeding the PBs

Interesting on the whip. I don't recall seeing that configuration -- but the memory is failing. The cars I remember had a single wire to the tail lights and a separate jumper with two connectors to the rheostat which meant both terminals were used.

On the spotlight power, I guess you could connect to the ign sw ACC terminal but the downside is the key would have to be on to use the light which I guess would not be that big a deal. Unlike Packard, I am a firm believer in fuses or breakers on all accessories so if that is the power point chosen I would hope some kind of protection would be added.

Got a few things done today

1.) Pulled the wiper switch and swapped the hoses around.
2.) Changed a few bulbs in the dash in the holes that they would be brighter. I can barely see the turn indicators.
3.) Changed a few burger out bulbs on the outside of the car
4.) got the under seat heater core back from the shop today. They said they couldn't find any leaks when pressure testing it. So they boiled it out and gave it back. Put the heater back together and reconnected everything.
5.) Put the front seat back in and reconnected everything. The seat motors work great. It's nice to have the interior complete again.


6.) Changed out the leaking rear passenger brake cylinder.
7.) Bled the brakes afterwards. I double checked with the previous owner and the whole brake system was previously flushed and changed to DOT 5 fluid. However the fluid is a pale yellow in the car now, and new DOT 5 is purple. You can see the difference in the container. I poured new fluid in the bottle first to prevent air bubbles from going back in through the bleed hose. I read some things that say DOT 5 can change color over time. Has anyone experienced this before?


8.) Adjusted the rear brakes per Ross's technique. Brake pedal is nice and stiff with no feeling of loss of pressure. Still looks to be a slow drip around the master. I think it's between the master and the vacuum cylinder on the BTV.
9.) tightened up a bunch of connections on the exhaust. Several places had obvious signs of leaks. And the whole back half of the driver's side was rattling and flopping around. After repositioning a few things and tightening it all up, it feels nice and solid now (with obvious give at the hangers). Hopefully no more leaks






10.) Radiator shop said both of my rads are bad and need a recore. About $700 to do one. I'll be getting a replacement from PGH in a week or two. In the meantime I kind of want to try patching up the one that looks to be previously recored. Two leaks that I can see on the front. Both easily seen and accessible. The core is copper. I wonder if I can just solder those areas closed, or even use JB Weld? Anyone done this? With a replacement rad coming I didn't really need to try and patch one up, but I'm curious if it can even be done.

"3.) Changed a few burger out bulbs on the outside of the car"

Wow, that car had features I didn't even know about! 🤣

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Lol, I hate posting from my phone. I'm not even sure what I was trying to say there. Maybe I was hungry at the time.

Call In'n'Out and demand they build in your town!

Hi Kevin, what I have heard of being done on some old Jalopies was to bend over those 8 tubes that are bent/leaking. It is not pretty at all, but should work for a week or two untill you get a new radiator...Take some pliers and cut those 8 tubes, then fold/roll them over so they are sealed. It is real "rig this to get me home" automotive art, but since that core is toast anyway, you could seal off those tubes like that.
Oh, and my clipper has dot5 that is purple, and has stayed purple for a good 10 years now. wierd that you got yellow fluid coming out of your wheel cyl. I wonder if there is a litmus test or something you can check the fluid with?

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Thanks Mike. I watched a bunch of videos showing what you were talking about. One of my radiators has a copper core and I think I can just solder the holes in the tubes because they are right on the front and easily accessible. It may or may not work, but I haven't lost anything if it doesn't work. If it does then I've learned a new skill and now have a spare radiator.

The whole brake thing has thrown me for a loop. Previous owner is positive they did DOT 5 when the whole brake system was rebuilt. I'm pretty sure it has not been changed since. The fluid isn't dirty, it just doesn't have the purple color that new DOT 5 has. Maybe it was a different brand? I'll need to go through my paperwork and see when exactly that was done but I believe it was back when he first got the car. Maybe 2009?

There is a chat GPT generated statement which comes up when I do a search for DOT 5 colors on DuckDuckGo. Because of the way it was generated I would take the answer with a grain of salt but if true, that might explain the issue..
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10+ years might be stretching the lifespan but if it is contamination, perhaps there was not a thorough flush of the old fluid or the flushing fluid was incorrect for DOT 5 and some of that mixture or the old fluid wound up in the mix.