Last year was my first season with a snowcat and I was surprised by the amount of rain and slop I had to slog through. I guess I naively thought that I'd always be floating across powder covered hills under cloudless blue skies. And all of that is OK, but I ended up using my windshield wipers a *lot* more than I expected. I quickly tired of the very basic wipers that came on the Imp, so one of my planned summer upgrades was a new set of self-parking wiper motors with an intermittent setting and pantographic arms. Summer is now almost gone (OK, it is long gone, but I don't want to sound like too much of a procrastinator), so it is time to get started on the project.
As with any project, my first step was to scour the web for ideas and/or parts. I found that www.vetus.nl/us/index.php makes a series of wiper motors that are the same form-factor as the original Bosch motors. Their model RW08S is self-parking with two speeds and can use pantographic arms, so it is an almost perfect match for what I was looking for. The only thing that was missing is an intermittent controller. I ordered a set of motors, arms, blades, and a switch from www.go2marine.com and it all arrived last week.
Here's the old and new motors -- as you can see they're the same size and shape, with the only real difference being the color and wires. The old motor had an integral on/off switch while the new motor has four pigtails that will connect to the wiper switch.
Installing the new motor was fairly straightforward. You have to punch another hole above the windshield for the second wiper arm and I had to cut down the length of the second wiper arm as it collided with the motor. The most complicated part of the project was setting up the geometry of the blades -- you can adjust the wiping angle (85 to 120 degrees), the length of the arms, and the position of the blade. Eventually I settled on 110 degrees, max arm length, and the upper blade mounting position. This clears the maximum amount of the upper portion of the window.
Here's the new setup. Note -- the new wiper is on the right. When I install the second motor I'll have it park on the right so that both blades will be in the middle when they're not being used. Since both motors will run off a common switch they'll look like they run in sync.
My next task is the wiring. The wiring itself is pretty basic, but I'm going to go ahead and rewire everything in the top of the cab since I'm in the neighborhood (wipers, dome light, beacon, and future spotlight). I spent some time looking at different connector systems and settled on Amp's MATE-N-LOCK line of connectors -- they run from a single wire up to 15. I've ordered a pile of connector housings, pins, and crimp tools as well as wire and expandable sheathing from www.waytekwire.com. I also picked up a couple LED dome lights -- we'll see if they're any better than the stock one. It will be a couple weeks before the parts come in and I'm able to build up a wiring harness for this, but I'll add to this post when I'm finished.
Regards
Ron
As with any project, my first step was to scour the web for ideas and/or parts. I found that www.vetus.nl/us/index.php makes a series of wiper motors that are the same form-factor as the original Bosch motors. Their model RW08S is self-parking with two speeds and can use pantographic arms, so it is an almost perfect match for what I was looking for. The only thing that was missing is an intermittent controller. I ordered a set of motors, arms, blades, and a switch from www.go2marine.com and it all arrived last week.
Here's the old and new motors -- as you can see they're the same size and shape, with the only real difference being the color and wires. The old motor had an integral on/off switch while the new motor has four pigtails that will connect to the wiper switch.
Installing the new motor was fairly straightforward. You have to punch another hole above the windshield for the second wiper arm and I had to cut down the length of the second wiper arm as it collided with the motor. The most complicated part of the project was setting up the geometry of the blades -- you can adjust the wiping angle (85 to 120 degrees), the length of the arms, and the position of the blade. Eventually I settled on 110 degrees, max arm length, and the upper blade mounting position. This clears the maximum amount of the upper portion of the window.
Here's the new setup. Note -- the new wiper is on the right. When I install the second motor I'll have it park on the right so that both blades will be in the middle when they're not being used. Since both motors will run off a common switch they'll look like they run in sync.
My next task is the wiring. The wiring itself is pretty basic, but I'm going to go ahead and rewire everything in the top of the cab since I'm in the neighborhood (wipers, dome light, beacon, and future spotlight). I spent some time looking at different connector systems and settled on Amp's MATE-N-LOCK line of connectors -- they run from a single wire up to 15. I've ordered a pile of connector housings, pins, and crimp tools as well as wire and expandable sheathing from www.waytekwire.com. I also picked up a couple LED dome lights -- we'll see if they're any better than the stock one. It will be a couple weeks before the parts come in and I'm able to build up a wiring harness for this, but I'll add to this post when I'm finished.
Regards
Ron
