<VV> Re: Wipers, was: English> hardtop thread

[Alan and Clare Wesson]

Mark wrote:

> My dad once had a '54 Chevy with the standard stovebolt 6, powerslide, and 
> vacuum wipers. Talk about a deadly combination! It was the kind of car 
> that you had to stand on the gas to pull away from the curb.

I had a lovely 32000-mile 51 chev that was exactly the same! I didn't find 
the performance bad, but then I was brought up on a diet of 30 bhp, so 
perhaps anything seemed powerful to me! As you say, the wipers stopped dead 
if you touched the throttle (luckily mine was so nice I tried never to take 
it out in the rain, although it was the ONLY classic car I have ever owned 
that didn't leak!). At least the English Ford had a vacuum reserve tank 
which gave you a bit of time (a few seconds) before they died, when you hit 
the gas!

> BTW VW's ran the wipers off the spare tire air pressure. Bazzare!

It was the washers, not the wipers! And it's not as weird as the Citroen 2CV 
(wipers worked off the speedo drive) or the Vauxhall Velox (wipers worked 
off the camshaft) - although at least with both of those the wipers speed up 
as you do. The big drawback with vacuum ones is that they slow down as you 
speed up...

Cheers

Alan