Farmall Cub

I used to time my engine with a vacuum gauge..

by Arizona Mike » Wed Sep 14, 2005 12:01 am

I didn't have the gauge Eugene, but used my wipers to teach me when the engine sound had enough vacuum

i was thinking the same thing. for those of you not old enough to have experienced this, some Fords in the early 60's had vaccuum wipers. that is to say that they operated fine when going downhill, uphill...not so much! if you floored it to get up the hill, the wipers simply stopped.

artc wrote:

by Arizona Mike » Wed Sep 14, 2005 12:01 am

I didn't have the gauge Eugene, but used my wipers to teach me when the engine sound had enough vacuum

i was thinking the same thing. for those of you not old enough to have experienced this, some Fords in the early 60's had vaccuum wipers. that is to say that they operated fine when going downhill, uphill...not so much! if you floored it to get up the hill, the wipers simply stopped.

and a 6 cyl Ford was worst of all

artc wrote:

by Arizona Mike » Wed Sep 14, 2005 12:01 am

I didn't have the gauge Eugene, but used my wipers to teach me when the engine sound had enough vacuum

i was thinking the same thing. for those of you not old enough to have experienced this, some Fords in the early 60's had vaccuum wipers. that is to say that they operated fine when going downhill, uphill...not so much! if you floored it to get up the hill, the wipers simply stopped.

I remember that on my '57 Pontiac.

By 57 most of the GMs had electric wipers on the upper grades even the Chevys

Not this one. I think my '58 Pontiac did, though.

'66 IH Scout! Vacuum wipers and an anemic defroster made it a challenge, especially in an ice storm.

I had a 61 Rambler that had vacuum wipers and a push button transmission.
I sure dont want that one back.

My '58 Cadillac had vacuum wipers controlled by a sliding switch let you choose any speed you wanted between off and faster than you can imagine. Sliding that control to the fastest speed restricted the wipers to about 1/3 of the normal wiping action, which made fast really fast. Whenever I pushed the go pedal farther than necessary, it allowed two more wipes across the windshield until they stopped dead on the curved edge of the wrap-around windshield (unless I slid that switch to fastest beforehand) and they didn't move again until I snapped the throttle shut. Couldn't roll down the window and give the wiper a nudge, my arm wasn't long enough to reach it.

I had a '63 Rambler American with vacuum wipers that didn't work. I packed it with Vasoline so they worked just long enough to pass state inspection. Then I salvaged an electric unit from the junkyard. Electric wipers were optional, as were washers and back up lights and radio and cigarette lighter and passenger side sun visor and outside mirror and OHV engine. It must have been the cheapest Rambler off the assembly line, I think the only option it had was the heater.

We're kind of spoiled these days, most cars have automatic tranny and AC and power windows and power locks and power steering and power brakes as standard equipment. Even the cheapest car these days is better equipped than my old Caddy but they don't have any pizzaz or personality.

Not all vacuum wipers were that way, you just needed a double action fuel pump. Route the vacuum hose through the fuel pump and the wipers never stop as long as the motor is running no matter what throttle position. My old 53 chevy pick-up would push snow off a windshield.

It is interesting how hardheaded the engineers were on the vacuum driven principle over the years. The first car I drove as a kid around the farm was a Model A Ford and it had an electric motor driven wiper blade. No switch mind you and no mechanical linkage, the driver had to physically connect two wires together to turn the motor on. The entire mechanism (motor and wiper) was located at the top of the windshield on the driver's side. The passenger side had no wiper. Since the motor was right in front of the driver and a little noisy, it may have been the reason why Ford switched to vacuum with all the others. As discussed here, the engineers tried all sorts of different methods to make the vacuum principle work before they settled on the electic motor.

I think they kept vacuum motors because they were considerably cheaper than electric motors.

The dual diaphragm fuel pumps could cause mysterious oil burning if the vacuum booster diaphragm developed a leak. The engine vacuum line to the intake manifold from the pump delivered oil from the crankcase to the manifold. My 1952 Chevy suddenly started burning a quart of oil every 28 miles. No mosquito fogger ever matched that smoke! The car was still running well.

My cousin has a 58 Ford that he rigged up somehow to inject oil into the exhaust, I think, just to make a cloud of smoke. He did it in front of one of the local police officers and he was pulled over. he couldn't write a ticket as by the time he hitched up his pants and walked up with his ticket book the exhaust was back to normal....

Thanks for starting this Donny, very helpful!

I had forgotten all the things you could figure out by looking at engine vacuum, and I'm betting this will be helpful in diagnosing what's going on with Jason's engine on Pappy. Last night Kodiak and Jason rebuilt Pappy's carb, but when we went home and installed it, the engine still idled great, but when he moved the throttle up, it started sputtering and losing power just like before.

My first two guesses?

1. Leaking exhaust manifold gaskets causing weakened vacuum for the nicely rebuilt updraft carb;

2. Some soot or rust or something stuck in a valve seat, causing one cylinder not to draw in fuel or fire under power. The problem started right after we unscrewed the vertical stack out of the exhaust manifold, and I'm wondering if this could have dropped some chunk of crud into the valve seat..

What do you guys think? I think Jason and I will be pullng that little plug off the exhaust manifold to start finding out!

As always, ideas welcome!

Corky