NS F355 Project (Page 33/73)
Bloozberry NOV 02, 08:02 PM
It's been over 2 weeks! Surely there must be some progress to report.
Yarmouth Fiero NOV 03, 07:00 PM
Sadly, progress has been slow the last few weeks. Between traveling for work meetings and a 6 day work week, all I have time for is day dreaming and scribbling down design ideas during lunch. Plus, I had to unexpectedly install a new furnace in the house this week. That was $5000 directly out of my engine fund

On a positive note, I have a rough design for the wiper mechanism. Unfortunately, the passenger side of the Fiero dash structure is subdivided from the rest of the HVAC air box so there is going to be a little more metal to remove to allow the linkage to pass through to the new passenger side wiper pivot.

Once I have the 3D model of the mechanism finished, I'll post my design. Thanks for standing by.
whadeduck NOV 03, 09:22 PM

quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:

It's been over 2 weeks! Surely there must be some progress to report.



I too wish to see some progress and stop calling him Shirley.

------------------
Whade' "Darkwing" Duck
Fieroless (11/18/12)

[This message has been edited by whadeduck (edited 11-03-2013).]

exoticse NOV 05, 08:31 AM

quote
Originally posted by Yarmouth Fiero:

Sadly, progress has been slow the last few weeks. Between traveling for work meetings and a 6 day work week, all I have time for is day dreaming and scribbling down design ideas during lunch. Plus, I had to unexpectedly install a new furnace in the house this week. That was $5000 directly out of my engine fund

On a positive note, I have a rough design for the wiper mechanism. Unfortunately, the passenger side of the Fiero dash structure is subdivided from the rest of the HVAC air box so there is going to be a little more metal to remove to allow the linkage to pass through to the new passenger side wiper pivot.

Once I have the 3D model of the mechanism finished, I'll post my design. Thanks for standing by.



How dare life get in the way of our fun !

I know your pain, i had to drop $5k of my fun money on a very similar situation to yours a couple of weeks back.

It was frustrating but necessary.
Yarmouth Fiero NOV 05, 10:15 AM
And after all that...... my garage is still not heated.
Yarmouth Fiero NOV 09, 06:00 AM
I finally got to sit down and finish my first draft of the wiper mechanism. As noted earlier in the thread, I am using an extended windshield on this build which will essentially cover the existing Fiero wipers. Thus, they have to be moved to a new loaction. Basically the drivers side wiper pivot will move directly forward a few inches and the passenger side wiper pivot will move forward and to the right to mirror the drivers side. This means that the wipers will be required to pivot towards each other ( a-la-mini van style). This also means that the passenger side wiper will have to move in reverse direction as apposed to the stock Fiero. To accomplish this, I redesigned the linkage so that there is an intermediate pivot arm located where the stock passenger wiper pivot was located. This additional pivot gave me the desired direction change.

Here are a few screen shots from different angles. Note the wiper mechanism currently is shown in mid sweep position for clarity of the drawings.









My plan for fabrication is to reuse the stock Fiero wiper pivots and rework the pivot arm shapes. The stock linkages have ball joints that are rivited to the linkages and so are not suitable for reuse. I've sourced some nice little ball pivot joints that allow for up to 37 deg of misalignment, are stainless steel and have little rubber dust boots. For the linkages, I've got some 3/8" x 0.049" wall stainless tubing that is plenty stiff and matches the ball pivot joints perfectly. While the drawings show the basic design, there are a number of things that still have to be worked out. First, I've drawn the mechanism in essentially a horizontal plane, however, in reality the front cowl area of the Fiero is anything but flat. Also, I have to mock up the linkages in the car and check for clearances for the moving linkages. Again, that front cowl area is a minefield of odd shapes and compartments. The hardest will be the passenger side as there appears to be more sheet metal ducting related to the hvac system I suspect.

I'll update again once I have the linkages mocked up similar to the drawings.

After previewing the update I see that the pivots are not that easy to see so I'll add a couple close up shots of them.



Bloozberry NOV 09, 07:45 AM
Love the 3D drawings! I'll bet those pivots are lawn tractor steering tie rod ends...
Yarmouth Fiero NOV 09, 07:50 AM
Not sure. I only have a push mower...ha-ha.

But I do have enough for two cars
Yarmouth Fiero NOV 09, 08:06 AM
They are pretty small. McMaster Carr PT # 6058K36
Yarmouth Fiero NOV 11, 08:03 AM
Here is the new wiper mechanism located in relation to the extended windshield. I still have to finalize the shape and orientation of the pivot lever arms to prevent binding and interference with the front cowl structure.