My speedway wiper kit arrived, so I went to the shed and got to work. Most of these universal wipers have a 110 degree sweep. By making a template out of cardboard and playing with different sweep angles I had determined that 110 degrees would make for a difficult install on the driver side, and impossible on the passenger side (the sweeps on the 2 Fargo wipers are different from each other), but 90 degrees would be quite good. This led me to order the Speedway 90 degree wiper kit. I figured out how to mount both sides, fabbed up brackets, took lots of pics and then did a test. During the test, I lifted the arm so that the blade was above the glass (just in case something went wrong). It’s a good thing I did that. It was obvious that the sweep would have my blade smashing into the frame around the glass…….I stopped and reinstalled a cardboard template to see what was going on, and much to my surprise it turns out that the 90 degree wiper motor I bought provides a sweep of 110 degrees. Needless to say, I was perturbed. I fired off an email to the vendor (and they responded quickly and were good about it). I then started to hunt for a replacement motor that has a 90 degree sweep and a long enough shaft to work on the Fargo. The hunt is still on, and as I go through the various online universal wiper motors I am amazed at how many don’t provide a sweep angle (which is a rather crucial piece of information).
To cheer myself up, I stomped off to the shed to do something quick and instantly gratifying.
I’d gotten tired of using the top of my skull to hold the hood up while tinkering underneath, so I fabbed up a pair of hood supports:
Next I decided to deal with the spare tire. The S10 mounting system would no longer work as the shortening of the frame would have the spare sticking out the back of the truck. I could have fabbed a mount further forward, but this is supposed to look as much as an original truck as possible, so the solution was simple. The Fargo came with a spare tire mounting bracket attached to the bedside so I just needed to make some simple mods. Here’s the original bracket. It still has the little pin to align the holes with the bolts (yup, bolts rather than studs, and the threads were opposite on the driver and passenger sides):
Making the Chevy wheel fit was just a matter of grinding off the alignment pin and drilling and tapping 3 holes on the Chevrolet bolt pattern. I could then use ½ inch bolts to affix the spare (these have a ¾ inch head, which fits the lug wrench for the S10 wheel nuts):
And here she sits now, with the spare in place:
Hopefully I can sort out the wiper issue soon, and post how to replace the dual vacuum system with a cheap electric alternative.
More to follow!