My 1960 Rambler had a dash mounted wiper knob but the manual washer pump was a small pedal on the floor.
@sgtrock21 My 1965 Rambler was like your 1960 Rambler with its manually operated floor pedal windshield washer. The system made sense to me— very little to go wrong. I owned cars that didn’t come with a windshield washer. I ordered a kit from J.C. Whitney which consisted of the nozzles, the rubber tubes, a reservoir and a dome shaped rubber pump that mounted on the floorboard. The pump had a check valve. Stepping on the dome forced the water through the nozzles onto the windshield. Releasing the dome sucked water from the reservoir for the next wash.
My 1978 Olds had the pump built into the wiper motor. The pump failed but the wipers still worked. I bought a universal replacement pump that that mounted in the line from the reservoir to the nozzles. What I didn’t realize was that the switch completed the circuit to ground. When I hooked it up, it immediately started pumping fluid from the reservoir. If I held the switch in, it quit pumping. This made it inconvenient to drive the car with one hand holding the switch in unless I needed to wash the windshield. I had to study the wiring diagram in the service manual to connect the pump so it worked properly. My guess is that the windshield washer on today’s cars is probably controlled by a body control module that not only triggers the washer pump but sends a signal to an onboard data collector that keeps a record of the number of times the windshield was washed. I think the simple manual floor mounted pump that Rambler used was a much better method.
Those cars you mention are some of the biggest volume sellers. It’s true that a consumer can’t get a manual in every single car on the market, but if they prefer the same type of car as most people do, based on the number of those types sold, then there’s a good chance there’s a manual transmission option. And if a consumer prefers fancy performance and specialty vehicles, there’s plenty of those with manual transmissions too. Here’s 20 of those that Popular Mechanics likes, from a March 2017 article.
My current truck has that style of headlight dimmer.
I agree the manual windshield washer pump was simple, cheap, and worked. Vacuum wipers… not so much. When accelerating in heavy rain and you really needed them they would of course nearly quit. Regarding the floor mounted lights dimmer switch I don’t recall having to replace one in my 40 or so vehicles. If I did it would be a $2 part, 2 screws, and 2 wire connections. Now it would require removing the steering wheel which probably contains an airbag. Not DYI for me! The replacement switch costs about $50. I embrace most of the modern technology but would love to see the return of the foot operated dimmer switch. For a M/T driver like me and even A/T drivers it can be a safety issue. During the Winter I frequently drive a curvy 2 lane road in the dark. Normally I can stay in third gear so my left foot is just resting on the dead pedal. My right hand is gripping the steering wheel while my left thumb is on the wheel with my fingers on the dimmer lever ready for oncoming traffic. I always drive this road with brights on due to the infestation of ‘road rats’ (deer). A floor mounted dimmer switch would allow me to keep both hands firmly grasping the steering wheel. Sometimes I grow tired of things that ain’t broke being fixed.
@sgtrock21. With regard to vacuum wipers, many cars had a vacuum booster section on the fuel pump. This kept the wipers up to speed on hard acceleration. However, it seems to me this was more complicated than electric wipers. My 1950 Chevrolet pickup and the school buses I rode had vacuum wipers and no booster section on the fuel pump. These wipers only seemed to work when one released the accelerator and the throttle plate was closed. This seems to me to be a serious safety issue for a school bus.
I was remembering my 1949 Chevrolet pickup. Hard acceleration? Only if you define “hard” as difficult. LOL
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It was also a serious safety issue on the cars that had vacuum-operated wipers w/o a booster!
I can still recall riding–at night–in my brother’s '54 Ford on NY’s old and treacherous Storm King Highway during a torrential rain storm. There was enough of an upgrade on that road to keep the throttle plate open almost continuously, with the result that we were driving virtually blind on a narrow, twisting road with no shoulder!
My dad had a 1940 Chrysler and it had electric wipers. Yet, I had a 1968 AMC Javelin and it has vacuum wipers. If Chrysler had adopted electric wipers before WW II, it amazes me that more than 25 years later some manufacturers still used vacuum wipers. It seems to me that an electric wiper motor would cost no more than a vacuum motor with the more complicated fuel pump with the vacuum booster section.
From the Brain Fart Division of the Common Sense Answer Department:
Does anybody else remember the dark ages before pre-mixed windshield washer fluid? Our family had a Chevy that had metal clips under the hood that held a 3-sided glass (pint or quart size?) bottle of washer antifreeze/cleaner concentrate that one was to add to an amount of water poured into a washer “bladder” bag under the hood.
CSA
I remember mixing the fluid. My 1960 Rambler also had the bag reservoir.
I’m too young to have seen those, but I have bought windshield washer fluid in concentrate, back in the 1990s. I think it was a Rain-X brand product.
…and you can still buy it in concentrate if that’s your thing:
Qoogle search results for “windshield washer fluid concentrate”
I remember it well!
Our '66 Ford Galaxie 500 also had a bladder/bag under the hood for WW fluid, and on a very bad day following the application of road salt, it was possible to exhaust the entire contents of that small bladder/bag w/in about 1 hour of highway driving! I believe that only GM cars had the provision for those glass bottles of WW fluid concentrate, but it seems that all cars of that era had pathetically small reservoirs for their WW fluid.
I also remember that, by the late '60s, the vast majority of cars whose hood I opened when I was a gas jockey had an open WW fluid tank that was dry, and that frequently contained dry leaves and other debris.
Really hard to believe…reference?
@insightful. I don’t have a.refetence. The 1968 Javelin is long gone. I had the 1968 Javelin and a 1965 Rambler Classic 550 at the same time. Both cars had vacuum wipers and the vacuum motors on both cars failed in the same week. I went to the AMC dealer and bought the vacuum motor for the Classic 550. I had it installed for a day and the wiper motor failed on the Javelin. I went back to the dealer and he had a couple on order. He said that they had sold the last they had in stock 2 days earlier. I was the customer who had purchased the dealer’s last unit.
I had the lowest trim line in the Classic and Javelin. The higher trim lines had electric wipers. Over at Chrysler corp. the same thing was true in the 1940s. My dad had the low trim line 1947 Dodge. It had vacuum wipers. The upper trimline 1947 Dodge had electric wipers. My dad had a lower trimline 1949 Dodge Meadowbrook had vacuum wipers. The upper trimline Coronet had electric wipers.
Talk about planned obsolescence…
All you need to do is find a vacuum wiper motor for sale for this car…I couldn’t.
;-]
For @Triedaq
1968 AMC JAVELIN WINDSHIELD WIPER SWITCH VACUUM STYLE
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/253132854016?chn=ps&dispItem=1
@Barkydog Thanks for the reference, although I don’t think I’ll need a vacuum wiper switch for the Javelin as I sold the car 41 years ago. It was a good car. It was the lowest trim line and had a 6 cylinder engine. It was definitely not a muscle car, but it handled well for the time period. I liked the styling better than either the Mustang or Camaro.
Just helping out a bud showing the vacuum wipers existed. @Triedaq as you had stated, no more no less. ie reply for @insightful "All you need to do is find a vacuum wiper motor for sale for this car…I couldn’t."
DUH