Wiper wiring routing

[ZGjethro]

I recently bought four American Bosch wjper motors on Ebay. They look kind of like the cheap chinese wipers advertised for Jeeps but I am hoping they are of higher quality, being of Bosch US production, NOS from when I don't know. I need to run a 16 or 14 gauge wire for each wiper, and am looking for a clean installation. How have you guys with electric wipers routed your wiring? I'd love to use the vacuum line path, but the 90 degree fitting at the window hinge is a problem. Is it possible to remove the exterior part and drill out the hinge to accept a slightly larger diameter steel tubing without compromising the hinge? If I put a vacuum hinge on each side of the vehicle, can the stock hinge be modified to accept one wire?

[Cal_Gary]

ZG, I run electrics-routed one wire following the vacuum tubing path and jumped it from the driver's side terminal post over to the passenger side. My units are self-grounding so just running the positive wire was sufficient. I sweated shrink-wrap around the wire at the 90 degree turn and fed it through, up the inner windshield post and over to the wiper unit. I didn't use tubing but suppose I could have. Is this what you're looking for?
Gary

[ZGjethro]

Did you remove the 90 degree fitting and protect the wire at the 90 juncture with the heat shrink? I need to run two wires since my units are not self parking and have separate controls at the dash. The connecting bolts ground them just fine. I am trying to avoid wires zip tied running down the side of the window. If there is adequate thickness, I'd like to drill out the hinge bolt to about 3/8" and bend a shepard's hook shaped piece of tubing (shape of a question mark) to protect the wire as it enters the 90 degree hinge. Most of the bolts on my truck are painted in place, and the paint flake off and reveals other colors underneath if I mess with them, which is why I am asking about the hinge bolt construction. I don't want to mar the paint to check out the bolt

[Sal]

That's a good idea, Drilling out the windshield hinge bolt. I used shrink tubing on my wire that went through the bolt and used 1/4" vacuum line hose to run through the side of the windshield frame into the cab. I also fused it off with a conventional 5 amp fuse. Because if one of the wires going to the wipers shorted out it would trip the main breaker which is rated at 15 amp I believe and the truck would loose all it electricity, which isn't a good thing while your driving ...

[ZGjethro]

Sal, good idea with the small fusing. I am not sure which circuit I am going to wire the wipers into. I have about four 20 amp circuits running various things which I could tap off of, and each circuit is lightly loaded, so I would probably not tie into the ignition circuit.

I bent the tubing from the window vertical column to the window hinge today. With the shepard's crook bend, it nicely radiuses into the hinge bolt, keeping the ability to fold down the windshield, while hiding and protecting the wires. I drilled the hinge bolt out to accept 5/16" brake line, and I am going to run a 16/2 cable (two jacketed wires) through it to supply positive power to each wiper. I am going to replace the vacuum tubing at the top of the windows with 5/16 tubing with a small oval hole for wires to exit the tube to go to the wiper motor. I replaced the rubber line in the window with 5/16" fuel injection hose, so everything is larger to accommodate two wires. If your wipers have switches on them, then the stock hoses and tubing might work for one wire.

I am looking for good ideas for switching various accessories I have on this truck. I don't like the idea of drilling holes all over the dash for toggle switches. I have several things to switch
1) fuel pump
2) front LED fog lights (supplement dingy yellow stock head lights very well)
3) Rear LED back up lights
4) LED cab lights
5) Wipers (DPDT switch), or a switch for each wiper

As a bonus, lighted 24v toggle switches would be a plus. Does anyone have a link to pre-made switch panels or good 24v lighted toggles in the metal chrome style? I am not interested in plastic switches.