From my experiments with a bit of cardboard a protractor and the wiper arm I can see that with a left park mini wiper setup I am going to be left with quite a big triangle of unwiped screen on the bottom of the driver's side.

From searching on here it is supposedly possible to reduce the sweep of the mini wiper motor from 110 degrees to something less by moving the pivot point of the drive arm thingy (somebody said put it on the oppostie side closer to the centre). My question is: how, exactly?

I have dismantled the relevant bits following the excellent SVC diagram, but I can;t see how you would move the metal post thingy as it is welded in. Am I missing something, or can anyone give me some specific steps to follow (I haven't got a welder).

Alternatively, I could make itpark on the right by turning the wheel boxes the other way up... no problem, but then my wiper arms will angle the wrong way. The arms are original mini ones with the shaft removed and cut down. I could just taken the shafts off again and turn them over, but then the little raised dot that keeps the wiper blade on would be on the wrong side (I've tried it and the wiper blade slides off fairly easily like that). So, and tips on how to make the wiper blades stay on if I turn the arms over?

TIA

Simon

[Edited on 25.10.2009 by Humbug]
Rescued attachment Wiper bits.JPG

i vaguely remember doing this on sweet pea one,i think i ground off the pin and moved it a bit nearer to the centre,one or both of the wheel boxes were turned upside down as well for some reason

The pin is brazed in and can be removed and moved further in towards the centre. Ideally it's a job for two people;one holding the peg with long nose pliers, the other operating the oxy-acetylene torch.

I would change the parking direction, the arms are not to expensive, if this looks o.k. On mine the holes for the wheel boxes are not quite symmetric, (so I can't swap parking direction, it is fixed to be to the right). My sweep must be close to 110deg.

Note you will need to bend arms anyhow to get them in the correct place when parked, so you might get away with re-bending them (not going to say this will work, they may snap!).

I think mine do run upside down (with the pip on the wrong side), I guess my blades are different. (If you want to know U2U me and I'll check).

I think moving the pin does involve welding..

Cheers

Danj

[Edited on 25/10/09 by Bluemoon]

A shorter wiper blade arm and a slightly longer blade might be an option. I've got left hand park and it's absolutely fine... No unwiped. You want a short blade arm so that the blade almost rotates around the "bottom" of the wiper blade.

quote:

---

From searching on here it is supposedly possible to reduce the sweep of the mini wiper motor from 110 degrees to something less by moving the pivot point of the drive arm thingy (somebody said put it on the oppostie side closer to the centre). My question is: how, exactly? I have dismantled the relevant bits following the excellent SVC diagram, but I can;t see how you would move the metal post thingy as it is welded in. Am I missing something, or can anyone give me some specific steps to follow (I haven't got a welder).

---

Thanks for the replies, chaps.

I will have another look at the wipers as they are... maybe my measurements are not very good!

Ben - I have still got the windscreen photos you sent me... unsurprisingly, there are none that show the coverage at full sweep, so to speak (presumably because your park switch works!)

Geoff- thanks for the offer of welding... I think if it is that much effort I might give it a miss.

Thinking about the wiper arms question: maybe putting a generous blob of solder in the hole/dimple would make enough of a dot to hold? I can try that without it being irreversible.

Simon

You can buy different drive wheels and wheel boxes for the Lucas wipers from SVC.

OK guys - thanks for all the hints and tips. I ended up measuring again (and again several more times!) and decided to keep with left parking wipers. After measuring up where I thought the driver's side wiper should go I checked the pics and measurements that BenB (Stuart Taylor + Caterham screen, same as me) sent and found they were almost the same (thanks Ben)... drilled a hole for the driver's side, fitted the arm and it worked with only a fairly small uncleared area! Then fixed the passenger side per Ben's measurements.

I cut down the outer tubing centre and made a small flare with pliers. I also cut down the outer tubing nearest to the motor.

Now a few more jobs to finish: make a bracket for the motor, fit the washers, then strip the whole scuttle down, fill the holes and repaint it. Jobs for another weekend!

Cheers

Simon

glad to hear it's sorted!!

I'm trying to tackle this job myself at the moment.

BenB, would it be possible for you to post your measurements on here for us all to look at?

Thanks,
Sebastiaan

FAO Humbug or BenB or sebastiaan

Hi all - I too am going to attempt to fit some wipers (mini lucas ones) to my ST. If any of you have the mesaurements BenB sent to Humbug could you post them here?

I have that sinking feeling that without some help, no matter how many times I measure, my scuttle will end up looking like a colinder by the time I'm finished!

Matt

I've gone for 280mm between the wiper boxes and have both boxes placed symetrically around the vehicle centreline. Still to order wipers, but it seems to be OK by using mock-up wipers.

Boxes are around 37mm spaced from the front of the windscreen.

Thanks for the info - I'll let you know how I get on when (if?) I finish the install!