Windscreen Wiper Parking

[jjbunn]

The wipers on my GT park on the passenger side. How easy is it to adjust them to park on the driver side? And if they park on that side would I need new arms?

Thanks!

 

[danmas]

Julian,

It's very easy to change. Just open the housing and pull out the plastic drive gear. Pop the parking switch cam out of the holes it's in and put it back in the other holes. See the attached picture for details.

 

[jjbunn]

[ QUOTE ]
Julian,

It's very easy to change. Just open the housing and pull out the plastic drive gear. Pop the parking switch cam out of the holes it's in and put it back in the other holes. See the attached picture for details.

[/ QUOTE ]

That *does* sound easy. All I need to do is find the housing, but I'll look in my Bentley book for that.

 

[DrEntropy]

Passenger side footwell. Contort yourself so's you can look "up". Your car may still have a cardboard trim bit under there to cover it all up. But it's under the dash held in place with three bolts, some wires and a mechanical drive cable to the wiper arms.

 

[jjbunn]

I think I'm being dense, but I am still confused about the wiper parking. Please help!

1) If I look at pictures of Left Hand Drive MGBs, then the vast majority have the wipers parking on the passenger side, but some park on the driver side.

2) Isn't the best parking position on the driver side? (The wiper starts at the driver side, so clears the rain sooner for the driver?) Why are most MGBs not like that?

3) If I change from passenger-parking to driver-parking then it seems to me I will need new wiper arms: ones which are angled in the opposite sense to the ones I currently have. Otherwise the bottom of the sweep pattern at the parked position will not be parallel to the base of the window.

 

[jjbunn]

Here's a photo of (I think) a Caterham 7 with wiper arms that are designed to park on the left hand side of the car (looking forwards from the interior).

The angle at the end of each arm ensures the blades are parallel to the base of the windscreen when parked.

The arms on my GT's wipers are angled the other way: i.e. they are designed to park on the opposite side.

So I need to replace my arms if I want to park the wipers on the driver's side. Trouble is at Moss, Victoria etc. there is only one sort of arm offered ... and it seems to be the sort I have.

Perhaps I'll just leave well alone

 

[PAUL161]

Julian, not trying to be funny by any means, but why would you want to go to the expense of buying some after market wiper arms and go to all the work of changing over the wiper motor park position, just to park them on the drivers side? You are talking about doing this just to get the first initial movement of the blades to go to the right, when it makes no difference about the wiping ability after they are turned on regardless of what side they start from. Or is it just because you like looks of them that way? Just curious. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif PJ

 

[DrEntropy]

I'll pap in with the smartarse remarks: The wipers on our cars are a three-speed affair: "slow, off and broke". I'd say it'd be time and effort spent to little gain.
They'll eventually stop ~somewhere~ in their arc. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif

Oh! And Rain-X is your best friend. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[jjbunn]

[ QUOTE ]
Julian, not trying to be funny by any means, but why would you want to go to the expense of buying some after market wiper arms and go to all the work of changing over the wiper motor park position, just to park them on the drivers side? You are talking about doing this just to get the first initial movement of the blades to go to the right, when it makes no difference about the wiping ability after they are turned on regardless of what side they start from. Or is it just because you like looks of them that way? Just curious. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif PJ

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, you (and Doc) are right ... I got a bee in my bonnet about this, thinking that my wipers were somehow "wrong". Now I see that in fact they are like the majority of Bs, so I had best leave them alone.

 

[piman]

Hello Julian,

I think that I am right in saying that you cannot change which side of the car the wipers park unless you modify the wiper motor.
Normally the blades are parked on the passenger side, start the wipers and the blades travel leftward (i.e. towards the driver).
Now replace the arms so that they are parked on the drivers side, switch on the wipers and the blades will travel leftwards as the spindles always rotate the same direction after parking, thus they will try and wipe down onto the bonnet (Hood). Not too effective!

Alec

 

[DrEntropy]

The motor can be "adjusted" to park just about anywhere along its arc, the arms can be located in about any position on the shafts as well. It ~could~ be done, but as the arms are "kinked" at an angle to park to starboard flat against the windscreen frame, it would require different arms or bending the originals. Both "iffy" and likely not worth the bother, IMO.