Elan S4 Wiper Wheelbox

[dfv3000]

My car is a Lotus Elan S4 1970 UK RHD and I am from UK.

At final stages of putting car back together after respray before Covid and one of last things to do
was put Wipers on.

Unfortunately they are Parking in the UP position. By that I mean if viewing from front they Park when Shafts turn fully Clockwise and sweep anti-clockwise.

I fitted new Wheelboxes as one of first jobs plus removed Cover from Motor and inspected and re-greased. I only checked that Shafts were turning and not where they parked so have made bit of a blunder. Can't remember if I removed the Cam Wheel from Motor.

I have removed Glove Box and will need to remove Motor regardless of what causing problem.

Looking more closely at the Workshop Manual it does look like I have fitted them wrong way. However I have also read possibly on this website possibly that they can only be fitted one way.

I would like to be sure that the Wheelboxes can be fitted the other way before removing them.

The wipers before re-spray Parked on the right hand side as per normal for RHD UK car.

I have attached a couple of photos looking through the Glove Box area. The Nuts and Bevel edges on the Boxes are nearest the bottom of car and the Drive Cable nearest the Top of the car.

Many Thanks
Douglas

[lotusfan]

Hi Douglas

When I stripped my Sprint in 2008 I took lots of photos, as advised by everyone, but in spite of that I only seem to have one photo of a wheelbox. The car was original I believe and the wheelbox is tapered edge up as you can see.

I have had a look in Brian Bucklands book and it is not clear which way up the wheelbox should be. Without thinking about it too much surely the wiper parking position is related to the position of the switch on the wiper motor?

Hope that helps, let us know how you get on.

[steve lyle]

When I rebuilt my MGB I ran into this same problem. I had reversed the wheelboxes. At that point in the rebuild it was MUCH easier for me to leave the boxes in, remove the motor, open the gearbox up, and move the ‘stop cam’ to its alternative position. The B and the Elan appear to have the same wiper mechanism, and the ‘motor unit’ is designed to be modifiable to park in either orientation. Pretty simple to do, the hardest part is just getting the motor out and into the car.

[pharriso]

Douglas, just looked at my pictures of when I had the same issue & yes you have assembled the wheel boxes the wrong way around.

This is the right way:

& this is the wrong way:

Picture is upside down when shown as a thumbnail, but OK when maximized - go figure!

Q: What's worse than doing a horrible job on the Elan?

A: Doing it twice!

[joe7]

But its always easier the 2nd time around!

[saildrive2001]

My 69 S4 has always had the wipers park on the passenger side, I have photos to show it.

[snowyelan]

The wiper arms have a bend in them so can only park on one side. There are left and right hand park versions of the arm.

[saildrive2001]

Like many things with Lotus, they used whatever they had in stock at the time. I guess I got LHD arm's and blades on a UK car, that's what they had available at the time.

[smo17003]

I had the same problem with my S4 rebuild. All parts came from the same supplier, the motor, the drive gear/crank, the wheelboxes and the arms. The arms were cranked for parking to the right. I assembled the drive gear/crank (as it was supplied) to the motor, and fitted everything to the car. The wheelboxes I fitted in the same orientation as the old ones. Unfortunately upon testing the motor wanted to park to the left and because the arms are cranked they will only fit in one position on the spindles. Using a couple of Youtube videos I removed the motor, stripped out the crank and then moved the park slipper plate to the other side of the crank. Assembled it all back up, checked the park position, fitted the arms, and everything worked perfectly.
Because the slipper plate is the part that decides whether the motor parks left or right I changed that rather than mess about with the wheelboxes.

The first video shows how to assemble a new motor, the second shows how to change the slipper plate on the gear (something that perhaps the presenter in the first video could have shown). I didn't discover the second video until after my initial assembly

https://youtu.be/wGtUG1kUFn8?si=oRPbgDn_aVX0V90f

https://youtu.be/NM-PzQo7qNA?si=6vyUBiv1fSkhWNFl