Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi again (see other posting on wheels).

It must be the weather but I seem to have the urge to get stuck in to jobs I've put off for ages.

My sprint came (30 odd years ago admittedly) with the dubious benefit of wipers that park on the driver's side (and without a self- park arrangement).

Is it possible to convert this to passenger side park- presumably the make and brake components inside the motor are interchangeable with those used on motors that park opposite to mine or is it a case of being able to play around with my existing motor and alter the parking system?

At the same time is the self-park arrangement fixable?

All ideas welcome.

John

Lucas list a 14W 75660A motor this has a 54702583 gear (the gear works the park switch )
Neil

They all park on the driver's side John. Or rather the right side of the car...so a left hand drive car will park on the passenger side.

Be carefull messing about with the motor. They are very hard to replace now!

Mark

Mark,

I beg to differ. My car came from the factory with left hand steering and the wipers parked on the left side. I wanted them to park out of my way, on the right side.

You can make them park on either side. There are two styles of gearboxes. On one of them, you simply remove the "dome" cover and rotate it 180 degrees. On the other, you open the gearbox and as I recall, you either flip the main gear or you relocate a pin in the gear. That's what I did to mine.

As soon as I pressed 'submit' I thought that there are bound to be variations! Well, a variation. I had a quick look through many photos and couldn't see any other than those parking on the right. I wonder, is your wiper motor variable speed or two speed Frank?

Mark

My S3's wipers park on the left. I used to own a Sprint whose wipers parked on the right. Both cars are original RHD.

John Larkin.

Elanintheforest wrote:is your wiper motor variable speed or two speed Frank?

My car came with the standard 2-speed wiper motor. Because I have an S4, my wiper motor is the later model.

I wonder if that's the difference? The variable speed wiper was, I believe, unique to the Elan, and the 2 speed shared with the Spitfire. The change may just have coincided with the switch / pump on S1 - S3 cars, and the straight switch and electric pump on the S4.....got me thinking now....

Mark

John,

My Sprint parks on the RH side.

Why do you care which side it parks?

I have had my S4 since 12 Dec. 1969 (ie brand new , brag,brag,brag) and the wipers have always parked on the passenger side,its right hand drive. I have a photo of it when it was about 4 weeks old with the wipers parked on the passenger side and they still do,so I hav`nt buggered about with them,they also self park.

Regards John.

'72 Sprint here, Federal, 2 speed, with parking on the left.

Greg Z.

Hi

Quite a response. The reason why I want to switch over the park arrangement is that with right side parking the right hand arm/blade is "moulding" to the curve of the screen so that it is tending to become banana shaped. This is causing the blade not to properly clear the screen. If I reverse the park system the problem will at least switch out of my direct line of sight somewhat.

I've already fitted new arms/springs and good quality rubber blades but even with shorter blades and arms they still don't do too good a job..

Regards

John