Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Sorry to raise this again, but having looked at several threads I can't find an answer to my query.

In this post references to left and right refer to what is observed from the driver's seat.

I live in the UK, my car is right hand drive and the wipers park on the right. I believe both wiper arms are original. They are fitted with 15" wiper blades which definitely aren't original.

One wiper arm is cranked to the right at the end remote from the pivot. This enables the actual wiper blade to be parked parallel to the bottom of the screen. The crank is necessary because the arm's pivot doesn't come through the windscreen. but is a few inches below its bottom edge.

The other arm is straight, so when parked its wiper will be at an angle to the screen. This doesn't look right especially if it's in the drivers field view.

So my first question is, is it correct to have one angled wiper arm and one straight one? The second question is which way round should they be fitted?

I've fitted the cranked arm on the left because if fitted on the right the wiper blade overlaps the right hand edge of the screen when parked.

I know there's no consistency as regards which side the wipers park. Common sense would suggest that on LHD cars they park on the right and on RHD cars they park on the left. I could change the parking position from right to left, but I'd need at least one wiper arm which was cranked the other way. If I wanted to have two cranked arms I'd need a shorter wiper blade on one side.

Any help gratefully received.

Graham.

The concept of 'correct' on a Plus 2 is interesting - I don't think there is such a thing.
On my late bodied RHD Plus 2, the wipers park on the left.

Neither wiper arm is cranked, although I think that cranked would be better.
If I had only on cranked arm, then I would try with it in front of the driver to minimise restrictions to viewing when not in use.
Peter

I was also a bit puzzled by which side the wipers should park for a RHD +2... I had a long look at a fair few contemporary road tests a little while ago (so hope my memory is correct) . It looks [but happy to be corrected on this] like the +2S around the change from +2 have wipers on the other side and then it reverts.
The early +2 & +2S/130 seem to be parked on LHS.
My car (68 +2) had wipers parked on LHS when I got it in 1986 and as far as I can tell it is the original motor & arms.

Thanks for that Peter.

It may be the picture, but your LHS (passenger side) arm looks cranked to me. There's a distinct angle between the wiper arm and the wiper blade. My cranked arm is cranked the other way.

What your picture shows well is how, when parked, the LH wiper blade doesn't contact the screen at all well and overlaps its edge.

My wiper arrangement isn't at present a mirror image of yours. The cranked arm is on the passenger side which puts the wiper blade close to and parallel with the bottom of the screen. The straight arm is on the drivers side and the wiper overlaps the screen.

The parts list shows a cranked arm, but it isn't clear which model it's used on or which side it's fitted.

Mine are both cranked, park on the left (near side) and sit at the bottom of the screen:

Sorry for the quality - a very old photo - hopefully of use. Shortly after this the LHS wheelbox gave up

From this Car mag around launch time it looks like the red car (using LPW120E reg) has one cranked and one straight.

The white one has no reg plates and looks like it has A35 wiper arme, they are so short! Cobbled up for the 'photo?

G4ILN wrote:Thanks for that Peter.

It may be the picture, but your LHS (passenger side) arm looks cranked to me. There's a distinct angle between the wiper arm and the wiper blade. My cranked arm is cranked the other way.

What your picture shows well is how, when parked, the LH wiper blade doesn't contact the screen at all well and overlaps its edge.

My wiper arrangement isn't at present a mirror image of yours. The cranked arm is on the passenger side which puts the wiper blade close to and parallel with the bottom of the screen. The straight arm is on the drivers side and the wiper overlaps the screen.

The parts list shows a cranked arm, but it isn't clear which model it's used on or which side it's fitted.

Good spot - swapped them over and they look better now, but passenger blade does still stick out and away from the glass

Roy, just looking through my Lotus Elan Ultimate Portfolio, the book with all the contemporary road tests. Man the magazine pictures were pretty lousy back in the day!

Anyway, LPW120E looks to be the March '68 Autocar Plus 2 Special Equipment test car. It is also featured in the Sports Car Graphic (precursor of the US Car and Driver mag I think) Nov `67 article which speculates that we may not get the Plus 2 our side of the pond. There is an Autosport review from Sept `67 as well. It is used in the famous Plus 2 brochure in front of the Chapman home.

Looking over the pictures, the parking position looks way better than I have achieved. That said, I think both wipers are pretty straight?

Stu

This seems to give me the best lie but I can't really say how they were to begin with on my plus 2S1 30, 1972 build, left-hand drive. Gordon Sauer

So trying to get more definitive about this, I went to the parts book and it does appear that there is to be a straight one and a bent one and it shows a picture of them as #8 bent and #10 straight and then identifies #10/straight as on "driver's side" so it seems mine should be changed. However, when I have had them that way the top of the wiper sticks out quite a bit off the windshield and the lower edge of it hits the windshield surround.Gordon Sauer

I was never happy with the way the wipers parked on my plus 2 and in the end I purchased arms with an adjustable length and experimented with several lengths of blade to get a compromise that I was happy with.
I had the added problem that with the longer blade length I always had a portion in the middle of the blade that didn't clean the windscreen properly and this was true for several types of blade I tested. In the end I found that I had a better result with shorter blades, I think that they are either 12 or 13 inches long. I would measure them but the cars is away having some repairs to the boot lid at the moment.
My wipers park to the left and are both cranked, from memory about 10 degrees.
I also fitted a 29w motor which moves the blades to a lower point on the screen when parked but the main reason I did that was to get a more powerful motor.

Ed

I've never given them much thought but looking at the wiper parking in response to this post, it's not very neat by current standards. Just the way it was I guess. Here's a pic of mine. Original arms and NOS Trico blades.

Dougal

Thanks for the replies and pictures.

Once again my references to left and right refer to the view from the driver's seat.

I've looked at some pictures in old magazines and all the Plus Twos have wipers which park on the left. Mine seems to be the exception with the wipers parked on the right. For wipers which park on the right any cranked arm must be cranked to the right. I won't be changing things so that the wipers park on the left as this would require an arm cranked the other way.

I have one straight arm and one cranked arm. After trying them both ways I've decided to fit the cranked arm on the left. I arranged them so that they don't contact the screen rubber when parked.

The wiper arms just don't look right however they're fitted.

The pictures show both configurations with the wipers parked and in their extreme positions.

Other options would be two straight or two cranked arms.

Just had a look at SJ Sports cars range of wiper arms. They show a wiper arm cranked to the right and say it's for RHD cars. That implies wipers which park on the right!