Clap hands wipers

[uax12]

I've recently bought a Clap hands 1962 saloon, and the wipers are, how best to put this? That's it: pants!
I've run Minors for twenty years now, but they have all been non-claphands ones, and I've never had a problem with the wipers before, but this car has issues!

When the screen is dry the wipers will go from rest at the bottom of the screen to about 80 or 90* (ie straight up in line with the middle of where you look through the screen), but when the screen gets wet they slowly work their way over to full stroke.

When you stop the wipers (ie turning the ignition off while at the top of the dry wipe) I can move them over by hand to the full wiper position, so there is obviously some slack there somewhere, but interestingly when you take the wheelbox cover on the motor off, the slack doesn't seem to be translated into much on the cable.

I take it that the wipers should go the whole way across without water, so the question is: Is it just a case of replacing both the cable and the wiper bosses and hoping, or is there something else that is causing this issue?


Andy G

[firedrake1942]

Mine do exactly the same, but clear enough of a space in the rain to see well, If its really tipping it down and I am on a fast road (well fast for a Minor anyway) they occasionally leave the edge of the screen altogether. I am told rain-ex is good and compensates for the sluggish wipers. Mine do self park, more or less, most of the time......

[SteveClem]

Tried rain-ex and it sort of works. I guess the reason that clap hand wipers were discontinued is that the more modern ones were more efficient. Better than the earlier manual ones that you had to turn by hand though.

[uax12]

I find it very strange that the same system is used for the later 'proper' style wipers (with one wheelbox above and one below the cable), and they don't have any problem at all. I wonder if fitting a late motor and its longer sweep 120* (rather than the 100* Sr3 version) would make any difference?

Andy G

[liammonty]

I guess they were better when they were new, but all the Minors I've had with clap hands wipers have done as you describe. I've always lived with it though, as the sweep when the screen has no rain on it doesn't really matter, and when the screen is wet, they travel through their full range of movement. If they don't actually clear the rain well though, you may be surprised what improvement you see with a new set of wiper blades and possibly new arms if the springs in the existing ones have got weak. beware of the chromed wiper blades sold by some of the specialists though - they are generally rubbish...

[uax12]

Ok, so it seems that this is a 'period feature' then! I will clean out the gearbox and re-pack with some lithum grease, which may well help things along a bit.

On the subject of wiper arms, does anyone know where you can get ones that have proper pivot pins for the pantograph bits rather than the horrible flat tabs that TEX use? I had a set of black blades years ago, and they actually tracked across the whole screen without leaving bits unwiped.

Thanks

Andy G