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Custom Wiper arms for a 74

tsolotsoloMember
Here is one of my recent projects. My car hasn't had wipers on it since I bought it.
I know probably half the Panteras out there don't. I felt my car looked unfinished with just the posts sticking up, even with the rubber caps on them.

I have a set of original wiper arms but really dislike the look of them and the fact that they park so high up the windshield. In doing some reasearch I found that the wiper assembly was sourced form an English manufacture and was used on multilple english cars of the same general era.

I found that a 69 MGB used the same size wiper posts and the arms use an easy on easy off wedge screw mount. Next came the arms themselves. This was simply a matter of wandering through pick n pull looking for something that looked modern, was the right length, and could be adapted to the MGB arm ends. I found a 1987 Nissan Maxima that fit the bill. I bought a set of Bosch Excel+ 16 blades to fit because the Nissan blades were too long.

Once I put the arms together I had to change the degree of sweep to get the new lower parking arms to sweep all the way across the windshield. I found that a 120 degree gear was just right. I hope to never use them but If I need to I want them to work.

What do you think?









Same type of spring attachment made things easy. The Nissan spring and clip were used. The attaching clip only needed very slight filing to fit into the MGB end.


Removing the springs is a bit of a challenge. A coat hanger tied to the vice and then "leaning into it" and they came right off and went back on in the same manner.






Had to shape the ends with a file for clearance




3/16" drill


3/16" stainless rod drilled


Tapped to M4 X 0.7




Pins are about 0.730" long






The replacement wiper gear can be ordered from www.s-v-c.co.uk


Last edited {1}
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tsolotsoloMember
Thanks guys for the compliments.

quote:
Originally posted by Denis C:
I must have missed something, why change the motor / spindles?


Denis,

If you look closely at the gear picture you'll see the degree marks on the face of them. The OEM gear is a 95 degree gear. It sweeps 95 degrees end to end. My new wiper arms sit much lower on the windshield than the originals. With the original 95 degree gear the drivers wiper arm only traveled to about mid steering wheel, the travel needed to be longer. The new 120 degree gear takes the drivers wiper arm all the way to the edge of the windshield.

Steve
demopuardemopuarMember
This looks great!!! I'm sure it works well too.

I have to ask, what is the 120 degree wheel off from? I would assume an MGB, and if it is, what year? Also, did you use the springs off from the Nissan on the backs? Was there any mounting modifications that you had to do with the springs on the MG end? Did you make the new "rivets" that hold them together -- what is the best way to make them? What are they made out of?

I would love to install this same setup on my car.

Thanks,

Mark
tsolotsoloMember
quote:
Originally posted by DeMopuar:
This looks great!!! I'm sure it works well too.

I have to ask, what is the 120 degree wheel off from? I would assume an MGB, and if it is, what year? Also, did you use the springs off from the Nissan on the backs? Was there any mounting modifications that you had to do with the springs on the MG end? Did you make the new "rivets" that hold them together -- what is the best way to make them? What are they made out of?

I would love to install this same setup on my car.

Thanks,

Mark



I have added a few captions above the pictures for clarity.

The 1969 MGB gear is a 105 degree. I tried it but it was not enough. The 120 degree seems to be just right.

The 120 degree gear can be ordered here. www.s-v-c.co.uk

The springs are the Nissan springs. The Nissan clip that hooks to the wiper arm end had to be filed a few thoushands to fit the MGB end. I did make new stainless rods for the clip to hook to but you don't need to. I did it just because I had the material and the original MGB rods were a little rusty. You'll never see this once it's put together.

The new pivot pins that hold it all together were made from 3/16" stainless rod. This is the perfect size to fit the bronze bushings in the MGB ends. I did not have to turn them to size. I made them a little long, drilled and tapped for M4 X 0.7 stainless button head allen screws. Then I fitted them and adjusted the length of the pins to fit. You'll need a lathe to do this.

Let me know if you need more help.

Steve

Last edited by tsolo
demopuardemopuarMember
One of the nicest mods that I have seen for our cars. Simple -- and it works well.

O.K. Checked the web link for the wheel and it is not that expensive at all. I see that the same 14W Lucas wheel is available on eBay -- probably the same guy selling these -- but it doesn't matter; not that bad pricewise either way.

Thanks for the information Steve, again, terribly awesome mod.......

Mark
garvinogarvinoMember
Steve,

What a great modification. The arms look great and sit nice and low on the windshield.

Any chance you could give us the approximate measurement from the center of wiper blade (where the arm connects to the blade) to the stainless steel pivot pin you lathed?

I tried to locate some Nissan arms today, but it looks like I will need to come up with another option. Unfortunately, with only 500,000 people total in my whole state we don't have many good "pick and pull" wrecking yards. Also a search on the net didn't come up with a very many options. I think there was one arm on eBay.

I am sure I can come up with something similar. I have attached a photo if my description was not good enough. Thanks again for all your help - past and present.

Devin

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garvinogarvinoMember
Steve,

Funny - I just realized if I just measure from my current pivot near the wiper motor shaft to a few inches shy of the passenger grill that I would have an approximate number for the driver's side.

I guess I was to focused in on my question - the whole saying about "not being able to see the forest through the trees" comes to mind.

Thanks again for all the help and the specific measurements. This will help a ton on my search.

Devin
garvinogarvinoMember
Steve,

I have been working on the Nissan wiper mod. I could not find any used ones at a reasonable price compared to ordering them new from Nissan so I went new. They ended up being on back order and then the dealer said they were being shipping from Japan - which took awhile. However, they did finally arrive.

Did you have to bend the upper part of the driver's side wiper arm (curved area near the blade)in order to get it to sit correctly on the windshield? My blade does not run horizontal with the bottom of my windshield at all. If so what was your method?

Thanks for the help.

Devin

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panteradougpanteradougMember
quote:
Originally posted by TransSami:
How about using parts from an RHD Maxima? I think they should park at left.


For me? There are no RHD Maxima's here. I doubt that the parts can even be ordered for them from a dealer here. Those parts would not be in the US parts service system. More correctly stated...not likely in the system though?

I think I would prefer to change my '73 to the '74 (only year made) system and then do this modification.

Still need the parts to do it and have not actively pursed them.
tsolotsoloMember
quote:
Originally posted by PanteraDoug:
Your results are fantastic. I am in the preliminaries and all things considered, this only looks like it will work on a '74 with the blades parked on the passenger side? Correct?

It does not appear that the Nissan arms can be flipped over and reversed to work on the cars with the driver side park location?




Doug,

The Maxima wiper will not work on a car that parks on the left. The blade attachment it the "U" bend type so flipping the ends would place the "U" upside down. I think the '74 is the only year produced with the wipers parking on the right, I may be wrong. If you look at pictures you will see that the wipers parked on the right sit really high on the windshield at rest. I don't think the cars with wipers parking on the left have this problem or at least not so pronounced.

I don't know if a right hand drive Maxima would have the wiper system reversed or not. Searching the internet may answer the question. I can say that when I built my mirrors I sourced my left mirror from England (ebay motors uk) so I could get a convex mirror from a right hand drive car. Now I how convex glass on both sides which really helps with the massive blind spots.

If this is something you are seriously considering you may be able to find an alternative to fit possibly from a rear window wiper arm. Like I did it may take some rumaging around at your local Pich-n-Pull to find a suitable donor.

Steve
panteradougpanteradougMember
Mine have been off of the car for years. Mostly because the parked wiper in front of me bugs me.

I always thought the '74 model wiper was a better idea and with your modification makes it almost invisible from the driver's seat.

I'd like to put the wipers back on the car so I can consider taking the car more than just short trips but that's just going on the list of things to do for now.


Does anyone know for sure why the 74 wipers are unique to that year only?

Was there a technical issue that caused warranty problems with them?
Last edited by panteradoug
garvinogarvinoMember
All my parts for my wiper arm conversion have finally arrived. I have been waiting on my Lucas wiper gears from the UK for what seems forever. Under the recommendation of T. Solo (Steve) I ordered both a 120 degree and a 125 degree gear to try. T.Solo mentioned that he was thinking about going with a 125 degree to get a little more sweep - so I ordered both a 120 and a 125 degree one to try.

T.Solo also built me a set of the stainless wiper pins and sent them to me about two weeks ago – thanks Steve (great price and super fast turn around time).

I also did not use the MGB wiper ends that T.Solo did. I ended up using a set of wiper ends from a 1976 Triumph TR6 instead of the MGB ones that T.Solo used. The TR6’s are slightly shorter than the MGB’s but after some discussion with T.Solo he thought that this actually may work slightly better for the passenger side. It seems that he had to trim just a tiny bit of the wiper blade for clearance on the passenger side vertical molding.

Below is a pic of the Triumph wiper ends. I also decided to use some small nylon washers so I did not have to crimp down the Nissan arms as much when I tighten down the pivot pins.

Tonight I am painting the Triumph wiper ends and will hopefully have everything assembled and put together this week. I will post some more pics and let you know how the 125 degree gear works out.

A big thanks goes out to T.Solo, his craftsmanship, and his help.

Devin

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garvinogarvinoMember
I finally had some free time to run down to my shop and work on the wiper mod. I ran into an issue with using the Triumph TR6 wiper ends – not that big of a deal, but it added a little work.

The Triumph wiper arm end, where the spring holder mounts, is much narrow than the Nissan spring holder mount. I ended up bending and welding up some 1/8” rod and drilling it to accept the Nissan spring (see pics below). I thought about grinding the Nissan piece but thought I would try this route first. The piece I welded up worked out fine. BTW, I did not post a pic of the Nissan piece but I can if someone wants to see it.

Next I pulled the Lucas wiper motor and dropped in a new 125 degree gear and reinstalled the motor. I shimmed it out slightly to eat up some slop and installed my wipers. When I turned on the wipers I found that the 125 degree gear actually was too much. My driver’s side blade would go over and past the A pillar on the driver’s side even after I adjusting the parked position as low as possible – parallel to and almost touching the lower window trim.

So I took everything apart and installed the 120 degree gear. Once everything was put back together I found this to be just about perfect for the sweep on the windshield.

The one drawback to the Triumph wiper ends is that they are held on with a spring clip and until you get a system down they are a little difficult to get off. After taking them on and off a few times though they are not that bad at all.

Once again, thanks to Steve for sharing this cool modification for our cars and also for building me the pivot pins that I needed. If anyone has any questions please let me know.

Devin

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Z ZofixMember

I’m trying to take off the wiper arms on my 74 and even with a “wiper removal tool” they don’t come loose.  Really want to avoid damaging anything… Any suggestions or tips?

Do you pull them off while the arms are up against the glass or in the air?

how close to the edge of the arm mount do you need to pull?


would be a helpful with a photo of the stem and the mounting hole on an arm.

thanks!

panteradougpanteradougMember

Well, there is a degree of the arms being "seized" to the shafts, if in fact "seized" is the correct term?

You can release the lock but the two pieces have been locked together long enough that they have a degree of bonding together.

It is the nature of the materials used to make them.

The only thing that you can do is squirt them with something like "Rust Buster", give it lots of time to penetrate, and continue to "wiggle" on the arms until they finally give up and let go.

Many parts like this never had the consideration of what they would be like to disassemble down the road 50 years later and in fairness, how could anyone determine that?

Probably the thing to do is once you have them apart and want to reassemble them, use something like "anti-seize" on the assembly?

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