Windscreen Wipers.

Here's an old shot of my car showing that it was being used with no wipers.

Second shot is as I purchased it and it has wipers again but you can see they are reversed to the red Euro car posted above.

And with the wipers:

Here's a couple of 1974 cars sitting side by side. One has the wipers to the left, the other to the right yet both are LHD cars.

And one more which appears to be a stock USA car:

Seems very strange. The entire pivot assembly seems backwards. The vents are different and the sweep reversed. I could uderstand if this was a RHD/LHD issue, but for a USA soec car to have the wiper sweep stop right in front of the driver seems all wrong.

I don’t recall the year but the wiper mechanism was changed to work like yours. I think it was to meet US DOT rules. If you look closely you will notice that the pivot points were moved to make this happen. They also fudged up the mechanism so they do not park well.

My wipers have not been used since I bought the car in 98 so I have no clue how well they work.

Mike

Seems odd to modify something to meet US rules but then they stop in front of the driver. I would think that driver's field of vision was of prime importance.

Just all wrong Mike. So to retrofit mine to a Euro spec so that it sweeps the driver side clear, I need 1971/73 components?

I’m pretty sure most all 71 cars like mine park on the driver side and sometime in the 72 model year they started the change. I’m on the road so I cannot check my car but I believe the pivot point might be welded to the car so making the change will be more than changing the grills. The park direction would need to change also.

Mike

You are partly correct, 1887; the factory changed the side the wipers park in response to U.S DOT regulations, effective with chassis 05900- early 1974, according to Tech Service Bulletin 14, article 113 (dated April 1975). The changeover described is complex: you'd need both wiper arms and blades, the wiper motor assembly, the guide tubes and pivot shaft for the right side, new support pieces, new cowl vent covers and a host of little parts. At the same time, they changed the wiper motor wiring including its circuit breaker and its mount. I suspect the car was built that way; NO one would go to that much trouble & expense to change over unless they had a second scrap car to move all the necessary parts over!

Robert, I'm no expert, I only re-assembled 1 basketcase Pantera. Here is a suggestion. Find arms that have less of a curve in them, so that the arms park parallel to the windshield moulding. That may change the angle in the line of sight issue. Even if you had a RH wiper set-up it would still go the the A pillar in the end of course position. So may be an adjustment in the mechanism,

Have you ever used Rain X? The harder it rains the better it works.

I have never had my wipers on the car except when getting my inspection stickers. Rain X has served me very well the couple of times I've been caught out in a T storm or showers.

Yep, car is double rain X'ed. But, below 50 mph it doesn't do too much, so slowing down for towns you have to use the wipers, but once on the open road it was fine.

Robert,

As Jack stated there was a changeover in late '73. The factory changed back again after the Ford era so later 9000 series cars (as per the GT5 phot you posted) are like early cars, presumably as they were no longer homologated for the US.

What you have is actually what most modern US cars have in terms of park and direction, but not the way the Pantera was designed, so it's a bit of a hack job to meet US regs. In theory it should work the best on a LHD as the other way you have an arc from the drivers corner of the windshield. It sounds like your wipers are not sweeping correctly, if all is correct the blade should align with the left edge of the windshield at full sweep.

This may be caused by having the wiper arm positioned incorrectly on the pivot, wrong arm or wrong motor or combiantaiosn of all three. From your photo I'd say it's the former as the Pantera wiper motor only has a 90 degree sweep arm, thus the parked blade should be parallel with the windshield. Yes this means it will park further up as per the 'stock' photo you posted and look pretty ugly.

Firstly I would stop the wipers at full sweep and readjust the arm so the blade is at the edge of the windscreen and then let is naturally park where it wants.

Other options include playing around with different wiper arms (shorter) to try and compensate and/or changing out the sweep of the motor. 5 degree sweep increments are available and I can help source motor parts if you need them.

Julian

Did any of the RHD cars have wipers that parked on the right?

John

quote:

Originally posted by jb1490:
Did any of the RHD cars have wipers that parked on the right?

Every single photo of a RHD car I could find had them parked on the left.

Julian

quote:

Originally posted by Joules5:
this means it will park further up as per the 'stock' photo you posted and look pretty ugly.

Firstly I would stop the wipers at full sweep and readjust the arm so the blade is at the edge of the windscreen and then let is naturally park where it wants.



Julian

Robert,
FWIW, On my 74L I run without the wipers but carry them with at all times. On the occasion when I need them I have to install the drivers side half way up the windshield parallel to the bottom of the glass in order for it to sweep all the way to the left side. Effective but looks terrible which is why I take them off on sunny days.
Doug M

quote:

Every single photo of a RHD car I could find had them parked on the left.

Next question: Were the late US cars the only cars that had the wipers park on the right? Or were there others?

John

Warning- wiper conversions may be injurious to your relationship! One owner that ran his own professional machine shop built a cantilevered single-arm wiper system similar to the Lambo Countach for his Pantera. He said it was the most miserable conversion he'd ever attempted, and even though he got it to work well, he swore he'd never do another. I couldn't even cajole him into doing a tech article on the job- it irritated him just thinking of the hoops he'd had to jump thru to get it to work.
Among other things, he found the body cowls are made of such thin metal that they needed heavy reinforcement to keep the area mounting the large single motor from flexing and cracking. And that was after he'd built his own linkage- 3 times- to get the sweep right.

That's a good plan Doug. Certainly better than trying to re-invent the wheel which is what I would have to do as second hand bits from an early US car would be rarer than golden rocking horse sh1t down here.

The wipers on my 1987 GT5-S Amerisport park on the drivers
My .02

Wayne