Do you mean like this in the photo?

This was taken parked at a car meet in heavy rain. Wipers are off. Note how RainX beads up the water and you can see out. When moving, the water just streams off.

My right wiper is parked. The left one is angled up enough to be annoying. The solution is to remove the offending arm from the wheelbox shaft and press it back on at a better angle. The end of the shaft and the inside of the arm base are splined, so it is a matter of just choosing the correct alignment. Be careful removing and pressing them back on - the splines are fine and easily damaged.

The other issue is that the mechanism from the wiper motor to the wiper arm may be worn, leaving too much slack. As I wrote before, you must push each wiper toward the park position before removing the wiper arm or you risk the wiper going past the bottom of the windscreen onto the paint when in the "furious' (hah!) high speed setting.

Wear areas:

• wheelbox shafts may be loose in their bearings --- replace.
• wheelbox gears may be worn ---- replace
• wheelboxes may be loose or incorrectly aligned ---- check and tighten
• wheelboxes may be wrong type ---- replace
• tubes between wheelboxes and wiper motor may be loose ---- tighten
• wiper motor gear or crank rod worn ---- rebuild or replace.

For the other poster that complained that the wipers are slow and stick on dry glass: you need to cleran and lube the actuating system, from the motor gear on out. Check that the wheelboxes are not beginning to seize or are not loose and binding. The motor itself isn't all that strong to begin with, but its bearings need to be good and the brushes and commutator need to be in good condition as well. Poor brush contact means only part of the votage would be getting into the armature, and the motor will be weaker.

clean your front screen, and then put rain-x on it. The coating beads rain and you will hardly have to use

the wipers.

Also, dirt from the air settles on the rubber blades and you end up grinding that into the screen and the

wiper edge.

Wipe the rubber blades regularly with alcohol to clean them. Paper towel will turn black.

 

Yes, what I meant by "not sitting flush" I meant exaclty that. When they stop, they are not running across the bottom of the window. Only one side it. Looks terrible. The arms did not have the correct bend to them for sure. They were HD arms and even after replacing, and rebuilding his motor, they will not move on a dry window. Too much drag. Also, his wipers would not park. Easy fix, replace the plunger/socket unit thing on the back. Brilliant! Till I tried them for the first time in at least a year...not parking again. I swear, his car has a curse on those damn wipers!!

And for some reason I get a chuckle out of this thread's title.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I have also recently drivin in the rain.  It didnt' go so well.  I found I have 3 leaks around the front windshield, both lower corners and dead center.  Is there an "easy" fix or is the right fix to reseat the glass with a new gasket?

I would concur!

RainX is the solution.  Once you get to about 40 the water just streams off.

I think I have a spare set. I will have to measure them. Based on my experience the longer/larger bushing would go inside on the wheel box.

The angles never seem to quite right.

Terry

That would be "yes" - after I had to check to be sure! In the diagram and listing - item 25 - you can see there are two for each wheelbox - the diagonal gap between them would be where the cowl sheet metal would be.

bushings

So are you saying there is a top or exterior bushing and a bottom or inside bushing? The angle has to be the same though.

I tried the metal version as well.

 

By the wipers "not sitting flush" I think you mean parallel to the bottom of the wind-screen. The arms should have a slight 'hockey-stick' bend at the outer end and straight with no particular arch away from the wind-screen surface.  To set the angle on mine,  - after making sure they are in the park position - I flex the arms down (toward the engine) to take any slack out of the gear, then position the blade just above the windscreen seal and press the arm back onto the shaft. Next I check that the wiper edge is perpendicular to the glass as I described above/below.

Some of the quirks about the Mini wiper system:

• there is a variety of wiper wheelboxes, both in construction and size.  Mk 1&2  and Mk 3  for example. I think other cars like Midgets may have their own style too. (My car has two different ones and I have no idea why!)
• there is a variety of wiper motor gears as well Sprite-Midget and 2-speed
• then there's the left hand/ right hand issue.
• the wheelboxes need to be assembled right way round (or it will get "interesting")
• the wheelbox bushings need to be installed properly or the angles may be off

It can be a puzzle getting it right, and it's easier to disassemble than to refit.

 

I was going to try the later arms on a Mark I car, but they are no longer availablee I was told. Unless someone started making them again.

I have heavy duty versions and they contact the hood/bonnet when opening it fully.

I need to revisit my wipers as I converted to the later wheel boxes and there is still something not quite right. I see the early boxes are available now but at a steep price.

Someone here i believe said they are using later model Land Rover arms which take the normal fitting blades of newer cars.

The 10 inch rear wipers at Auto Zone are black and come with adapters. I glass bead the SS or chrome arms and spray flat black. I used to buy 24 inch and cut down and reload OE wipers, just to much trouble anymore. Steve (CTR)

My brothes 95 SPi has never had good wipers. I have switched/rebuilt the motor and replaced the arms to no avail. I have to blame most of it on the arms, thinking about it now. He wanted crhome ones. The ones on the car when we got it had the wiper blades not sitting flush when parked so I assumed they were wrong and junk and replaced them with ones from Mini Spares I believe. Chrome again but still the same.

I have stuck with the stock Rover units and I bought the blades from Mini Spares some yeasr ago. They work like a charm. Maybe one or two missing spots but nothing bad...or on the drivers side. With nearly 50k on the stock windshield, I'd bet a new one would make a very noticeable difference.

So, you can find blades locally? Standard 10" blades will work? I honestly have never given much thought to it but would be nice to have a local supplier for the next time I need them.

I dunno about heavy-duty wiper arms with bigger springs... might just cause too much drag on the wiper motor and drive, making it run even slower. Sometimes the wiper blade edge is the problem. It needs to be very pliable and set perpendicular to the glass. By that I mean perpendicular if it was almost touching the glass. When the wiper pushes against the glass the blade edge flops over and gets dragged, not pushed across the glass. That's why it needs to be very pliable. If it chatters, then it is being pushed. Too much spring pressure would also stop it from flopping over at the end of each stroke. The use of RainX or a similar coating really helps too. Water beads up and runs off. If you have a good product that is properly applied, you can drive without using wipers in some conditions because the air flow onto the windshield just pushes the beaded water away.

Wiper blade edges, when new have a square profile, with two sharp edges. As they wear, they get rounded and less effective at removing a thin film of water. That's when they tend to go streaky or skip. Replace them when they look rounded or the sharp corners get nicked. Don't wait for them to start peeling off.

"Winter" wipers can be good news/bad news. The main feature is that they are usually enclosed in a flexible sheath that is supposed to keep ice out of the flexing joints in the blade frame. But if they lose their seal, you end up with ice where you can't get it out.

Air foils to help press the wiper against the glass at speed I think are gimmicks. If they really worked, they would be included in the car maker's design. Since the wiper moves in an arc, the foils are rotating in and out of their optimum angle of attack (if they had one), so at best would be effective in a very small portion of the arc. Again, the wiper arm spring should be giving the right amount of pressure to the blade.

Multi-edge wipers fall into the same category, but the opposite effect. They would cut the effective pressure in half, and would tend to catch debris taht might score your windhield.

For a Mini, all you really need is a simple, single edge blade of the correct length and that will clip onto the arm properly. Then check the angle against the glass. One problem is that the spindles may not be perpendicular to the glass and certainly aren't over the whole range of motion due to the curvature of the glass. So. the trick is to stop the wipers while they are up in the main area you need to see through, then check that the blade edges are perpendicular there. Use pilers to gently twist the wiper arm until the blades are perpendicular. Replace when worn or the rubber gets stiff - the rubber has 'plasticizers' in it that tend to evaporate/dissipate over time and exposure, so they age faster that other rubber components.

If you want to drive in the rain come to Mid Atalantic coast Va. I have the mini I did for my lawyers son's high school grad. He will finish law school this spring. I have had the car for a couple of months checking alignment , oil change, move fronts to back and so forth. I have made 5 appointments to get an inspection sticker. Each time it has poured the rain and I have not gone but called early to let them know. Yesterday was number 5 and it poured all morning. I took the car and went anyway. I'd bet it was the first time the car has been wet other than a bath in 20 years. The Auto Zone 10 inch wiper blades and a new screen rarely driven and in the past seven years wiped as clear as a bell. The 165 Falkins on six inch wheels were a little greasey in the wet as they always seem to be. I'm not sure there is a good wet wheel tire combo for a classic mini. My 85 on 145 X12s aquaplanes at 55/65 mph in a heavy rain. Sounds like I may be driving CTR-Alex to Mid Ohio next year again. There is almost always a chance to get your feet wet there. Steve (CTR) 

 

What wipers are you guys using?  Mine are toast.  There appears to be a 'heavy duty' arm with a bigger spring too?

 

I recently drove my Mini in the rain for the first time in a long time. I had been running A048Rs on it before so I did my best to avoid wet weather driving. Anyway, drove about 400 miles in two days...in the pouring rain!!! It literally never stopped. You really get a good idea what works and what doesnt. Lucky for me, my Mini went like a top. Wipers worked perfect and the car is water tight. I say that becasue my brother wasnt so lucky. Not only did his heat not work (its in the 40-50s) but his car leaks. The worst leak is directly over the throttle pedal. Not much fun having a cold ass water steadily dripping onto your shoe for hours on end. Ended up sticking a rubber glove over his foot:-)

Yes, it does rain in California. Drove to the gym today and used the wipers. They still barely go off the windshield onto the rubber, and the drivers side through the scraper off the car twice in 5 miles. I will have to shim that. But they work. The other test was driving without a rain cover on the distributor. No problems with that. So nice to see the beads of water on the paint. Makes it look like a good wax job. Hoping for more rain!

Jerry