turbonium959

I am wondering if any one has done single arm wiper blade conversion before on either generation? I am interested if those who did do it, have done for a show car or daily use. I guess I get this fascination from Mercedes. I also guess I would need to use a more powerful single motor, and swap the arms, so just one swing covers the entire window. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

P.S. This is only an idea of mine, and its not in my near future plans for mods.

mrpopnfresh

I havn't done this myself, but my cousin did it to his Civic Si. It's really easy, he just used the same wiper, no powerful motor was needed.
There is a bolt that holds the wipers to the car, all you have to do is unbolt the driver side wiper. To get to the bolt you have to remove a cap right at the pivot point of the wiper. It just pulls right off. Do the same to the passenger side. Now just change the angle of the wiper on the passanger side, i.e. instead of the wiper sitting at 0 degrees, adjust it so it sits at around 25 degrees. This way when you turn on your wipers it'll cover the whole entire winshield. At least as much as it can. I'm pretty sure you could swap it out for a longer blade without having to install a more powerful wiper motor. Good luck and I hope this helps.

turbonium959

Thanks, it did help. Would you happen to know if you cousin's wiper at 25 degrees make any excessive or out of the ordinary wind noise? I am still a bit concerned about the motor though, because if I were to do this, I would need to install a longer blade to cover the entire window. I would assume that longer blade would be slightly heavier, also it does the work of two wiper blades, and here in New England the weather gets pretty nasty, and I would not want to burn off a single motor on some nasty ice storm or freezing rain.

Thanks for the help though, this is exactly what I am looking for.

JJB

I would not expect coverage to be any good simply be re-locating the stop position of the passenger side wiper. You would need to get a longer arm, or at least a longer blade. When I have looked at the coverage of that wiper it is pretty close to the top of the windshield as it is, so a longer wiper/arm might go past the edge.

The way that cars with OEM single wipers work (i.e. the Mercedes) is to have a cam that maintains an elliptical motion at the arm pivot point, in this way that wiper does not traverse and arc across the windshield and can get excellent coverage with a single large blade.

As far as I'm concerned the more water that gets taken off the glass in heavy rain the better off I am, and I can not see why you would want to diminish that.

Just my $0.02.

turbonium959

I just thought, if I were to swap the driver side arm in the place of the passenger one, with a long blade, it would provide decent coverege, though still not sure if decent enough. Because the driver side is arm (even on most cars) is shorter than on passenger side, so that is definately a possibilty. Though, the movement of the passenger side motor is what concerns me the most. I realize that it will not cover all of the window, i.e. it will not do a 180 degree turn, and shaving 25 degrees from each side is a lot of critical visual area to give up. If I were to do this, I would definately give it some heavy thinking, and perhaps try it for the summer, but I would not chance it in the winter.

Thanks for all your opinions.

Maxx Mazda

Want some noodles with that RICE!

pr5owner

please dont...

turbonium959

Want some cheese with that whine?

What that pictures depicts is definately not what I meant. And I did mention that is only an idea of mine, and I am not rushing into any time soon now, so stop bashing me, OK? I originally asked for some tips, and not the bashings! But you are entitled to your 2 cents, and I can live with that. Later

Maxx Mazda

Yo man, I'm not bashing at all! Just making playfull fun! (Note the smilies in my original post.)

mrpopnfresh

Well, if you're worried about rain, rain x is excellent!! I just checked out my cousins ride, and he didn't relocate or adjust any angles on the wiper blades. All he did was remove the passenger side wiper, so basically he has one wiper on the driver side. I don't think this is what you were looking into doing, but at least it doesn't stand out at all.

turbonium959

Its cool man. I just do not see "rice" associated with this in any way. I know other people have done it on some others cars, and the final result does look like sh*t, therefore "rice", no doubt. Though Mercedes used this type of wiper blade arm for more then a decade, and even though they have it working perfectly, and their design is more complicated, I though maybe if I were to modify the motor and its movement, it would work and perhaps look good. You see, I was born in Europe, and my philosophy towards cars is perhaps different. Much of the history of auto innovation began in Europe, and that is why it came across my mind to make my wiper blade to work like the one on Mercedes. In no way I meant to copy some "rice-mobile" poor-***-job. I hope you guys understand where I am coming from. Peace

Bruce95fmla

I don't think I would bother with installing a single wiper. I don't think it would be as effective as having two .. what I did at one point to make my rainy day driving a bit easier was to use bigger wiper blades.. I know stock we use 20 (driver) and 18 (pass) I just upped the driver side to 21 or 22 inches. By doing this you would get either .5 to 1 inch more of a clearer windshield and nothing to worry about. If you have wind issues with the blade a simple spoiler will do ..

check this link out guys
http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/I...up.asp?g=92000

amrit

I just thought I'd bring this topic back up because I was thinkin' about doin' this some time ago, but I kinda forgot about it because my mind was on other stuff.

I actually just did a search for wipers on the forum and found this.

turbonium959 i think it's a nice idea. Have you ever actually done it?

Roddimus Prime

not that an opinion was asked for but I feel I'll share anyway.....please don't do this to a protege. It's very cheesy looking and does not score any points at ANY shows....I promise.

amrit

LOL!

I think I'll take your word for it.

Do you by chance know where i can get a pair of original wiper blades for the pro?

The dealership here charges like $270 for the pair.
That works out to about $40USD.

Can I get a set for cheaper there?