MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGB Technical - Wiper Arm Survey

OK B owners- This is a critical survey! I have a 67 MGB-GT - US Spec. left hand drive. The Wiper arms park on the passenger side. (on the left side if you are standing in front of the car looking at the windshield). I ordered new wiper arms from US Moss and they keep sending me arms that are bent to park on the drivers side (on the right from the front). They insist my car has been modified. I have looked in several MG books and the pictures show wiper arms parked on both sides. I have a 1972 MGB (owned since new)and a 1969 MGC-GT and they are both US spec left hand drive and they both park the wiper arms on the passenger side.
Also, the old wiper arms are bent so that they park on the passenger side.
Where do your wiper arms park?
Who is nuts- Moss or me?
Mickey

My 1967 MGB/GT has/had wipers that parked on the left (driver) side.





rick ingram

U.S. spec 1971 MGB/GT.

My wipers park on the driver's (port) side.

I can only wish that they park on the passenger (starboard) side.
Daniel Wong

Mine was originally a US car and it was modified to be RHD. My wipers seem to park on the right hand side of the car, the drivers side, i.e. the old passengers side before conversion! It's a 78 three wiper one.

Hell, I didn't understand my own description so there is a picture here:

http://asciimation.co.nz/pics/

Simon


Simon Jansen

I also have a'67 GT. Wipers park on the driver's side. See pic.

Bernie


Bernie Lowe

My 68 or 69 GT parks on the left (driver's side for a US car).

Charley
C R Huff

Mickey,

The wipers park on the (left) drivers side of our 1974 B/GT, and typically believe the wipers would normally park pointing twards the driver.

However, I wouldn't discount that your car didn't ship this way from Abingdon. I read a story about a car reaching the end of the production line with the steering on one side, and the foot pedals on the other. Don't know if that was true, but easy to see how wiper placement may have been overlooked to meet production quota on the day your car was built.

I might ask MOSS Europe for some help with this one.

http://www.moss-europe.co.uk/

Regards,

Larry C. '74 B/GT & '69 midget
Larry C '69 Midget

Any wiper can be reversed to park on the other side. I had to alter the sweep angle of my '69 GT a while back and learned more about the wiper system than I ever thought I'd want to know.

I'm not that familiar with the pre-two speed system other than a friend with such a system told me it's possible to turn the cover on the motor to reverse the park position.

The later-style system has a white-plastic gear that is attached to the back of the plate stamped 105° and 125° in the attached picture. This gear can be separated from the plate and turned 180° to reverse the park position.

I always thought the park position was opposite to the driver's position but apparently not always the case.




Simon Austin

Mickey, see my offer on the C forum.

The Wiz

I vote that either you've gotten a UK version from the factory or a DPO reversed it. As you have the "RHD" wiper arms, it looks like the former.

The GT is unusual in the industry in that the posts for the wipers are symmetrical. Most cars have them offset to optimize things for the driver's side, depending on whether or not the car is RHD or LHD. Cleverly, MG could keep costs down by only needing one body panel and set of parts, except for the arms and the directional control on the wiper motor.

As everything else would be the same (controls, wiper blades, etc.) it only became an issue when you wanted to change arms, some 40 years later!

I've ordered parts from Moss UK in the past - these days it's as easy as anywhere else - except for the exchange rate and shipping charges, of course! Given your car's unique provenence, this "mistake" may be worth keeping!
John Z

73 US model roadster, doubt if DPO ever did anything to the wipers; they park on the passenger (right) side of the car.
David Burke

Every geenuine Oz B (RHD) I checked out had the wipers parked on the right
John Minchin

I have a '71 roadster. The wipers parked on the passenger side when I bought the car about 10 years ago. I just replaced the wiper arms and blades with parts from Brit-Tek. The new arms are designed to park on the passenger side just like the old ones. I also have a '74 GT that I believe is essentially original. These wipers also park in the passenger slide.

Mack
M Sneed

FYI: Thanks for the replys. In this and the MGC forum it seems that US spec Left Hand drive cars have wipers that park on BOTH sides that are original.
(the majority of MGC-GTs seem to park on the right-passenger side)
Mickey
1970 MGB
1967 MGB-GT
1969 MGC-GT 7604
Mickey

Mickey. My 67 GT parks on the driver side. It is about 300 serial number from the end of the 67 run. Do you have a single speed motor or a two speed? 67, from what I have learned, had a single speed but the case is the same as the two speed from 68 on. I refit my GT with the two speed. Takes a bit to wire in the switch. You need to get a three position switch.

Parking system for the 67 was built into the large wheel gear. If you open the case you will see three brass fingers, these rub against a set of three brass tracks that have stop areas.

Paul Hunt from the UK is the resident expert on wipers. He may be able to tell you more. Could be simply that there is a wire flipped.
Bruce-C

US model 73B Roadster. Wipers park on the passenger side.

BH
BH Davis

RHD cars always parked in front of the driver i.e. on the right facing forwards. Even though the blades are then in front of him at least they clear his view sooner than if they parked the other side. The question of which side LHD cars parked is an interesting one, every LHD car in Clausager *also* shows them on the right, but the Coune Berlinette has them parking on the left even though it is an RHD car! If you alter the parking switch or cam on the motor to move them from the passenger side to the drivers then you will probably have to change the arms as well, or they will be right across the drivers view. I did change the angle of one of mine by bending, but that was keeping it the same side, to bend it enough to change sides would take a bit of doing. Early arms seem to have been straight and so were angled up a bit (see cover of Clausager), but then they were angled to lie flat on one side, presumably the park side. If you could get early straight ones you could possibly bend them to suit.

I've never been able to work out from the Parts Catalogue which is which, there are very many part numbers for arms and motors but you can't tell what the differences are. The position of the spindles in the panel changed at various times, and that led to differences in arms and blades.

The situation with 67s is a real hornets nest, there seeming to be at least three if not four different motors, parking and wiring arrangements around that time.
Paul Hunt

Mickey - I have a '67 GT and my wipers look just like Bernie Lowe's. I bought them from Moss Motors. I thought about making them park on the passenger side, but if you look carefully, you'll see that they sweep a little more area on the side where they park. -G.
Glenn G

If I remember correctly, early cars had wipers which would park on the driver's side. Later cars were changed to all park on the same side, regardless of LHD or RHD. Look in the early parts books and you will see two separate part numbers for LHD and RHD wiper arms. Moss needs to send you the opposite set from whatever they sent before. If they don't have them, order a set from the UK.

To help your survey, my cars park their wipers on the following sides:
1965 MGB, LHD, driver's side.
1967 MGB GT, RHD, driver's side.
1969 MGC GT, RHD, driver's side.
Steve Simmons

73 LHD roadster...parks on passenger side.
martyc

It's really very confusing. Up to October 67 the motors, gears, park switch were all the same for both RHD and LHD. The arms did change in Feb 63 for ones with stronger springs, and at that time RHD and LHD were different. But since it is the motor, gear and switch that controls which side parking takes place, and these didn't change, the parking side would seem to have been the same for both RHD and LHD.

At Oct 67 motors, gears and arms changed. Gears and arms were different for LHD and RHD, so this could have been when LHD cars parked on the 'other' side i.e. on the left in front of the driver.

In Nov 68 North American LHD got triple wipers with different arms from other LHD.

In Dec 68 North America got arms from a different supplier, RHD and other LHD got arms from the same supplier around Feb 67 but with different part numbers to each other and to North America.

In Apr 71 North American i.e. LHD arms were fitted to RHD cars! As RHD cars still parked on the same side, and weren't cocked up in front of the driver either before or after, this implies that NA at least and RHD cars were still parking on the same side i.e. on the right.

Other LHD markets continued with their own arms until Sep 74 when they changed to North American arms as well, and that is how things stayed to the end of production. The motors changed at Jun 76. The gears didn't change, RHD remaining different to LHD for the remainder of production. The arms didn't change either, remaining common to both RHD and LHD.

All this is just for the roadster. The GT situation is simpler, the gears and arms seem to have been different between RHD and LHD, and nodifference between NorthvAmerican LHD and other LHD, throughout.

The situation is further complicated by their being different sweep angles at different times which required different wiper box positions, arms and blades.

The implication is that apart from the period between Oct 67 and Apr 71 all *roadsters* parked on the same side i.e. the right! Clausager's photos agree. Paul Teglers MG Colour codes page (http://www.teglerizer.com/mgcolors/index.html) shows many cars, of the ones where both the steering wheel and wipers are visible the vast majority of the LHD roadsters seem to park on the right. For the GTs it seems that more of the LHD cars park on the left.

Clausager concurs with virtually all of the above changes, although as both the Parts catalogue and Clausagers production build records ultimately came from the same source if that source was in error the error would be repeated on both. Another thing that must be borne in mind that other than those people who have owned their cars from new and *know* they haven't been changed from how it came out of the factory, we have no way of knowing whether a PO changed it for their own convenience. Also when there are different part numbers for RHD and LHD, particularly LHD for North America, many of the latter gained 'safety item' markings in the catalogue, so could just have been different in construction or material and not function.


Paul Hunt

"If I remember correctly, early cars had wipers which would park on the driver's side. Later cars were changed to all park on the same side, regardless of LHD or RHD."

I believe Steve is on to something.

My Dad's '63 B:

http://www.britcars.net/FloydH.html
Carl Floyd

Further thought and checking of Clausager shows (I think) that all the photos of LHD cars are in fact triple-wiper cars. I went back and checked because I suddenly realised that if they parked on the passenger side, and parked parallel to the bottom of the screen that side as I recalled seeing, they would leave a large unswept arc on the drivers side, which would be very poor. With triple wipers more of the glass is swept, and I'd be interested to see just how much - i.e. a photo of where the wipers come to when they are furthest from the parked position. I'm attaching a photo RHD for comparison.

With triple wipers the left-hand spindle *is* further to the left, about in line with the steering column and driver it looks like, but that would still leave an unswept arc at the bottom left of the screen it would seem, unlike when they park in front of the driver.

The implication of all this is now that wipers only parked on the left on LHD cars in the very short period between Oct 67 and Nov 68. Possibly before that as well if the arms were straight and change of park side was simply accomplished by turning the park switch round on the motor. When the triple-wiper roadsters appeared I'd say they changed to parking on the right, i.e same as RHD cars, which is why RHD and LHD had the same arms, and GTs always parked in front of the driver.
Paul Hunt

Damn. Photo attached.


Paul Hunt

I happened to have my Clausager's out (what else to do on a Saturday night?) and note that Paul's right - all the LHD B's I saw were triple wipers. Of course, for whatever reason, the only LHD's Claushager pictured were later Mk. II, triple wiper cars.

I don't have a photo, but on my '72 LHD roadster, the driver's side wiper goes about 15 degrees over center and does a fine job clearing in front of the driver.

Unlike the Mk. I cars, though, as in Carl's photo, the post for the wiper arm is outboard of the windscreen washer head, and in that position helps the driver.

PS - I think this thread may go down as our most arcane ever!

PPS - I am assuming that the triple wipers came with the Mk. II for North America. Don't shoot me if I'm wrong.
John Zajac

Not quite, Nov 68 for triple wipers, whereas Mk2s started in Nov 67. Nov 68 and the triple wipers was almost certainly the point at which North American LHDs changed to parking on the right, although they could also have been that way originally as up to Feb 63 the wiper components were common to both RHD and LHD.

The position regarding GTs *should* be simpler - there were always different gears and arms for RHD and LHD GTs, and North American LHDs were always the same as other market LHDs. I believe this indicates GTs always parked on the drivers side. All the subsequent posters here agree, which makes the original posters car the odd one out and probably explains why he is having problems. The motor could have been replaced with a roadster motor, and the arms changed as well when the different parking was noticed, leaving problems for a Subsequent Owner.

Roadsters had three different sets concurrently at various times, some of these had the same part number but different suffix letters A, B or D. The Catalogue notes that the correct suffix letter must be specified to get the correct part. There is no indication in the Catalogue as to which market each suffix letter applies.
Paul Hunt

This thread was discussed between 10/10/2008 and 26/10/2008

MG MGB Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGB Technical BBS is active now.