Losing a wiper arm

 

TL;DR stop the wipers before opening the side screens

"Losing", well, not literally. But it had to be replaced, that's for sure.

So on the 24th of August we go to a birthday party about one hour from home. My friend is really into cars and we're just back from the yearly holidays far far away. That's a ton of reasons to go with the Caterham.

My girldfriend warns me that thunderstoms are on our way, although the weather is still fine home. The hell with that, everybody knows you're fine in the Seven under the rain when cruising above 80 km/h.

Let met tell you that while it's actually true, it has some limit. The limit being that at the moment you cannot see the road anymore, and only partly because of the water on the inside surface of the windscreen, you might not even acknowledge it, and for sure not care about that... but you're all wet and rather cold in there.

So I turn on the crash lights and leave the motorway half-blind, manage to park on the overbridge, and we install the full roof.

On the moment, you still don't care about anything anymore, but you should. From my experience, you MUST turn the wipers off when opening the sidescreens "butterfly mode", laying on the hood.

If you forget about that, the wiper on the passenger side will collide with the side mirror. And when set at the maximum speed, the cast aluminium base of the wiper arm will be ground by the motor's knurled nub.

Due to previous contacts with the right-hand mirror, mine is already not in the best shape at that moment, Paint is also chipped at the base, not good looking on such an expensive car.

A quick order to Demon-tweeks, and the new arm is installed. Just a flat screwdriver is required to lift the retaining clip. The wiper blade hinge is squeezed a bit with large pliers as it's not looking good after that incident. The new pair of blades will wait for the current ones to be worn out.

Don't let the wiper arm and blade collide with the windscreen frame as it dents the black paint of the frame very easily. Some satin black paint and a cotton swab take care of that, but it's also a mistake that's easy to prevent.