Wiper park position

I'm hesitant to give advise on this without more information, because I don't want your wipers scraping across the front cowl and damaging paint...

Did they once park in the proper position and now don't?

The park position is a gap in the electrical plate inside of the motor unit.  It should not change.  Usually we see loose wiper arms that have rotated, or stripped their splines.  

There is also a single arm attached to the motor itself, under your dash,  that moves your wiper transmission arms.  It could have slipped or come loose.

SO if they once parked properly, you should do some digging and find out why they are now in a different position, and I bet one of the above will be true.

If they never parked properly and have always been in this position, simply remove the arms and reclock them to the proper position when parked.

In addition to Carey's questions,

Do they make a normal sweep left/right as if they're working OK but just park vertically?

When sweeping, they should be quite close to the bottom windshield frame at the extent of each stroke.  Describe yours.

Carey ,

What year VW bug are you taking the wiper motor  and rack from ?

Thanks for the info

"park" ?? what's that?  Mine have never parked by themselves.  And the splines have indeed worn through requiring a bit of McGivering to get right.  That was in the middle of our fabulous (?) country cruise this year around Carlisle.  It took a week for my car to dry out after that one.

I have had to use my wipers twice now in the 7 years I've owned the car,  Mine "park" in whatever position they are at when I push in the wiper switch.  I make it a game for myself to time it right to park them in the correct position.

It’s a ‘72 Beetle wiper motor. It’s new, but had to dismantle it for other reasons and I think that’s why the park position is off. I assume there’s no way to alter the park position apart from the orientation of the rear arms?

photos below …

I had to go through this years ago and forget the exact process but if you google " how to set park position on 1972 vw wiper motor" you can learn for yourself.

Hi Steve, it looks like the small arm connected to the motor shaft is just at the wrong orientation on the motor. First of all, ensure the motor is in the park position, then loosen the nut on the motor arm and rotate the arm and the wipers to the normal park position on the windscreen. Once you have done this, tighten up the nut on the motor arm. Next, and very important! take off both wiper arms! Now when you switch on the motor, observe the wiper spindles and see if they rotate in the correct direction to wipe the screen and more importantly, they do not rotate to what would be below the screen if the wipers were fitted. I.E, from park position, the rotation should only be in the screen direction. As a good check before attaching the wiper arms and blades, you can hold or tape a stiff piece of paper or cardboard to the spindles when the motor is running to check everything is operating in the correct direction and nothing will foul. Hope this makes sense and helps. It's a few years since i did mine, so just working from a dodgy memory, Colin

@imperial posted:

Carey ,

What year VW bug are you taking the wiper motor  and rack from ?

Thanks for the info

we make our own wiper transmission, laser cut steel, and use OE VW linkage arms and bushings for our proper length, they are a mix of US (74) and Brazil (90s) parts, and the  spindles are non-VW.  Wiper motor we use(58?-66) Beetle 12v, however as they have become NLA at times we also use the later super (-77) motor, which bolts up the same and just gets wired differently is all.

@Steve Marson  the small arm in your top photo that connects to the first linkage arm is in the wrong position by 90 degrees.  It needs to be fully extended towards the side  when in the park position.  In the orientation you have, it will wipe the proper "sweep" but park in the middle, assuming your photo shows where it sits when parked.  Loosen that nut holding the small arm to the motor, rotate that arm so the wipers rest in the proper position when parked, reattach that small arm.  Test (no arms/blades) to make sure you are not 180 off (use a sharpie to mark the splines and watch your sharpie mark move too ensure proper movement without risking paint damage.

I have a wiper system from Specialty Power Windows down in Texas.  It allows you to make you wipers go in either direction or even both wiping from the bottom up to the center and back down.  When I first built the car, I had them parking on the wrong side, i.e. opposite "park" position to the original 356 cars - Without having an example, how was I to know??   I would go to shows and having the wipers park on the "wrong" side would drive the Porsche Purists (PPs) absolutely Bat$#!+ and I loved it.

After a few years, I had to move things around under the dash to fit my radio there and finally set them up the "right" way (it literally took less than 5 minutes).  In hindsight, I should have had them both come up from the sides and meet in the middle like on an early, split windshield Gmund 356, just to freak out the PPs a little more......    

Thanks everyone - I’ll work on this some more and report back!