Was enjoying the Exige :ST: today, on the way home from a great mountain and desert drive :evil: with some local Lotus folks, when I encountered some light rain that was easily handled by the wiper assembly. Until...
The wiper stopped moving back and forth , and upon further investigation, the arm itself is stripped at the splines, as well as cracked where the splines form a female fitting that goes onto the wiper motor post. Between the splines being stripped and the female "hole" being cracked, the arm is toast .
Thankfully, the splines on the wiper motor post look solid; they're definitely intact after I took a small wire brush to them to clean out the debris from the arm. Another "thankfully" - I'm in southern california, so there is little to no urgency with this fix.
That said, I've done quite a bit of searching on this and one other sub-forum and haven't found a replacement wiper arm thread. Plenty of "wiper blade" and "wiper assembly", but nothing that addresses a stripped out arm itself.
Is my only option heading to the local dealer (Symbolic, which stopped selling Lotus a few months back but thankfully still performs service) for a replacement arm? I'm hopeful that this is some sort of Japanese generic arm, say from a Toyota Celica or Camry or some such thing that may be easily and quickly sourced.
Anybody have equivalent parts information to share?
The wiper stopped moving back and forth , and upon further investigation, the arm itself is stripped at the splines, as well as cracked where the splines form a female fitting that goes onto the wiper motor post. Between the splines being stripped and the female "hole" being cracked, the arm is toast .
Thankfully, the splines on the wiper motor post look solid; they're definitely intact after I took a small wire brush to them to clean out the debris from the arm. Another "thankfully" - I'm in southern california, so there is little to no urgency with this fix.
That said, I've done quite a bit of searching on this and one other sub-forum and haven't found a replacement wiper arm thread. Plenty of "wiper blade" and "wiper assembly", but nothing that addresses a stripped out arm itself.
Is my only option heading to the local dealer (Symbolic, which stopped selling Lotus a few months back but thankfully still performs service) for a replacement arm? I'm hopeful that this is some sort of Japanese generic arm, say from a Toyota Celica or Camry or some such thing that may be easily and quickly sourced.
Anybody have equivalent parts information to share?