The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Windshield wiper arm not much pressure

I have the original arms for my 47 Chevy. I converted it to electric that works very well. But, the arms have very little pressure on the glass. The new original style blades would do an adequate job if they had more down pressure on the glass. Is there a fix for them? They have a flat spring that pushes the arm, but it's not much, not enough to wipe the glass completely across the length of the blade.

Funny, the usual complaint is that the new wiper arms have too much spring tension and won't move across the window at all.

Can you bend some arch into them? I would guess that the spring has sprung a bit in the last 70+ years.

They are supposed to have a coiled spring and you should have a good amount of pressure on the glass. Let me know if you need an image.

Yes a picture would be nice. I don’t know what the aftermarket arms have for springs, but these arms are original and there is no coil spring, just a flat spring that pushes on a pin.

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I have a tip to share about lessening tension of the wiper on the windshield caused by modern reproduction wiper arms<which have very strong springs.
If you look at Otto's picture, you will see 2 holes in a tab where the spring eye goes through one of them.
You can drill another hole in that tab at the very end of it for the spring eye, reducing the pressure on the windshield enough for smoother operation, without losing contact of the wiper blade on the glass.
I don't have a solution for the OP's problem without a picture of the inner workings of his wiper arm.

My arms are not like that. Much smaller than newer vehicles.

Lumbersawyer, those arms are for a 1950 3100. The one on the left is the factory original, the one on the right is the reproduction.

Thanks Carl, that's a good idea.

Is there a coil spring inside yours?

If not, it probably rusted away and fell out. My original wiper blades were like that. One of them didn't have a spring at all and the other one was so rusted it had no spring tension left in it

I posted three pictures of my wiper arms. Did they not show up? There is no coil spring or any place one could have been, just that flat leaf spring.

They did. I thought that was a cover or something over where the coil spring would be.

They did. If THESE are those.

lumbersawyer,
I don't think that what you are looking at is a flat spring. I believe that it is a cover and a coil spring would be located under it. Your spring is likely missing.

The coil spring engages that cross pin near the knurled end of the arm. The other end of the spring goes through a hole in a tab held by a rivet. All of this is covered so you can't see any of it.

I fixed them! I thought about it for a few days, and since these original arms have the leaf springs, I decided to shim them. I used a small screw driver and separated the two top leaves from the longer leaf that presses on the cross pin. Then I cut a plastic strip out of a spreader for body filler and slid it in between the top two leaves and the long leaf. It has much more pressure on the arm pressing on the glass now.


I left the plastic shim back so you can see where it went. This is a spare arm I practiced on and use it for the picture of my solution. My arms on my truck the shim is pushed all the way in between the springs.
There is no place to hook a coil spring to. What looks like a hole by the splined end is a tab for the spring clip to attach it to the truck and keep it from falling off.

Sawyer,
Good job. Never a shortage of ingenuity/creativity on this site!

Ditto that. My 60 wipers have the springs but still lack down pressure. After market.