1303 wipers not wiping properly

[Irvin]

Hi,
The wiper blades on my Super (curved screen) do not wipe efficiently my windshield. Of course I've tried to change the blades (several times) but it did not solve the issue.

This is a quick drawing of what's going wrong:

The left blade only works properly when going up, the rightmost area it is supposed to clean is not wiped when it goes down.
The right blade never wipes close to the center of the windshield, either going up or down.

I've measured the left and right arms, they have the expected length and are mounted in the right position.

I've tried 14" and 15 inches wipers, nothing changes (except that the 15" are a tad too long for the left wiper), also I've tried to use top-notch bosch wipers (ArtoTwin endurance) or standard wipers but once again it did not solve this problem. I can't find any 13" or 13.5" blades here.

The springs on the arms seem to work well, at least I did not notice any weakness and the arms do not look bent, I can't compare to another set of arms but at least there is nothing plain wrong with their shape. Of course the right blade does not stick on the rightmost part of the windshield when at rest but that's more or less to be expected anyway.

Do you have any idea on what's going wrong here ?

Thanks.

[bhartwell59]

Would swapping the arms around help?
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'74 Zambezi green Ghia vert, autostick, 101k
'87 Jeep Wrangler, 4.2, 330k

[Irvin]

I didn't try that as the long and short arms where at their expected position but it's worth a try anyway.

[Tim Donahoe]

Bentley shows exactly where to position your wiper arms on the pivots; however, your arms seemed to have been tweaked at one time. You can either tweak them back or replace them. Wolfsburg West sells them—or used to.

I also use the wiper blades from a Standard bug on my 1303. The larger ones didn’t seem to work well.

Tim
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Let's do the Time Warp again!

Richard O'Brien

[Irvin]

Well buying new ones seems to be the most sensible option, I'll do that and report back.

[bhartwell59]

that curved windshield does create issues with the blades laying flat against it. have a similar problem on my ghia
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'74 Zambezi green Ghia vert, autostick, 101k
'87 Jeep Wrangler, 4.2, 330k

[Joel]

Make sure the springs in the arms still have good tension, thats what the problem usualy is after 4 and a half decades.

I love the wipers in my 1303, it's one of the things that are so much better than a flat windshield bug but for some reason Aussie 1303 had different arms and blades which were 15.5" (German built were only about 12") and cover the entire glass unlike my 1302 beetles and standards which had big unwiped area in front of the driver.
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Quick little bug, you got a Porsche motor in that?
1974 Germanlook 1303 2.5 Suba-Beetle