Previa Wipers

[jimbob]

Hello new member here. im in need of wiperblades/arms. Used refills before but now need new or used blades. As im sure you know dealer want £45 each.

Has anyone found a replacement or suitable blade to use with or without mods?

Any help or advice appreicated

Jimmy

[peterc]

Loads of refills on eBay mate. Not sure about the arms though. Maybe try bbc spares:

http://www.bbcspares.com

Cheers

Pete

[miti-babe]

Jimbob...

As Pete says, there are loads of refills available... but no-one is selling the arms (except Toyota... get in quick before the mortghage rate goes up though..!! )

In all fairness though... the Toyota price reflects the sheer quantity of materials needed for such sizeable assemblies and their build quality speaks for itself... I reckon mine must have seen at least 10 refills...

As you've not quoted which Previa you're working on, I'll assume it's the early one...

If you want to try and "remanufacture" the Wiper Blades completely, here's a cunning plan (yes it's been chased by the Northampton Hunt and all those other "cunning as a fox" one-liners are equally as applicable...) I've devised...

NOTE: I haven't finished mine yet, so If you complete yours first, let's hear about it...

For starters... buy a pair of Champion "Aerovantage" X70 Wiper Blades - they'l cost between £10 and £12 and you can get them from Partco - they stock them for commercial vehicles...

By the way... if your Previa is 1997 - 2001 - STOP! These are the right blades and you won't need to butcher the old ones... B)

Next... The old blades are held onto the arms with 2 x 3.5 mm phillips screws (if you're lucky - one of mine had a self-tapper and a lump of Araldite!). The best way to remove these screws is with plenty of WD 40 or Plus-Gas, and a pair of mole grips... chuck them away, 'cos they'll be well shot!

Once you have the screws out... disconnect the water pipe at the Tee and remove the blade from the vehicle... (both of them)

Now you need to recover the water pipes, clips and the pivot bracket from the old arms... they're different sizes on each arm so make sure to keep each set of bits separate...

The water pipes come away fairly easily, but removing the pivot is the "point of no return..." You need to grind away the pivot bar that is rivetted through the arm, taking great care not to butcher the pivot arm... This arm is stainless steel on my wipers (assuming yours is the same), so it's up to a little rough treatment... :ffs:

You should now have two sets of water pipes and two (different) pivot arms...

At this point, I set about the vehicle with a drill, some metric taps and an oily rag... I drilled out the wiper arms and re-tapped the holes to M4... I drilled the pivot arms to 4.2 mm and secured the pivots back onto the arms with stainless steel M4 screws ('cos I could, that's why! )

Take the lovely new X70 wipers out of their boxes.... now you have to damage them

In order to fit the old pivot arms to the new wipers... you need to remove the pivot bar from the middle of the new blades... stainless steel again and it takes some careful drilling...

Once you have the pivot removed from the new blade, you'll need a couple of M4 x 30 mm machine screws, 4 washers and two M4 nylock nuts... all the pivot holes in the old arms and new blades should be drilled (no bigger than 4.1 mm) clear and you can then fit the old pivot arms to the new blades...

(Nearly there... )

You should now have new blades on your old pivot arms... now you need to fit/modify/force the water pipes into blades that weren't designed to have them... can't be that difficult though....

Refitting is not very much like removal (Joe Haynes lied!)

You may wonder why I never finished my "blade mods"...? Well, after I had resecured the pivot arms... the wipers were absolutely transformed! The rubbers weren't worn out because they had hardly ever touched the windscreen! :hokus-pokus:

So I'm at the point where I have my X70's without pivots and I'll be carrying out a "Sponsored Butcher" next month, in aid of the "Home for Old Previas and Other Unloved MPVs"... Anyone interested in sponsoring me..?

Have Loads of Fun!

Jeff

p.s. If all this seems like a complete pain in the A***... remind yourself why you asked the question, now showing at a Toyota Spares Counter near you....

[jimbob]

Thanks pete & jeff for help & advice blades repaired for now and working better than ever! ( not sure how )

So im going to leave replacement till better weather(less cold)lol. Then hopefully i'll be able to spend more time locating a suitable blade to do the job. Hopfully with less machining.

Cheers

jimmy