Wipers and Washer
Wipers must be two speed and have to cover certain areas of the screen. Check the current regulations. Washers must have a minimum of one litre capacity. You can buy aftermarket washer kits or raid wrecking yards. If you have a custom built car often the wiper mechanisms used in British Leyland products are useful as they are cable driven and by mixing wheel boxes, arms, crown wheels and cable lengths you can run almost any combination of arms and arcs sweeping left to right or vice versa without trying to modify lever arms and rods.
My Lotus 7 replica uses the complete wiper mechanism from a Triumph 2500 saloon but the arms are cut down dramatically (by some 10 inches) and the wiper blades are Land Rover 10 inch units. The cable and drive tubes have been cut to length to suit the pedestal locations. I also have a 120° gear wheel fitted in the wiper motor (opposed to the 90° one standard) to increase the sweep.
The radical shortening of the arms has resulted in spring tension somewhat in excess of what would normally be used which is a real advantage in that even at 115 mph in rain the wipers do not lift off...the downside is that any contact the metal arms have with glass leaves scratches very quickly! I also use twin blade wiper refills which have two blades but fit on a single wiper blade mounting.
In NZ wipers must be two speed but some older motors may be single speed, so be careful. Additionally they may not incorporate self park or intermittent operation.
Electric Fuel Pump/Engine Low Oil Pressure Cut Out
This cut out is used to prevent electric fuel pumps from turning into flame-throwers when it all goes horribly wrong and you crash: the engine stalls when the tree you hit embeds in the crank (on its way thru’ the sump) but now you have a ruptured a fuel line with an electric pump still humming away... If you run EFI you can just have the engine circuits not come alive before oil pressure comes up - this reduces start up wear considerably - basically all you do is turn the motor over until the oil pressure comes up then the fuel pump, computer, injectors etc come alive and away you go. You can’t do this on carbs ‘cos the engine cranking (whilst you build up oil pressure) will still suck fuel from the carbs (due to the amount that is still sitting in the float bowls) and by the time you energise the fuel pump and ignition system you are already flooded... Mind you it is easy to bypass this on start up with a relay.
If you run this cut out you may not need an oil warning light, especially if you run EFI, as the cut out is checked every time you start the car - the delay in start and the noise of the fuel pump wiring into life will indicate the point where cut out pressure is exceeded. This system is an excellent idea if you have minimal sump ground clearance, an oil cooler or a dry sump system where there is increased chance of losing oil pressure due to sump/hose damage and leakage or dry sump scavenge/pressure pump failure caused by belt drive failure.
