Styling Wiper arms and wheel trims.

[Jaymz515]

Warning: one very amateur question coming up!

I've been looking at tarting my 1998 Punto up a tad and I decided to start with new wheel trims and making my wiper arms look nicer, which I figured would involve getting rid of the rust on them and perhaps spraying them a nice new black (if this is a bad idea for any reason feel free to stop me now), question is, how do they come off? Or might it be easier to cover my car in newspaper and spray them without taking them off?

Secondly, and this is the daft one, what size wheel trims do I need? About 18 months ago I got some trims that were meant to fit my car but didn't find out they didn't until I actually tried to fit them, which was bout a year ago. Now I have 14" wheels (that is, I have 14" tyres put on whenever I have new ones) yet the trims 'for' my car are some 14" on the 'outside' face and just shy of 12" when measured on the inside where the clips are that fit to the wheel, yet are too small to fit the wheel. So if I just ordered some 14" trims from somewhere like shop4parts would they do? I know it sounds daft asking when I know the wheel size but I don't wanna mess up again.

Many thanks you lovely lot.

 

[Focus Owner]

since it is already rusted, rust has a habit of now being set in ie. once its on its on. (steelwork wise)
may be as simple as taking off (dont know if you can see no reason why not)
wire brushing and then applying paint designed for this
http://www.rawlinspaints.com/offers.html
or go to a scrapyard and get some decent looking ones.

 

[MikeSalt]

Take a look at the condition of the wiper arm springs. If these are heavily corroded, I would replace the arms for new ones. I once had a wiper arm spring break during a monsoon on the M6; not fun at all. Not very expensive from Fiat.

 

[Jaymz515]

Thanks to both for the help.

Take a look at the condition of the wiper arm springs. If these are heavily corroded, I would replace the arms for new ones. I once had a wiper arm spring break during a monsoon on the M6; not fun at all. Not very expensive from Fiat.

Did you get them from the Fiat site or from a dealership? Was looking around the online shop but couldn't find them for the Mk1, might just be looking in the wrong place but if you know a link it'd be appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[MikeSalt]

From the dealership itself.

 

[DaveMcT]

Try eBay, a quick look showed front wiper arm pairs for the Mk2 are from £20. Not had time to look for Mk1. Dunno(?) - might be the same.

The wiper spindles have a splined taper end which locks the arm into place with a nut on top. You might need a special extractor to pull them off the spindles.

 

[Jaymz515]

Sweet, I'll have a look around then.

Concerning the wheel trims, realised that the first post I made sounded pretty garbled so I'll try again.

The trims I have on now on my 14inch rims measure 15 across the outer face, yet the ones that I already have that are 14 across the same outer face" don't fit properly. Given that I have R14 tyres fitted I assume a set of 14" trims would suffice yes? Are the measurements taken differently to how I've been doing it?

Cheers.

 

[Henchman]

DO NOT BUY ANY HALFORDS RIPSEED WIPER BLADES!!!!!!!!!!!!
they make look "flashy" to some, but they rust!

You could always try and spray them?



As Jay said its the "R" number, so "R 14" would be 14"