Changing the indicators and wiper arms to opposite sides

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All

There have been a few posts in the past about people wanting to swap the wiper and indicators arms on an NA or NB and no-one seems to have done it. Today I did this and I can confirm it works perfectly. I know many will ask why and that's fair enough - but it's like why choose silver over white - because it's a preference and I prefer to have my indicators on the left hand side like my other cars have. Nothing wrong or right , just a preference, so I purchased the unit from a breakers yard in the UK (where postage to Aus was more expensive than the item itself) and set about working out what I would need.

You will need:

One indicator and wiper arm unit from a UK spec car (other spec cars may also be fine but I knew this was the best way of making sure). I paid $32 for the complete unit with wiring cable and $36 to have it shipped here. It was a gamble without seeing it close up but the chap seemed honest enough and sure enough it was fine.

About two weeks later I had a vision. Damn... something told me to check the cowls around the wiper and indicator unit and sure enough they are different each side (in terms of the opening for the lever) so then went to another breakers (quite a few actually) looking for one. Ended up paying about $25 for the top and bottom section. (Note: Although he said it was from an NB it was actually from an NC, as identified on the innards. This is not exactly the same as the NB or NA shape one BUT can be made to fit with a bit of persuasion and now seems fine. Will see how it goes over time.

The next was following the process of removing the steering wheel, and replacing the unit. More to be revealed when I upload photos and create a walk through. It's not hard but a few key points I should mention. Anyhow, it now works fine and no issues at all.

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Ok, so first thing to do is disconnect battery and I left it for 30 mins or so. Not sure this is required but I did it anyway.

Then remove the two 10mm bolts underneath the steering wheel to allow the airbag to come free. This got me concerned as I've never removed an airbag before...



Here you can see the airbag connection and a separate cable, just to the right with a single red wire which is the horn connection.

The yellow clip can be removed from the fastening clip by pushing down on the small yellow tab that can be seen in the first picture between the two red wires (top left) and this then slides away from the camera. The actual clip (the large yellow connector) is held together using the white tabs you see on this - it's fairly obvious what you do, push in the end (furthest away from the camera and the top of the white clip lifts up allowing the two yellow connectors to come apart. Take the air bag unit and store it away from the car with the air bag facing up.

You will now see the actual steering wheel like this. Ensure the wheel (steering and road wheels) are straight so they wheel gets replaced (later) and remains in line with the car. In this pic the horn is still connected.



Loosen the centre bolt that holds the steering wheel in (this requires a 22mm spanner/socket) but before removing it loosen it, then wiggle the steering wheel to get it loose, and prevent it shooting off the shaft and hitting you in the face. Mine was fairly easy to do after some wiggling.

With the steering wheel removed, this is what you see...



Now you need to remove the clock spring - the round yellow thing you can see in the above picture. This is held on by three screws - all can be seen in the picture above. They are at 1, 4 and 8 o'clock. Keep the screws handy and the actual unit just slides off and will hang from the orange covered cable you can see. It will then look like this.



MOre to follow

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This is an image looking down past the indicator and wiper unit to the wiring. The reason I say this is so people can see the small beige coloured connector in the background with two green wires in it. This is the connector that I have unplugged that causes the annoying beep beep beep sound when the key is in the ignition or the door is open. Just so you know what it looks like...



Now you need to look for the connector for the cables that the unit attaches to. The unit I purchased had the all as one and so should yours. It was an interesting one in that given it's position, I expected a simple plug in connector. What you actually have to do, as the following pic shows, is to pull on the grey locking clip that intersects the two units (housing with pins and connector). This pic shows the grey clip about 2/3rds of the way out. It's tight so needs some wiggling and does NOT come all the way out but after a bit pull on the connector and it just slides out.



The next thing is to take out the three screws that hold the indicator and wiper arms on the sterring column. This pic shows them (almost) so I shall try and explain as follows:



There are three screws - two on the left (sunken). If you can see the long white piece of plastic in the to the left of the blue, at each end (and to the left) of the white piece of plastic are holes - this is where the screws are. There is one more obvious screw on the right as this pic shows



Undo these, keep them safe and the unit (assuming you have disconnected the connector) just slides forwards and off, and you are left with this.



This image below shows the three obvious holes for the screws

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With the replacement unit put on, and it fits exactly, you just need to do a reversal of the procedure that you used to dismantle.



Here (above) you can see the new unit with the brown cables leading to the main connector, and how the position of the white crescent shaped plastic bit is now on the other side of the steering wheel (now offside, not nearside).

Then replacing everything as you did before. You may need to play with the clock spring to ensure it lines up with the slots but this is very simple to do.

Then reconnect the airbag clip and horn, and ensure that the air bag connector (yellow) is clipped back into position.

Reconnect battery and off you go. I did NOT check that everything worked before reassembly to avoid any airbag fault codes or anything else, but it all worked fine, indicators cancel as they should when turning the wheel and it all works as it should...

Good luck

[hks_kansei]

Interesting to note that the UK MX5's have the indicators on the left.

I knew that a lot of Euro/UK cars had them that way, but I always assumed it was just a cost cutting measure on cars made for both RHD English markets, and LHD Mainland markets.

I just assumed Jap cars would have been "normal"..



I've never really had an issue with swapping sides, my old daily was a Mondeo (which is probably being made into coke cans as we speak) and my current daily is an MG, both of which had the left side indicators.

[Mr Morlock]

the rhs t/s was a local standard and having a standard works well. we had a number of ADRs which means makers have to comply with our domestic market though I don't know how this works with regard to t/s combo switches. My bet is that Japan is the same as Au? If you have 2 cars with opposite actuation it's potentially dangerous as a wiper does not do what an indicator does.

[hks_kansei]

If you have 2 cars with opposite actuation it's potentially dangerous as a wiper does not do what an indicator does.

I do (having purchased the MG last week)
I dont really get them mixed up, but then I've basically had to swap between cars with the different sides since I got my licence (mum's cars always had the left stalk, dad's the right, and my cars have been either over the years)

Neither my old Mondeo, nor the MG, are changed from how the respective factories provided them.
My mother owns a 2010(give or take) Mondeo, and it also has the lefthand mounted indicator stalk.

The fact that many factory imported (not personal imports) cars have the left side indicators suggests to me that the ADR rules don't specify the side they are to be mounted.
In saying that, I havent read the ADR in relation to it.

[ben wilson]

I knew that a lot of Euro/UK cars had them that way, but I always assumed it was just a cost cutting measure on cars made for both RHD English markets, and LHD Mainland markets.

I always assumed that it rained so often in the UK that you needed the wipers more often than the indicators

[smy0003]

There's no rule about what side the indicators have to be on.
Heaps of cars are sold here with the lhs turn signal stalk.
Mass market euro cars have only just become the norm down here, so most of us coming from the traditional jap and falcodore camps are puzzled by it.

Nice write up by the way.
If I ever move to England I'll have to find this thread to swap the indicators over.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[hks_kansei]

There's no rule about what side the indicators have to be on.
Heaps of cars are sold here with the lhs turn signal stalk.

I figured as much.

Manufacturers dont tend to be in the business of selling cars that dont meet the relevant rules (well, unless you're VW selling Diesels in light of current news)

[fastfreddygassit]

Excellent write up and some great info there re: uk wreckers/breakers.
I know Droo wants to change the set-up on his NA8 to bring into line with the VAG cars in his fleet.

[slipshot]

Thanks chaps for the comments... first write up I've done.

As I said, it's been fine for me to have the indicators on the right, and there was really no need to change them but it was more because this is a project car and given the other DD is a Passat R36, that has indicators on the left and I'm just more used to that.

Having owned two MX5's in England, and because they sold a heck load of them there, it's often far easier to get parts from ebay.co.uk or breaker yard brokerage sites and have them ship to Aus (although not all do because they are 'fearful' of shipping abroad, which confuses me no end but there you go...) or get them to send it to a friendly local who can send it on. I have some links if anyone needs them to ones I use but ebay often has a good lot as well.

It is interesting how Aus has some strict ADR's and some fairly fluid. All UK sold cars have to have the indicator on the left, unless the car is a personal import (slightly easier to do that in the UK). Likewise some car manufactures do actually sell both (Mazda being one of them) where as someone like Ford does not, as identified by the Mondeo for example.

Just make sure if you do attempt this mod, you also get the cowls (top and bottom) that go around the stalk unit as the existing one will not work.

As an aside, I used the chance to dismantle my dash too - because I could. I wanted to see if there was a Check Engine Light as I did not have one on my car (that was lit anyway) and I'd read how some cars around the 02-03 era did not have them and I was confused as to why.

On pulling out the dash, it was easy to remove the bulbs at the back and look through - with (day)light shining through you could easily see the image of the relevant icon - and sure enough there was one foe the engine symbol. Looking at the bulb it was fine, or seemed to be, but I also noticed there was a bulb in the HOLD socket and as I don;t have an auto, it made sense to swap these over - redid the dash, fired her up and sure enough, I DO have a CEL but the bulb must have been knackered. And it went out so all good and running my OBDII scanner showed no error codes so all seems to have worked fine.

Quite glad I checked the bulb now as otherwise I would have naively assumed I did not have a CEL light for some weird reason...

[slipshot]

the rhs t/s was a local standard and having a standard works well. we had a number of ADRs which means makers have to comply with our domestic market though I don't know how this works with regard to t/s combo switches. My bet is that Japan is the same as Au? If you have 2 cars with opposite actuation it's potentially dangerous as a wiper does not do what an indicator does.

Correct - Japan cars have indicators on the right side too, another throwback to the early days of vehicle development in both Japan and the UK and when the UK had them on the right hand side too. I have no idea when the UK made the change to the left side, or the rationale for this, but it was not followed by other markets, hence some are left and some are right.

[Vat]

Mass market euro cars have only just become the norm down here...

Had a '98 Vectra with these. It's hardly new in mass market cars here.

[davekmoore]

the rhs t/s was a local standard and having a standard works well. we had a number of ADRs which means makers have to comply with our domestic market though I don't know how this works with regard to t/s combo switches. My bet is that Japan is the same as Au? If you have 2 cars with opposite actuation it's potentially dangerous as a wiper does not do what an indicator does.

Correct - Japan cars have indicators on the right side too, another throwback to the early days of vehicle development in both Japan and the UK and when the UK had them on the right hand side too. I have no idea when the UK made the change to the left side, or the rationale for this, but it was not followed by other markets, hence some are left and some are right.

The correct side for indicators on right hand drive cars is the right hand side of the steering wheel as that's the opposite side to the hand that operates the gear lever.
UK cars used to have this correct. Some (most?) Japanese cars still have it correct. All Euro cars with indicators on the left when the steering wheel is on the right are WRONG. However, if the steering wheel is on the left then the indicator should be on the left as that is the opposite side to the gear lever.
Euro and UK cars sold in right hand drive markets have the indicator on the wrong side merely in order to keep costs down by standardising it always being on the left regardless of whether the market is left or right hand drive.
If you swap cars regularly it's not difficult to live with both variations within a couple of cars in the family or with many variations during a day of test driving several potential trade-ins. Just remember which car you're in. It's the same as remembering which cars have reverse cameras and/or reverse sensors. Although I do have to think twice about those pesky CX5 Maxx Sports - camera but no sensors. And it does seem weird to look at an MZD screen in an ND GT as you select reverse and not see a TV picture. Still, only $485 to solve that.