Was originally going to post my specific question but throwing it open as we all may learn something - who knows!
I think my question is in the infamous "rivet counter" category but it's something I've been meaning to ask for ages so here it goes... Wonky wipers...
I'm pretty sure there is a straight forward explanation for this, but in vehicles of yesteryear, and I'm talking early 1980s or earlier - Nationals, Alexander T and Y types etc it was completely normal to see the wipers on vehicles operating at completely different patterns and speeds to their neighbour.
For example I recall a TS type where for every full sweep the nearside wiper made, the offside one swept twice. And a Duple Dominant bus where they moved at roughly the same speed but not quite, so would get to the point where they would sweep together, and then drift apart until they ran opposite to each other, then going slowly back to in time again, and this repeated on and on.
You don't seem to see that sort of behaviour these days. Now all I know about wipers comes from (unsuccessfully) trying to fix a Ford Escort linkage that had sheared apart mid downpour on a motorway many years ago. Based on that I can only assume that on buses in the past they had independent motors powering each arm and no linkage between the arms hence they would switch on and off together but do their own thing in terms of sweep speed etc, whereas now they are physically connected to each other and hence always sweep in unison?
I guess I'm asking for an answer from someone in the know and also to see whatever other random questions this throws up!
I think my question is in the infamous "rivet counter" category but it's something I've been meaning to ask for ages so here it goes... Wonky wipers...
I'm pretty sure there is a straight forward explanation for this, but in vehicles of yesteryear, and I'm talking early 1980s or earlier - Nationals, Alexander T and Y types etc it was completely normal to see the wipers on vehicles operating at completely different patterns and speeds to their neighbour.
For example I recall a TS type where for every full sweep the nearside wiper made, the offside one swept twice. And a Duple Dominant bus where they moved at roughly the same speed but not quite, so would get to the point where they would sweep together, and then drift apart until they ran opposite to each other, then going slowly back to in time again, and this repeated on and on.
You don't seem to see that sort of behaviour these days. Now all I know about wipers comes from (unsuccessfully) trying to fix a Ford Escort linkage that had sheared apart mid downpour on a motorway many years ago. Based on that I can only assume that on buses in the past they had independent motors powering each arm and no linkage between the arms hence they would switch on and off together but do their own thing in terms of sweep speed etc, whereas now they are physically connected to each other and hence always sweep in unison?
I guess I'm asking for an answer from someone in the know and also to see whatever other random questions this throws up!