It was a rainy day for me all day and couldnt drive my 76 cuz my wiper elements are trashed. So while i was doing my refills i decided to share a pic of the arms i made since i just never had them lol.

I decided i didnt want to buy the cheap adjustable wiper arm replacements and that i wanted to update the design to a 'shephards hook" style that most cars have been using up until here recently with these crazy special connector designs. Goin to a sheperds hook style means i can use any wiper blade as they come standard equipped for shephards (9x3 hook i believe is what it is). so no more adapting!

I bought new wiper arms replacements for a 1996 f250, drilled the rivet holding the spring steel to the arm body, shortened it, made a new hole for the actual coil spring to hook back and instead of re-riveting i used a small nut/bolt. i cant remember how much i shortened them its been a few years but i think theyre custom length for each side. im now using anco contour 16" blades because theyre awesome and i know how to refill them. ill explain that.
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as you can see theyve been working for a while as theyre beginning to rust now.
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as for refilling a frameless blade, specifically the anco contour.(in the pic above) As you can see these blades are composed of a center saddle containg the connector for the shepards hook arm. two strips of spring steel are attached underneath of the saddle. some spoiler-looking covers slide over each end, tuck under the saddle, holds the two steels together, and endcaps on the end. As for other brand blades, haven't done this but ive noticed they are mostly the same design, you could try this and if a failure you wouldve had to trash them anyway.
1. pull out the wiping-rubber(insert) it will come out with the end caps of the wiper body still on. You can now easily release the small tabs holding ONE of the end caps on the spring steel's within.

2. i purchased anco refill U-18R. yes i only need 16" of rubber but the first two inches are crimped into the plastic part of the insert. any longer length is also suitable for use the most common are in 20 and 22". the excess gets cut off later anyway(you could use the leftover to refill a wiper on your kids barbie jeep or a mercedes headlight wiper lmao.)

3. remove the rubbers from the U-18R inserts. i was able to pull them out of the crimps without chopping them off. theyre pretty durable and are hard to rip when new. make sure not to feed the crimped in portion into the contour first and its all jankety from being crimped plus youve been pulling on it might be weak now.

4. with ONE endcap of the contour removed, the spoiler will now slide right off one end of the steels, allowing the spring steels to have just enough spread to enable the new wiper rubber to slide right in. they get tighter as they go just inch-worm it in. took me about 3 minutes to wiggle it in carefully.

5. take scissors and cut off the remainder of the 18" rubber so that about a quarter inch is past the spring steels.

6. slide the spoiler 'rail-cover' back over the spring steels and snap the endcap back onto the steels, compressing that last little bit of wiper rubber and makes for a tight fit.
And there it is a $20 contour blade refilled for $5 or less.

i have been able to remove and install the rubbers without even taking the blade apart, but its a very tight squeeze. all this was figured out while being bored as heck working at a parts store on a rainy day with hundreds of used wipers in the trash.
i hope this helps someone save 20 bucks someday, or least something to do on a rainy day. now when the wife complains about her wipers on her car it wont cost you 40-60 bucks

 

I like this idea, but am a little unclear on what you did.

You used the 70s frame, but bolted on a 96 extension piece with the hook? After that you used a refill that was too long and cut it down? WHy not just leave it long? did it hit the weatherstripping?

I put on a frameless blade on our good car (Acura) and I am really happy with it. If I could swap this on to my 79, I would love it!

 

sorry. no, i took an entire arm for a 1996 and shortened it so it would work correctly for my 76. a 96 arm will go right onto a denside but are much longer i think i cut somewhere around 4 inches out of them for them to work.

the second part was how i refilled a supposedly non-refillable type of wiper blade to save a rediculous amount of money. i probably should have made a seperate thread on that, but i guess i didnt plan on getting that detailed. sorry.

And one of the reasons for modifying a '96 arm was so i could use the modernized blades as well as not having to use little adapters and have great solid wiper assemblies.

i used an 18" refill but removed the rubber itself from the plastic part. a 16" refill is kinda never in stock and hard to find for some reason. so if i left it long it would just be flopping around there, see. plus in order to fit the ends of the wiper blade back on...yeah

 

I have replacement arms that have the shepards hook adapter on it and they work great. hook attaches to end of arm and locks in place over raised "bump" will fit any modern wiper blade. ANCO adjustable wiper arm from Oreilly's. ANCO Wiper Arm Accessories 114-4812 - SummitRacing.com

 

the adjustable arm's suck im sorry just the way i feel about them. the adapter works they come with the anco contour blades too but i dont feel safe with it and dont like to have to adapt things. since i had to buy new wiper arms i took care of both of those cheesy problems by doing it my way. these arms and blades are rock friggin solid and wipe smooth as hot butter. my 74 had the adapters and the blades kinda twist and move a lil bit and chattered like a bus full of old ladies or something. horrible. My choice would be either find the original good stuff(which i couldnt find then) or this way.

i cant believe they're selling a free adapter for 1.25 even for a 6pack of them LOL. they come with the blades anyway

 

gotcha, I was just happy to be able to have any pressure at all against the windshield and be able to see in the rain for the first time!