A general comment on the Bentley--there are several editions out there. The newest have more of this hind-sight information. (He may have a Bentley that doesn't have the strut info in it.) When I bought my '86 new, I bought a Bentley soon after. It stopped at the '87 model year. When I bought my '85 camper, it came with a much newer edition. It contained extra sections on head gasket replacement, hot-footwell fixes, rear-seat shoulder harness installs, all kinds of wierd Canadian stuff... If you are working from an old Bentley, you might want to consider a newer one, or possibly the cd version. I would think Ron would have the latest version, though... Maybe he's just too busy packing up my latest order. Jay
David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>@gerry.vanagon.com> on 03/05/2002 11:50:01 AM Please respond to David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET> Sent by: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM cc: Subject: Re: Rear hatch struts revisted. Why do they fail?
At 08:24 AM 3/5/2002, The Bus Depot wrote: >Why did VW switch to a weak strut / strong strut combination? I've never >spoken to anyone who knew for sure. Some have said that it was to support >the optional rear wiper, but the data on the fiche does not bear this out. Go to the source, grasshopper. Bentley 55.4. For those too impatient to seek wisdom at its own pace, 55.4 as translated from the Psalter according to The Seventy states: "For complaints that rear-lid gas spring causes rear hatch to open completely, such that lid is too high for some people [cf. Randy Newman, _Short People_] to close, correct as follows: -- install new-type variable gas cylinders, p/n 251829331B/332 (in pairs only). These cylinders allow the rear hatch to stay open in various positions.
>will say that I have never heard that "one side raises the hatch and one >lowers it." My initial reaction is that this is highly implausible and >probably the wild guess of somebody who has no more clue as to why VW made BWAAA-HA-HA-hee-hee-ho-ho. <snicker> Possibly somebody who had a 100-lb hatch fall on their head when the struts failed? sorry, feels like Friday... david
-- David Beierl - Providence, RI http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/ '84 Westy "Dutiful Passage" '85 GL "Poor Relation" |
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