Date:         Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:54:22 -0400
Reply-To:     Herr Wibo Fichten <wibo.fichten@ROGERS.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Herr Wibo Fichten <wibo.fichten@ROGERS.COM>
Subject:      Transmission housing corrosion and (separate question)  asbestos
              ;~(
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Busbrats, Vanagonites, Syncronauts, lend me your ears...

I have a project 1988 Syncro and have discovered to my dismay rather severe
corrosion of certain areas of the transaxle housing.  There are no rotted
through holes, but the shift link attachment point (a sort of tab thingy)
fell off. The place where the diff locker switch enters the housing is quite
corroded.

This is a canadian vehicle that was winter driven, but my 1984 2wd, which
was also winter driven (but not every winter), has it's housing quite
intact.

The affected parts seem to crumble to a dark grey dust.

Any suggestions as to what may have caused this?  Sure there is road salt,
but I was under the impression that aluminium was much better at resisting
corrosion, as opposed to steel?  Aluminium road signs exposed to salt spray
seem to last forever. The head corrosion problems were attributed to
phosphates, not road salt.

Anybody know if you can weld aluminium (to add some metal, essentialy,
rather than to join two parts).  Would this be at the risk of warping the
housing?  How about the other handyman's duct tape, epoxy of the JB Weld
variety (for an outside application, as opposed to the head repair
proceedures discussed in the archives)?

How can I stop or slow the dammage? Just a bit of rust proof oiling, I
suppose?

About the asbestos part of my question.  The ETKA CD lists the 2wd vanagon
clutch plate specifically as "asbestos free", but makes no mention of this
in dealing with the Syncro plate.  I was carefull at disassembly, but it is
quite impossible to totally avoid the dust and dirt. The Syncro
specification for scealant at the junction to the motor means that the stuff
collects there so you get alot of the black dust spilling out as you crack
it apart.  Does asbestos dust have any particular caracteristics for
identification? Does anyone know for sure if the plate contains asbestos or
is asbestos free?

The best policy is undoubtedly to always assume the presence of asbestos
when dealing with these sort of parts and act accordingly, but I'd still
like to know for sure.

So many questions, so little time...

Fichten