Date:         Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:37:16 -0600
Reply-To:     Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Subject:      Decision time: A parting comment before my trip
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I'm leaving on a 2000 mile road trip tomorrow in my 90. I replaced the
leaking head gaskets last week (thank you list, thank you thank you)
and was all ready to go but today, I had to pump the clutch a couple of
times to get it in any gear. Not what you'd want to fight for four days
on the road, getting ever colder as I head north to NY.

The dilemma: Was it the clutch master cylinder, a rebuilt piece of crap
that was all that was available on a saturday a year-and-a-half ago (my
german source shop was closed and it was for some reason very important
to be on the road by monday), or was it the clutch master cylinder,
that had never been replaced at all? If I don't leave town very early
tomorrow morning, I'll be trapped by an ice storm that is to blanket
the southeast. I only have time for one repair, not two.

I have to be in NYC at a certain time because, among other things, I
have promised another list member some artwork cut in vinyl. I cannot
fail on my mission to meet him.

Neither the master or slave cylinder is leaking, so I don't know which
is the culprit. I have to make a decision. I put my money on the master
cylinder. The guy behind the counter says "but you have a 50-50 chance
of being wrong." I told him that if I didn't install one or the other,
I had a zero percent chance of being right.

I was right. Thanks to the information posted a few days ago on this
same subject, I was able to easily replace the clutch master cylinder.
I was not easily able to bleed it, as anyone who owns a gas vanagon
knows. I think the act of putting the slave cylinder bleeding screw
where it is falls under the Geneva Convention and should be roundly
deal with.

Off to the frozen north in the morning, skirting by hours the problems
of the frozen South.

Jim