Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:56:03 -0700
Reply-To: "Mike \"Rocket J Squirrel\" Elliott" <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: "Mike \"Rocket J Squirrel\" Elliott" <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Sliding door handles mystery
In-Reply-To: <2cb866ef0706141315y448231f0vfbbbd42e04edf582@mail.gmail.com>
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Hi Jonathan,
Food for thought you have given me. Mrs Squirrel and I have always found
the mighty effort needed to close the sliding door, and the mighty noise
it emits when slammed, to be unpleasant. I briefly tried closing the
door using the rear handle (as you describe) a couple times but it
didn't seem to work well. May be a matter of practice, or maybe you and
the others are right and I need to give this door a serious cleaning. I
was planning to remove the interior panel anyway, to tighten the linkage
so it opens from inside more easily, and apply sound-damping material to
the skin. I reckon now's a good time for some maintenance.
Jake has been telling me that he likes a lanolin-based lubricant called
"Fluid Film," manufactured by the Eureka Chemical Company for slider
application. Now, I can't tell if he's in fact named the Very Best
lubricant for the sliders, or just setting me on a snipe hunt. At any
rate it reportedly smells like a raw wool sweater. So. Gross.
What else have listees found to work good?
--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
71 Type 2: the Wonderbus
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
KG6RCR
On 6/14/2007 1:15 PM Jonathan Poole wrote:
> In my experience the rear handle works great in it's stock (I
> think?) horizontal orientation. The way that I use it is to slide the door
> into the almost closed position and then grab the rear handle and gently
> pull the door inwards (towards the fridge) to close it. This way you are
> not slamming the door which is nice when camping with others etc. It is
> very hard to ease the door closed from the inside with the front handle
> only.
>
> Like others have said, if you can ease the door closed by pulling it in
> then
> you need to lube/clean the tracks etc. Don't overlook the roller that runs
> in the track at the bottom of the door (at least on the early models). I
> found that removing that roller and cleaning/greasing it made a big
> difference on my sliding door. You may need to remove the door to pop the
> roller off which is an easy thing to do. I like to keep 5 gallon
> buckets or
> such around for props so that I don't have to lower the door all the way to
> the ground immediately as an end is disconnected from the van.
>
> Jonathan Poole
> '82 AC Westy
>
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