Date:         Fri, 6 Mar 2009 15:40:20 -0800
Reply-To:     RICHARD KOERNER <rjkinpb@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         RICHARD KOERNER <rjkinpb@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:      Followup--Clutch Linkage wear
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Was worried about a failure of clutch pedal due to elongation of hole and wear of clevis pin where it connects to clutch master cylinder...sure didn't want something like that happening hundreds of miles from home out in the middle of nowhere.  My "clinking" clutch pedal seemed to have all the symptoms.

Well, I bit the bullet and dove in.  Took out the dash; not that bad, just tedious.  Followed an assortment of tips from the Archives, The Samba, Benny Boy.   Kinda interesting to see all the stuff behind there.  But getting out the clutch pedal towards the end was challenging.  But persistence paid off.  

Result:  virtually NO WEAR!!!  (170,000 miles, mostly long roadtrips, meaning not a lot of clutch activity.)  The holes in the clevis are nice and round, as is the hole in the clutch pedal, and no groove of any kind on the pin!!  Just shiny.  So good and bad news...good news is I won't be buying/fixing the clutch pedal.  Bad news is I've got a Vanagon sitting in my garage all in pieces...hoping I can get it all back together again.  And I still don't know what was causing the "clicking" as I depressed the pedal.  Will lube everything (like the return-spring hooks/holes and pivot shaft) and see what happens.

Took me about 5 hours to get to this point, probably equal or more to get it back together.  Learned a lot.  Maybe will address the grounding points and lube everything I can think of while its all apart; also have a rock dent on the front sheet metal that I might be able to massage out from the inside, sort of in the "paintless dent removal" manner.

Rich
85 Vanagon GL
San Diego