Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 06:30:27 EDT
Reply-To: RAlanen@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Frank Condelli <RAlanen@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: sliding door issue, 81 Air Cooled.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
In a message dated 23/05/2009 9:15:10 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
LISTSERV@GERRY.VANAGON.COM writes:
Wanna bet ? There are at least a million parts give or take a few
in the middle, lower and upper slider mechanisms that are worn and need
replacing. How old it that AC bus ? AND, how may times do you think that
door has opened and closed in it's lifetime. ALL the bearings, three in the
middle mechanism and one in the lower mechanism and one in the top
mechanism are SEALED bearings. If you think they still have any grease left in
them then your not thinking too clearly. Greasing or spraying with whatever
will not get any lubrication into the bearings, if it does then the seal's
gone and so is the bearing races. All that lubrication your shooting in
there is doing only two things, gathering crud for the rollers to run over
making it even harder to open and close and maybe slowing down the rust of the
tracks. Yes, rust in the tracks, yikes who would have thnunk ? Not the
engineers as they figured running steel rollers on a painted surface was
gonna work - for a week - maybe ! So now, take off that slider cover and
have a "real" look at what's going on ! The whole mechanism needs to come
off and taken apart and rebuilt or replaced. Don't forget the bronze
bushings that have cracked in the two pin joints. Those bronze bushings are
unobtainium unless you have a machine shop nearby who will make them for you
then get your check book ready ! Better to get a whole new assembly from VW
while they still have them ! For a list of available parts and their
Canadian dollar prices from VW see my _Vanagon New Parts_
(http://frankcondelli.com/sales.htm) webpage "Sliding Door Hardware" listing. Those prices are
from recent purchases as i just rebuilt one of these mechanisms on an '87
Syncro this week. Some of the parts in the mechanism of the early AC and
waterboxer vans are different, so beware !
>>>>>In my experience, there's really no need to disassemble anything.<<<<<
Cheers,
Frank Condelli
Almonte, Ontario, Canada
'87 Westy & Lionel Trains (_Collection for sale_
(http://frankcondelli.com/trainsal.htm) )
_Frank Condelli & Associates_ (http://frankcondelli.com/busindex.html) -
Vanagon/Vanagon Westfalia Service in the Ottawa Valley
_Vanagon Stainless Steel Exhaust Systems_
(http://frankcondelli.com/exhaust.htm)
_BusFusion_ (http://www.busfusion.com/bfhome.htm) a VW Camper camping
event, Almonte, ON, June 11 ~ 14, 2009
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