Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 13:02:03 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Cockeyed Parking Brake Equalizer
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it's supposed to be angled some.
perfectly normal.
I suspect you probably do not have a problem there.
it hardly takes much in the way of tools to 'adjust' the self-adjusting rear
brakes, if that's what you are thinking.
normally those self-adjust pretty decently.
if the drums come off easily, one can go in there and tweak up the self
adjusters a little.
The self-adjusters keep the shoes to say 95 % deployed....I get 'em a bit
closer to the drums than that for a higher pedal..
but that's not normally done.
Usually....it's let the self-adjusters do their thing until it's time for a
rear brake job.
The only normal service in rear brakes is to
inspect for leaking wheel cylinders, see how much brake shoe life is left,
inspect drums for how good the braking surface is, and that they are within
spec diameter wise.
and empty out brake dust ..
and change brake fluid to the rear wheel cylinders. ( should do front
brakes and clutch hydrocyanic brake fluid too, of course. )
if the parking brake handle is high ..
it's not really kosher to just go tightening up the 10mm nut on the parking
brake cable at the balance bar there ...without checking inside the rear
brake drums first.
on VW parking brake cable adjustment...it has always always been, since god
invented VW's, that the rear brakes have to be squared away FIRST ...then
adjust parking brake cable accordingly.
and make sure someone didn't tighten up the cable 'before' trying to make up
for worn rear brake shoes etc.
So sometimes to do the rear brakes initially and right, you have to back off
the parking brake cable adjustment some. .
With luck the rear drums just pop off the flanges after removing the two
small 11mm head bolts.
Sometimes the drums are stuck on like crazy.
normally you don't 'adjust the brakes' on a vanagon.
They are completely self-adjusting, save for that one adjustment on the
parking brake cable..
and that should almost never need adjusting, pretty much.
but they most definitely need inspecting and servicing once in a while.
every part of the whole van does.
end of that brake discussion...'extra' below ................
I was thinking about this ..
and I see a vanagon or any car as a whole series of parts working in concert
together.
and 'parts wear' ..
and parts 'wear less' with lubrication and keeping corrosion at bay,
maintaining adjustment etc. etc. etc.
I suspect that many people think of it as I think of my refrigerator or
computer..
it 'just works' until 'one thing' brakes or gets weak, then we fix that one
thing.
that's fine ..except ..on 25+ year old Volkswagen vans...
They DID do a pretty good job of making it 'like a refrigerator'
..self-maintaining.
take shift linkage ...other than some spray lube ( which sure 'should' be on
the official service items list ) ...it's supposed to 'just work
indefinitely ...
and it will, but it gets funkier and funkier and looser and stiffer and
vaguer as the years go by.
It wouldn't ........IF ...somebody .....either shops or owners, would
actually lube that whole series of moving parts from one end to the other,
once a year,
and attend to any adjusting/tweaking whenever it wasn't just right anymore.
so yes, much of a vanagon is self-maintaining ...*within limits* ...
the older the van..........the less the self-maintaining factor works.
take brakes...the 'common thing' is people drive brakes until something
doesn't seem right anymore ..
then they go to a shop ..
the shop sells them usually, a whole front or rear brake job, or a master
cylinder ..
sometimes just a brake fluid flush ...
but it's more like 'parts replacing when something breaks" < he yells,
'parts replacing is not really really 'fixing and mainting vanagons'
.....it's just replacing parts., which is just the tip of the
iceberb...it's just the *begining* of fine tuning a vehcile from one end to
the other, it's not the end, it's just the starting point ' for making a
vanagon really healthy. ......>
Mostly shops do either parts replacing or full restorations..there's a vast
middle ground that just invovles, cleaning, lubing, tweaking, and so on
..what I call 'pyhchic healing sometimes.
Take...... replacing the master cyhlidner .... just replacing that one part
is nothing more than that ' repolacing just one part' ...........doesn't
really address what the whole system could really use .....
which is to consider all the parts and mechansims and fluids in the entire
brake system and 'do little tweaks' to keep them up to full health...like
say lube the hidden spot on the clutch pedal where the clivis pin digs a
hole into the clutch pedal..
To me, if you are thinking about brakes, and thus brake pedal and brake
fluid ..
you also think about clutch hydraulic fluid and that one spot that wears on
the clutch pedal ...
heck, you make sure the brake lights are working ...and that can lead to
addressing corroded brake or tail light bultbs ..but it's stuff that needs
addressing.
dozens of little related things like that ..
it's like this *whole other under-level* of simple things that could use
attention ...
and ..so much of it doesn't take special tools ....
and not even much special knowledge..
like I see how rusted the parking brake cable gets where that nut is ..
I can't help shooting almost every one I see with some lube or penetrating
oil.
I can't help lubing the pivot points of the parking brake handle and the
ratchet mechaism in it since it is never, ever done and usually those spots
are just screaming ..
please, please..it's beein since 1984 in Germany since I got a spec of lube
..
and I have metal-to-metal contact going on ...
please, just the tiniest shot of any lube , is SO much better than nothing.
so when new .....,..for say 10 years,. they are self-maintaining pretty
nicely in many ways.
Old . is a whole other story.
and ...they would last nearly indefinitely with simple attention to things
that move that need some lube and address corrosion .
I see rusted rear hatch strut pivot points ...badly rusted ones..
to me, that's like seeing someone with no teeth when they are 40 years old
because they never brushed their teeth ..it is just so obvious, and so
simple to take care of and prevent. One shot of spray lube that takes 1/10th
of a second to apply last a year easily.
anyway ...with 'care and understanding' they'll last nearly forever.
the only tricky part is getting some human to do it ..
and I don't think it's shops that will fuss over these details.......so that
only leaves one person ..
either me if I get your van, or you the owner.
let's say they are quite self-maintaining for the first 10 years...after
that, if you want it to work well, last, and be safe, it takes just a little
bit of intelligently applied 'touches' here and there. And it's real easy
too.
you know..I am seeing a thousand dollars worth of fancy wheels and tires on
vangons...but the rear hatch struts are falling off onto the ground because
no one could put at least a twist of bailing wire there and give it a bit of
grease and a shot of lube.....just doesn't make sense to me.
whew !
smiles upon everyone's day !
Scott
www.turbovans.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike "Rocket J Squirrel"" <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2010 9:59 AM
Subject: Cockeyed Parking Brake Equalizer
> Given that my parking brake doesn't do a whole lot, I climbed under the
> van to take some slack out of the linkage. I stopped when I saw that the
> equalizer (Bentleys 46.11) is at quite an angle, not at a right angle to
> the centerline of the van as I expected. I'm not sure what this means. I
> don't have the tools to adjust the brakes.
>
> --
> Rocky J Squirrel
> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
> 74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
> Bend, OR
> KG6RCR