Date:         Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:16:33 -0700
Reply-To:     Peter DiFalco <peter.difalco@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Peter DiFalco <peter.difalco@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: AFM track cleaning wisdom
In-Reply-To:  <4c6321a7.884ee50a.6f06.21fe@mx.google.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

As David says, I'd be inclined to go with a capacitor fix for now. See if
you can get enough life (months, years?) out of the system until GoWesty
perfects and puts into mass production their new Air Mass Sensor system with
self-tuning computer as noted in the last paragraph of this tech article:
http://www.gowesty.com/library_article.php?id=805. Once they get that dialed
in it should be a real fix for "Vanagon Syndrome".

-Peter

On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 3:11 PM, David Beierl <dbeierl@attglobal.net> wrote:

> At 05:30 PM 8/11/2010 Wednesday, Mike \"Rocket J Squirrel\" wrote:
>
>> I opened it once before, a few years ago, to move the wiper to a fresh
>> bit of track. I'll open it again to clean the track.
>>
>> Is the pencil eraser trick good enough, or would it benefit to use some
>> kinda cleaner?
>>
>
> I'd be very reluctant to use any sort of mechanical cleaning on
> that.  More than reluctant; I flat wouldn't do it.  It's not like a
> metal contact that can get dirty or corrode; it's more like a pencil
> drawing.  I've used RS-type spray circuit cleaner on it with at least
> slight improvement.
>
> If you haven't done the capacitor fix, do it.  It will make up for a
> good deal of AFM tiredness.  And stick a few volts across it (cable
> unplugged, of course) and hook your scope to the wiper and either
> end.  Exercise the vane slowly and look for dropouts.
>
> Yours,
> d
>