Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 14:14:16 -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: lube speedo cable?
In-Reply-To: <1365447655.21281.YahooMailNeo@web162904.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
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hi..
nice to see your words.
I do have this one fun thing in mind..
excell spreadsheets are very handy to list things in , like this -
Spots to Lube with what
Sliding Door - spray lube
slider at top track
slider at bottom track
pivot-hinge at rear track
slider at rear body track
remove plastic cover at r. of door,lube there
yes....I'll try to do that someday.
In the meantime I would like to encourage people to just 'care for
things' ..
I do lots and lots of cleaning,adjusting, smoothing rough edges
wherever, treating rust
and so on.
I 'massage' vanagons to health.
Really ..'replacing parts' is not it. Sure, you need a good used or new
parts sometimes..
but massive amounts of wonderful things can be done to preserve and
actually CARE for Vanagons
that does not include 'replacing parts.'
Heck ...'replacing parts' is low tech, obscene almost, compared to very
inexpensively caring for things.
A huge majority of the time ..if things just got really cared for ..
say lubing a speedo cable ......you wouldn't ever need to replace it.
People brush their teeth , right ?
shampoo their hair, keep their body clean, right ?
same thing.
and there are litterally THOUSANDS of products deigned to care for things.
There's hardly any leather on vangons, but a great product to care for
leather is Neatsfood Oil. for example.
every surface,
every mechainnsm, every electrical contact on Vanagons ..there are
products to service those with.
some people take care of things, some don't.
it's far more rewarding, and less expensive, to care for things. Tells
ya right on the bottle what it's for and how to use it.
Take the armrests on early Vanagon seats.
Drives me nuts. About every couple of years, remove one plastic cap,
take out one 6mm allen screw, tighten two screws on the seat frame, put
grease on the big post, put the thing back together. Takes like 4 minutes .
if never done ..it gets looser and looser and more worn until it's
needlessly broken.
I have seen them so badly neglected and abused that the pivoting part is
SEIZED to the post it pivots on.
Just stupid wasteful.
when it's a small rewarding easy job to do.
that's an example of what I'm talking about.
and ...why you have to do it yourself ..
you can take your van to the fanciest 'we are the best shop' in the
world and spend hundreds/thousands of dollars on mechanical repairs and
they will never do a simple badlyneeded thing like this ..
and even worse ...this super drives me nuts ..
theywon't even notice it , or inform you that someone should service
that loose dry armrest that is trying to break, that just takes minutes
to make happy for a long time.
this is too typical, sadly ..
fancy syncro vanagon, fancy 15,000 dollar engine conversion ..
they don't even let the guy know that an entire fuel tank strap, hard,
even impossible, to get to unless engineand/or trans are out ...is not
even there,...fully missing ...not only do they not say 'sir, you really
should have new tank straps installed, one is rusted away and just gone
and the other is tired, and it's X dollars' ...
they don't even tell they guy...and he had his van there to 'get it
fixed right' ..
< it would be fine if he said ...I'll deal with that later...but they
never even gave him the choice, or even the glaringly obvious
information. >
See it all the time Kids.
I see it all the blank time.
Point is ..
ya gotta do it yourself to get anyone to care about the detail care
needs of these fine machines.
And mostly ..it's just tighten, lube, adjust, fine tune ...no new parts
needed even.
Sorry to say 'professional' doesn't mean a thing. I've seen an
alternator flopping around as obvious as 4 flat tires right after a
'professional VW shop' checked out a Westy for sale. Too, too, common.
A smoothly moving mechanism is a wonderful thing.
Lube does not last forevercontrary to popular belief.
nice to see your post Anthony.
Scott
On 4/8/2013 12:00 PM, Anthony Egeln wrote:
> Scott,
>
> Didn't you say one time that you were going to write the "Complete Guide to Lubing Your Vanagon"?
>
> Have you found time to start scrawling some notes on this?
>
> As you pointed out, no one knows Vanagon lubing like you.
>
> I for one would pay (a modest sum) to have that guide.
>
> Thanks, Anthony
> '89 Syncro GL (Hidalgo)
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Sent: Monday, April 8, 2013 2:53 PM
> Subject: Re: lube speedo cable?
>
> I do , religeously.
> Take cable off back of speedometer ( helps to have instrument cluster
> out of the way )
> Jack up left front ( if it's 2WD and not a Syncro )...
> turn LF wheel with with foot while running /spraying lube into the
> speedo cable from the top.
>
> I use good spray lubes like ..Deep Creep is a good one..
> but they are all good ..LPS at the hardware store ..
> any of those high quality spray lubes.
>
> Vanagons love that stuff applied to dozens of spots all over them.
> Dozens of dozens of spots.
> I never use graphite for anything, fwiw.
> I'm a lubrication fanatic and mostly just use good spray lubes of
> various brands.
>
> yes, based on experience. Beenworking on cars of all types mostly full
> time since 1964.
> and mostly ..
> thousands of things never get lubed on vanagons and in the world, that
> would just benefit SO greatly from a 2 second shot of lube.
>
> With extremely rare exceptions, if it moves, lube it.
> Don't get me started.
> Vanagons get to me and I am the first person in 27 years to lube some
> hinge or latch or cable or mechanism on it..
> And sometimes even after they just had 10 to 15thousand dollar jobs done
> on them. No kidding.
>
> all mechansim love lubrication, and the lubing fluid gradually goes away.
> If everything was kept lubed ...there would be no wear. Just like knee
> joints , etc.
>
>
> On 4/8/2013 7:11 AM, Richard A Jones wrote:
>> Is it worth trying to lube a speedo cable? With what?
>> My problem is noise when cold (below freezing) that fades
>> when everything warms up--after maybe 25+ miles. Cable,
>> not the speedo gears.
>>
>> I remember "in the old days" when one used graphite
>> powder, but the newer plasticized cables seem to be
>> spec-ed as not needing lube. Advice based on
>> experience?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Richard
>>
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