Date:         Fri, 5 Sep 2014 14:16:20 -0700
Reply-To:     Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Clutch slave cyl. replacement: What could go wrong?
              Well.....Friday sort of.
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  I'm pretty sure my clutch slave cylinder failed yesterday.   No clutch
action, bled it and drove some but this A.M.,  I checked in theslave's
rubber  boot and it was full of hydraulic fluid. The  brake fluid reservoir
would not hold pressure very long from my Motive pressure bleeder
either.....

   "No problemo" says I..."I have a spare under my seat"   I've done these
before and while it is a nasty messy job and frustrating with the rear
mounting bolt, it isn't rocket surgery....

   So first I have to fix one of my jacks tands, it's been semi-broken for
some time...the pawl would release, but only with fiddling.   I find the
roll pin is broken connecting the shaft of the pawl and the lever to
release it.   OK,  so I do that.

   Dig into my brake bleeding box and find my bleed hose...It's turned to
gum and is no longer serviceable..  It feels like an eraser now, not
resilient at all, won't stay on the bleed screw.   OK, fix that.

   I decide I should inspect for leaks in the whole brake/clutch system.  I
fill my Motive pressure bleeder bottle and screw it onto the brake
reservoir above the steering wheel, then pump it up to about 20psi and
crawl under to look for leaks..   After about 3 minutes rolling around on
my creeper I find no leaking but.....I hear a "Phut...psssssssssss,
ker-thump!"   "Uh-Oh!"   I roll out and find the hose between the pressure
bleeder and the brake res. has popped.....and there is brake fluid sprayed
from end to end....inside the van...All over everything.   Including my
very pricey bike, some sailboards, clothes, upholstery, pillows,
headliner...it even got to the rear hatch window!  What a mess!  So a
couple of hours trying to clean the brake fluid off every-frikken thing...

   Next, I decide "OK, no leaks...I'll just put on the new slave and bleed
it with my mighty vac and be done"   but of course, the Mighty vac (or
whatever harbor freight calls theirs) also has rotten gummy hoses that need
fixed. Then it sucks fluid into the 'squeeze pump' rather than into the
cannister that it's supposed to go into...So I have brake fluid running up
my arm into my pit....as I try to bleed the air out of the slave....Now I
am a REAL mess, the shop floor is puddled and the inside of the van is
trashed.  Hopefully I got all the brake fluid off my Colnago, which is
worth more than my van..

   So next,  I take my spare Blue Hose hydraulic line and put that onto my
Motive Pressure bleeder to fix THAT,  and finally.....finally....bleed the
slave without anything blowing up or leaking all over everything...Oh,
wait....when I go to remove the excess fluid from the reservoir, the horse
syringe I use....the plunger comes all the way out and I dump brake fluid
on the floor of the van...no worries.... as it's already saturated from my
recent blow out of the pressure bleeder...

   Sheesh!  What could go wrong on such a simple task?....those are some of
the things that did go wrong....

   (at least it isn't a windy day and I am not missing out on windsurfing
time to take a brake fluid bath....Ha!)
  Don Hanson