Date:         Sat, 1 Aug 2020 19:12:08 -0700
Reply-To:     Alistair Bell <albell@SHAW.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Alistair Bell <albell@SHAW.CA>
Subject:      Re: closing slider quietly
Comments: To: Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To:  <037701d66781$558770b0$00965210$@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

I’m late to this party, lots of replies making good sense. I’ll add mine and apologize in advance for any repetition.

Oh and Eric, no thanks, no auto closing mechanism for me :-)

Big improvement on the post 85 slider doors. Much easier and therefore quieter to close. Also I think they dropped the rear handle with the new slider design. Not needed any more, those confident Vw engineers said. Plus there is that rubber flappy seal at the rear of the door opening that sort of covers the stock rear door handle. I know, I put one of those seals on my 82 westy with the stock rear handle. Why I put it on I have know idea.

Replacing the worn out rollers and bearings on pre and post 85 model year doors really does help.

I’ve fooled with Delrin faced rollers, home made, made a difference. On the post 85 set up I noticed, after modding the main rollers, that the rollers under the removable body part aft of the door opening, were the ones making the most noise. I haven’t done anything about that yet.

But when you have new rollers all round, and a clean, undamaged lower door track, and you have all the linkages adjusted to Bentley, the post 85 door works very nicely. Still have the slight additional effort to latch, but so so so much easier than the old slider door.

Crazyvwman, Mark, has a mod where he attached a grab handle, ie same as the one on pass side a pillar, to the slider door. About 10 inches from the backend, and on the slightly horizontal surface adjacent to window. He has pics on the samba in a slider door thread.

I’d be tempted to do that, but to be honest my door works so well that it’s just gaining that extra 5% better :-)

Alistair 
 

> On Jul 31, 2020, at 2:26 PM, Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> There is a handle at the rear of the door for this purpose.  Just slide door
> slowly to the front and pull the handle in to engage the latch rather than

> slamming it.  From the outside you can push in the rear edge of the door to
> latch it.
> 
> 
> 
> Stuart