Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 23:39:30 -0500 (CDT)
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Jon Christensen <vvwca@primenet.com>
Subject: Resourceful Slave Cylinder Fix
Hi All,
My clutch slave cylinder on my 84 'Brownie Bus' pee-ed out on my the same
day the snow took away our electricity here in metro Kansas City. As
reported earlier, Zorm the 58 Euro Single Cab came to the rescue and
took hauled my carcus around the rest of the week. I did manage to yank
out the leaky slave cylinder and made sure it was about the same thing as
the extra 80 Vanagon slave cylinder I had stowed away for a rainy (snowy?)
day.
More problems were ahead. The 80 cylinder's bleeder valve broke off even
with a gentle tug of a 7mm wrench. The cordless drill had no juice and I
had no way to get the bleeder's residuals out of the 'good' slave
cylinder. The next step was to disassemble both units and swap parts.
Turns out the the 80's guts were worse than the 84's, BUT the rubber
was better. The bore on the 84's was also in much better shape. The next
problem was, again, no electricity to use my small bore cylinder hone. The
next step was to think, *really* hard. Sure enough a solution came to mind!
My air compressor had about 80lbs in it. I took about my pneumatic drill
and voila! I had just enough air to adequately hone out the 84's slave
cylinder's bore.
Now, the 84's bleeder is just a 10mm headed bolt. With my pregnant wife
at the clutch pedal, we bled out the system using my index finger as the
'valve'. It rained brake fluid on me under Brownie Bus's belly, but luckily
my glasses prevented the doplets of brake fluid from getting in my eyes.
No wonder the Bentley's manual stated 'Pressure Bleed Only'! With a
working clutch pressurization system under my left foot, we went out for
lunch. When we returned, our electricity was back on! 3 days of 'camping out'
in our own house has come to an end. 8-)
----
Jon Christensen /V\ Membership Coordinator for the
~Certified VW Nut \W/ Vintage VW Club of America
vvwca@primenet.com Co-Editor of the VVWCA Newsletter
http://members.gnn.com/vvwca KC Kombis' NEATO Co-Rep
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