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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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