Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From AZ/NV

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Amskeptic
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Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From AZ/NV

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Jul 09, 2012 1:14 pm

After Bluff UT,
(pictures! here!: http://itinerant-air-cooled.com/viewtop ... 66&t=10812 )

I headed south through that gorgeous landscape, camped under the trestle in Arizona, and drove towards Flagstaff from the north on Route 89. About 20 miles out, I thought, "nice sunny day! let's lubricate the clutch actuating system first!" So I peeled off the road and drove up a dirt track into the Coconino National Forest to a little dip in the path, perfect! it's level! Jacked up the left rear a bit, and took off the clutch adjustment wingnut, the Bowden Tube bracket, the clutch pedal arm, the clutch pedal pivot, and would you LOOK at THAT? :

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Unbeknownst to me, the clevis and the clevis pin were engaged in a war to the death, and both were losing badly. No squeaks or nothing, just a silent grinding battle. Now what? I have this new cheap junk "made in Germany my a$$" cable that has maybe half the number of strands of the one already in the car. It does not have a new clevis pin either, which used to be included with replacement clutch cables. What to do? Rummaged in my Bag Of Tricks, nope, nothing there. Rummaged in my Bag Of Last Resort and found an interesting smooth shanked stepped bolt with a little itty-bitty 8mm nut. Perfect! The smooth part shall be my new clevis pin, the nut shall be the "retainer clip", but why is it cloudy all of a sudden?

Anyways, took everything apart and sanded the pivot shaft, cleaned the bushings, I sure like this kind of work! Found a new spark plug boot for the clutch pedal to seal against the floorboard.
Hey! Who spit on me? Went under the car to lubricate the actuating arm spring on the transaxle, came out, shoot! how can it be sprinkling already? It passed and things began to dry out pretty quickly. Here's the layout:

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Elected to drill the actuating lever to accept my slightly larger stepped bolt's smooth shank, and had to drill out the new CFGC (cheapfakegermancable) as well.

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Here is the assembled Better Engineering Through Ingenuity cable/lever interface With Real Loctite On The 8mm Nut:

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Then the skies just opened up on me, just dumped on down, just lightening and thunder and cold wind and sand and water blowing in my tub of Valvoline, rivers running off the gutters onto my Insta-mud towel, sandy bolts and wrenches and ratchets and I dove under the car, "I can do this, yes I can, it is dry under here, ha! Zeus or whoever you are, I am up for your challenges, I can prevail past your stupid weather," and the rain fell harder in sheets as I gingerly placed the Valvoline atop the front left tire from underneath the car. And little rivulets began to slowly inch towards me, water snakes with dust floating on top of them. "No, please don't." My level little dip in the road that made such sense for jacking the car back when it was sunny, now looks damn good and foolish. "No! Go away!" as I scrambled to dig drainage ditches to drain this new Lake Clutchcablelastresort. But the gutters are at full gush, and my towel is now sodden, and Lake Clutchcablelastresort is fast reaching full pool. My shorts are now off and under the Valvoline atop the left tire, the wind is blasting me from the right, and I am now petulant as hell. The *@!& clutch cable refuses to go down the tube all the way. The Bowden tube has a memory kink many feet away, and the cable just won't go. So I shimmy through the muddy muck to the back of the car, rotate the Bowden tube, shimmy back to the front of the car, push the cable, push the Bowden tube right off and onto the ground at the back of the car. "Dammit!" says I, and I grab my greasy sodden "paper towel" and go back again and feed the cable manually into the Bowden tube "no, I really have to grease it, come on, do it right" and I shimmied back to the front left tire and grabbed the Valvoline and shimmied back to the back and finally got the Bowden tube onto the transaxle bracket with the cable sticking out and shimmied back to the front and tried to get the clutch pivot into the frame hole, but my Loctited clutch cable/lever washer is fighting the installation and the thunder and the lightening and the rain and the wind and the sand and the grease and the bolts, where are the bolts? and the mud . . . . .
............. much later
Finishing the clutch freeplay adjustment, chastened and broken and wet, I gave myself a rain rinse, and dried off inside the car, found my shorts and a dry shirt and dry socks and even dry shoes, started the engine and taunted the gods for good measure, "I did it anyway! Go ahead and rain even harder a**hole stupid #&^@*! " and it began to hail. Good grief. Stepped on the clutch "let's get out here!" and the pedal did a sickening skid down towards the floor. Uh oh. The Bowden tube only finally seated with full clutch actuation pressure. Now it won't go into first. Shut off the engine. Stuck it into first. Hit the starter and the gas. Car lurched forward and the engine lit off and down the mountain we go with a full realization that there is no clutch release. The pedal has about 8" of free play. Made it all the way to Flagstaff too, shifting very carefully and bunting it into neutral before stop lights and first gear starter launches when the lights turned green. The transaxle just leapt to the occasion "you like clutchless shifting, hah? Let's do it." Those synchros came to life and not once did it crunch, it just grabbed the gears and sent shock waves through the body shell. Finally built up the fortitude to re-adjust the clutch at a Shell station with water still piddling off the rockers and undercarriage as I scrooched under the car in my no-longer dry enough shorts and felt the water saturate another tshirt and got sandy greasy arms reaching up to the windnut which took this fine moment to tell me that it was going to rotate the cable too, and I could not hold it fast. With the fatigue of the ages, did I crawl out from under the car, newly wetted/filthed/discomfited, to go get a vise grip for the cable. Finally. Finally. Finally got a 1" honest true freeplay and a clutch that properly disengaged. The car was dirtier than I had ever seen it. I could have interpreted it as almost dispirited in appearance, but in actuality, it did not care a whit. Drove from 7,300 ft Flagstaff out from under the "pop-up" thunderstorm into the sunshine of desert brush near Kingman AZ, then north towards Vegas. "I know it is going to be sunny THERE!" . . . . . . .

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BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Hippie
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From AZ/NV

Post by Hippie » Mon Jul 09, 2012 4:30 pm

Wow. Now do all that three times to get it fixed, because you're me and not you, while something else breaks and the back spasms set in, and that's why I finally gave up on drivership. :sunny:
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sped372
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From AZ/NV

Post by sped372 » Mon Jul 09, 2012 5:21 pm

Less than a month ago and 1,800 miles away, another 1970 Savannah Beige bus was having it's clutch cable changed in the rain. At least we had the good fortunes of a vacant rain canopy next to a local shop for some pseudo-shelter.

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1971 Karmann Ghia - 1600 DP
1984 Westfalia - 1.9 WBX

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hambone
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From AZ/NV

Post by hambone » Mon Jul 09, 2012 5:23 pm

I just went thru the very same thing last winter/spring, but not as condensed as you. Probably just as wet though.
Nuts you is.
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat

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Amskeptic
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From AZ/NV

Post by Amskeptic » Wed Jul 11, 2012 9:02 am

sped372 wrote:Less than a month ago and 1,800 miles away, another 1970 Savannah Beige bus was having it's clutch cable changed in the rain. At least we had the good fortunes of a vacant rain canopy next to a local shop for some pseudo-shelter.
It looks . . . so civil there. I think these buses are playin' with us.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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