Date:         Mon, 25 Sep 1995 15:45:00 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         wabbott@megatest.com (William Abbott)
Subject:      Brake stories

	I'm with Mike White- I'd guess Richard Palmer's old
brake hoses were completely constricted and suspect the braking
performance of the vehicle was sub-optimal. But doubtless better
than nothing!!!

	Speaking of Mr. Palmer, I wore my Netvernugen tee-shirt to
the KFJC Record Swap this weekend and TWO different dj's commented
on what a cool shirt it was. 'Nuf said!

	I have two brake stories:
	1: Rabbit brakes go very soft, fluid leaking out of rear brake
assemblies, 16x,000 miles. Have Dealer replace rear cylinders. New
rear cylinders provide enough back pressure to blow-out master cylinder.
Dealer service department gives me a new master cylinder and another 
drain/flush/bleed cycle for the price of the part, because I'd already
left work to come pick it up when they discovered the problem. :) 

	2: More than one used car I bought had black brake fluid
in the resivior- years and years old. So the first time I saw this,
I energeticly bled the system until I could see clear fluid running
at the right rear bleeder, then did the others. And a day or two
later the master cylinder started leaking. So replace master cylinder,
repeat bleed performance. Phoey!

	An old, yucky, but functional, brake system only requires the 
master cylinder seals to travel a short distance in the bore. Open the 
bleeder and pump hard and the edge of the seal is dragged across all the 
crud that's settled in the master cylinder bore. Its possible that a
vaccuum bleeder would allow one to continue using the cruddy old cylinder
but I've ended up just replacing them outright before bothering with
bleeding, etc.

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