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Subject:Re: Decision time: A parting comment before my trip
From:tim
Date:Fri, 28 Jan 2005 10:28:38 -0800

That's what they make FedEx for.

Glad you got it on the road but I would always think twice before
starting a trip in the face of an ice storm. Especially in a vehicle
of unknown recent reliability. Hell, I might not bring the 84 all the
way to SF tomorrow (all of 60 miles) because I have an issue with the
damned o2 sensor blowing out. Who needs the grief?

bURNINGvAN! be there and be square!

tim in san jose

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:37:16 -0600, Jim Felder <felder@knology.net> wrote:
> I'm leaving on a 2000 mile road trip tomorrow in my 90. I replaced the
> leaking head gaskets last week (thank you list, thank you thank you)
> and was all ready to go but today, I had to pump the clutch a couple of
> times to get it in any gear. Not what you'd want to fight for four days
> on the road, getting ever colder as I head north to NY.
>
> The dilemma: Was it the clutch master cylinder, a rebuilt piece of crap
> that was all that was available on a saturday a year-and-a-half ago (my
> german source shop was closed and it was for some reason very important
> to be on the road by monday), or was it the clutch master cylinder,
> that had never been replaced at all? If I don't leave town very early
> tomorrow morning, I'll be trapped by an ice storm that is to blanket
> the southeast. I only have time for one repair, not two.
>
> I have to be in NYC at a certain time because, among other things, I
> have promised another list member some artwork cut in vinyl. I cannot
> fail on my mission to meet him.
>
> Neither the master or slave cylinder is leaking, so I don't know which
> is the culprit. I have to make a decision. I put my money on the master
> cylinder. The guy behind the counter says "but you have a 50-50 chance
> of being wrong." I told him that if I didn't install one or the other,
> I had a zero percent chance of being right.
>
> I was right. Thanks to the information posted a few days ago on this
> same subject, I was able to easily replace the clutch master cylinder.
> I was not easily able to bleed it, as anyone who owns a gas vanagon
> knows. I think the act of putting the slave cylinder bleeding screw
> where it is falls under the Geneva Convention and should be roundly
> deal with.
>
> Off to the frozen north in the morning, skirting by hours the problems
> of the frozen South.
>
> Jim
>