This happened to me a while ago in my 1980 air cooled westy and the
culprit was the clutch slave cylinder. I do not know if the fluid was
low as I was even more mechanically inept at the time than I am now.

Since I was brining the van to a mecghanic to replace the slave anyway
I also replaced the master ans well as the brake master at the same
time (my reasonsning was that they are all connected, with somewhat
similar lifespans, and I only wanted to pay someone to bleed the
system once). i bought the parts at busdepot and brought them to the
mechanic myself.

Chris

On 5/16/06, chris <vanagon@frontleftspeakerposse.com> wrote:
> for some reason these things never seem to happen when ive driven the
> van myself the day previous... and I wish it did, so I didn't have to
> wonder if these things are related to *how* the others drive it.
>
>
> anyway, so I get up this morning, load up the dogs and get ready for a
> nice wake-up at the beach when I realize the clutch pedal just *whoomp*
> drops right to the floor with zero resistance.
>
> admittedly I don't know a lot about how they work and thought at first
> it was some sort of cable given how much it dropped and how quickly, but
> im looking through the bently and don't actually see a cable, just all
> hydraulics.
>
> checked the brake fluid resivour, and it was nearly a little DOT3 bottle
> low (from the MAX mark, just a bit below the MIN mark really.)
>
> So I top that off, but its not getting anywhere. (nor did I think it
> was, even with as little as I know about the system.)
>
> What can I check next?
>
> Mine is an 81 aircooled if that makes a diff.
> I had the whole tranny replaced just last year, but didnt have the
> clutch done at the time as the PO claimed to have had done it not too
> long ago as is. (against the advice of the local mech that did the trans
> work.)
>
> is this how a clutch goes out? Just out of the blue you hop it and the
> pedal drops to the floor? or IS there some cable somewhere and im just
> missing any reference to it in my Bently?
>
> I hate it when the list of things that need to be addressed start
> growing larger than the list of things that are working well at the
> moment. grrrrr.
>
> any help, suggestions, or misc tomfoolery is always welcome.
>
> thanks.
>
> --
> Chris
> '81 (AC) Vanagon Westfalia 'Rocky'
> nor*cal
>
> frontleftspeakerposse.com
>