Another thing to consider is that it's not that much trouble if you end
up changing them both at different times.  I found bleeding the clutch
system to only be a mild pain in the butt... not a major one.  (That
said, my master and slave failed 5 months apart).
'84 1.9l

Sam Walters wrote:
> Actually, it is the opinion of only some that when one goes the other is
> sure to follow.
>
> As I have posted several times before, I once searched the entire
> archive for instructions on how to do this job and found folks rather
> evenly divided over whether replace one or both.  Most of those who say
> replace both do so on the advice of their mechanics.
>
> No one has anything other than anecdotal evidence.  And every time both
> are changed, it eliminates the possibility that in that van the one that
> was still good would continue to function just fine for several more
> years.
>
> The replace both position is repeated more often, but I don't think that
> this means that the alleged underlying factual assertion,  that both
> fail close to the same time, is actually true.
>
> I have changed out 6 slaves in my years of Vanagon ownership but never a
> master.  Others have reported only having master cylinders fail.
>
> It can't hurt to change them both, but it may well be an unnecessary
> expense.
>
> A mechanic or vendor is going to remember the people who come back with
> the other cylinder having failed shortly after only one is replaced -
> particularly because they might be miffed at having to repair the same
> system again.  But one isn't as likely to remember the customer who
> never came back for the second cylinder to be repaired.
>
> My 84 had three slave repairs in 175k miles - I owned it from new.  I
> have replaced the slave 3 times on the Weekender in the 40-45k miles I
> have put on it - now has about 205k miles on it.  One replacement in
> each was due to a defective slave that failed quickly after
> installation.  One of those was a rebuild and one was new.
>
> As I said, it can't hurt (anything but your pocketbook) to replace both
> and one may certainly choose the preventive maintenance approach, but it
> just isn't a certainty that you need to do it.
>
> If both cylinders had lots of miles and time on them, I too would lean
> toward replacing both, particularly if I intended to keep that van a
> long time.
>
> Sam
>
> --
> Sam Walters
> Baltimore, MD
>
> 89 Syncro GL, Zetec Inside
> 85 Westy Weekender
> 85 Mercedes Benz 300D Turbodiesel - to become veggie oil powered
>
> All incoming and outgoing email scanned by
> automatically updated copy of Norton AntiVirus.
>