Thanks for responses Dennis, Scott and Ken.

I should have included in symptoms that the van is undrivable.  I am not
able to reliably engage or disengage clutch.  My first thought was a
worn out master or slave clutch cylinder.  I crawled underneath and
started playing with the slave cylinder and as I said below... it SEEMS
that the clutch arm protruding from the transmission is not "springing
back" as much as it should after full deflection by the slave cylinder.

Does that still smell like a bad clutch Dennis and Ken?  The service
records that came with the van show a clutch replacement not too long
before I purchased it and it immediately broke.

On 4/1/2011 4:35 PM, Scott Daniel - Turbovans wrote:
> sounds normal to me, if I understand you right.
>
> there is no 'retraction spring' on the slave cylinder..
> it just pushes the lever, crosshaft, and throw out bearing up against
> the fingers of the pressure plate ..
> full time, all the time.
>
> it always pushes down until the TOB contacts the pressure plate.
> and you can push the lever up with your fingers ..and slave piston up ..
> totally normal. But it'll return to the resting 'contact' position as
> soon as you let go of it.
>
> and the TOB is turning constantly any time the engine is running,
> whether in gear or not, whether cutch pedal is up or down.
> it never really retracts from the pressure plate. It just 'rides there'
> full time..
> when you push in the clutch pedal ..then of course it pushes hand enough
> to move the pressure plate fingers far enough so the grip on the clutch
> disc is released.

>
>> 1990 Syncro symptoms: clutch arm sticking out of transmission does not
>> push slave cylinder back into retracted position. I can manually
>> retract slave cylinder by pushing it back by hand, but (I think) only
>> the slight pressure from the slave cylinder (clutch pedal not pushed at
>> this point) keeps disengaging clutch.