Hey all,
Spent today replacing the throwout bearing and pilot bearing on my '81.

You all may remember the weird noise I thought was coming from my
distributor.  Well it turns out that I was able to determine that it
wasn't the distributor at all.  I had John Anderson and Steve Dolan
listen to it, and consensus was that it was coming from the junction of
the engine and tranny.

So ordered the pilot bearing and throwout bearing from Bus Depot.  Put
them in today with Tom Draffen's help at Quantico.

You know, we found that the Vanagon air-cooled engine/tranny is really a
bit easier to remove than the late Bus engine/tranny.  I was happy about
that. the only thing that's more of a pain is removing the clutch slave
cylinder (but not opening the system) instead of a simple clutch cable
attachment.

Anyway, it appears the noise is now gone.  We lubed the throwout bearing
and pilot bearing as required and everything seems to be good.

We'll see.
--
Sean Bartnik
Fredericksburg, Virginia
'81 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia
'74 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia convertible
http://www.type2.com/bartnik/myvan.htm