At 03:20 PM 6/23/98 -0700, Nathaniel Merrill wrote:
>Hi y'all
>I was digging into the Bentley and my syncro's front brakes and found that
the two are not in agreement.  Similar, yes but not the same.  I figured it
out (brakes are  mostly simple) but was curious how often I would run into
things like this.  After all the manual covers 8 something years of Vanagon.
>Anyway, I also wondered about the completeness of the manual...for instance
my brakes (and others I have worked on) had a vibration dampening good all
over the pads which Bentley did not mention at all.  Also they mention
noting about lubrication of the various points.  Whats up? Incidentally, I
put my pads back in and used some blue RTV silicone in place of the stuff
that was there (above mentioned vibration stuff) Was this a bad call?
---------------
Bentley is not by any means a complete step by step instruction manual.
While it does provide valuable information, you need some basic mechanical
knowledge and experience to carry out any of the procedures. You often have
to be able to read between the lines and sometimes the manual is not
correct. The Haynes manual is more of a step by step manual (but still not
100%) and is a good complement to the Bentley.

The blue goo was probably Permatex stuff made especially for dampening
vibrations on disk brake pads. It's certainly not the same as silicone RTV.
I don't know about the consequences of using RTV in place of the Permatex
stuff. I can attest that the Permatex stuff did not keep my brakes from
squealing though.

MM