Itinerant Air-Cooled

Today when I was leaving work I stepped on my clutch pedal and something let go.

I promptly began kicking myself for not putting my spare cable in the bug yet. I have a box of spare stuff that has been waiting for my bug lovin' session that will happen at some point.

I called Hambone to see if he had one. He didn't have one handy but he jumped in his bus with Eva in tow and went to several part stores to see if he could locate one. He couldn't, of course. The only places open were the McParts stores and all they had were some nifty chrome tailpipe extensions, air fresheners, and gumout, as usual...he came anyway to see if we could figger sumpin' out.

After scratchin' me pate for a bit, I decided against attempting to navigate some city driving and semi rushhour freeway driving without the clutch and called for a fourth tow on AAA in the past 2 months.. They love me

When I got home I started pulling stuff apart to swap out the clutch cable. Lo and behold I find an intact cable and a snapped off hook. 38 years of clutch use had taken it's toll. There was only about 3/16 of material in the crook of the hook and it finally gave way.

Crap, think I, I have to work 25 miles away from home and do not have access to one. Sick day?...call the boss and tell him I'm done workin' there anymore, (I am, though maybe not right yet) then spend some time on both rigs twixt lookin for local work?

I decided to pull a Tristessa and get er done with what I have.

I fished out the snapped off hook and grabbed my wire feed welder. Bench vice, wire wheel and some carefull material floating and I have a repaired hook. put it back together and all appears to be well again. Still need to adjust the pedal play a bit but it disengages fine and feels like it's fully engaged when released.
That little harbor freight welder I got for $90 just payed for itself (knock wood...)

Now I'm on the hunt for a pedal cluster. If anyone has one laying around zip me a price and we can talk...

Also if anyone knows of compatability from other models/years I would be interested in your input. I may check with Trafton and Halsey or upull's to replace it. Who knows, if it sticks, I may just keep it how it is.

Had to share, thanks for listening.

weld would be harder than the original metal. If you've created a reasonable facsimile of the og hook, and the eye seems to stay put, grease it and call it fixed. I recall seeing similar posts on the samba about such repairs.

Keep it. Nice work too.
Bummer way to end a day. Glad you got it sorted out.

Pics or it didn't happen.

Any Type 1 pedal cluster from '68-'74 should work just fine. IIRC the later ones have a longer arm for the cable hook...

Hiya Stephan,

Gypsie wrote:........ I may check with Trafton and Halsey or upull's to replace it. Who knows, if it sticks, I may just keep it how it is.

I'd hit Bill's for the pedal cluster too. You know he's going to give it to you dead cheap.

If there is good weld penetration then it will be stronger than original.

Sure was fun to be standing in the middle of a shower of molten sparks again.

Now that I have removed the cluster and have some 'lessons learned' about this process it will be easier to do next time. I'll snap some pic then. I thought of the pics or it didn't happen line when I was filing down some fresh weld last night...at midnight...but the house was asleep and I just wanted to get it done.

I did float in extra material after the original tacks to hold it together. Went from 3/16" to about 1/2" worth of material.

Time will tell.

Gotta shift my lunch hour so I can get out to Trafton's.