[gtobird]

I'm sure most of the experienced owners of hideaway headlight cars already know this. As a relative newbie to these systems, I wanted to share my recent discovery on a pair of repop vacuum actuators I bought.

I bench tested them since I didn't want to mount them (which will be months in the future) and then find out I had a problem. One of them functioned fine, but the other had a leak when you put vacuum on the port of the rod side. The leak was small, but was definitely present. Since I had a vacuum pump and gauge, it was easy to test.

After finding this out, I was going to call the supplier and swap it out, but like many of you, figured it might just need a quick tweek and I really didn't want to have it swapped out only to potentially find the replacement part to have a problem. Been there, done that.

I pulled the dust boot off the base of the actuator and found the vaccum boot for the rod wasn't seated properly. It took less than a minute for the discovery and fix of putting the seal back in place. Problem solved. Since these vaccum seals (boots) are readily sold by the usual suppliers and they are cheap, I'm going to buy an extra pair just in case I see this problem in the future.

Yes, it's already a sign that I probably should go with an electric setup, but since I already have most of the vacuum system parts, it's something that will have to wait.

BTW, have any of you used silicone or some other kind of glue on the base of these seals to make sure they don't come loose?

Old Joe

[Scott Thelander]

permatex
"the right stuff " in black .....

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Permatex-...B&gclsrc=aw.ds

[gtobird]

Originally Posted by Scott Thelander

permatex
"the right stuff " in black .....

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Permatex-...B&gclsrc=aw.ds

Thanks Scott. Do you use it on both the top (rod end) and bottom of the seal or just the bottom?

[dataway]

Just put some of the black permatex on a repop actuator this week. Like you I was testing it before installation in a couple of weeks. Hooked it up to a vacuum pump and it had an intermittent leak at the base of the seal. Took a CueTip and stuffed some permatex in there and good to go. I have a couple of turns of lock wire around the top of the seal to prevent problems there.

The other actuator is OEM, old and crusty, still works fine.

[Greg Reid]

Same here. Sealed them with some permatex some years ago and no problems since. I think l put a small ty-wrap at the top.