Oily Mess

It was a very busy weekend car-wise. It all started Friday evening with the hitching and re-hitching of Ringo to the truck. After gathering all the parts that were going with Ringo to his new home as well as the parts destined for the Corvair Ranch, I loaded them all in the bed of the truck. Next, I hitched Ringo to the truck, and as I was finishing Ariel drove up. As she rolled down her window, I could see the disappointment on her face - she’d hoped to drive her car one last time. I quickly offered to unhitch him, but she insisted it was okay. As she drove away and I went to the garage to close up for the night I couldn’t get her disappointment out of my head. So, I decided it was early enough that I had time to give her that one last drive. I called her and told her that I was on my way over with her car, so be ready to take him on your last ride together. I went back to the curb and undid the towbar from Ringo’s front bumper and the chain and wiring for the lights from the back of the truck. Knowing it would just be a short drive on neighborhood streets, I didn’t bother climbing under the car to disconnect the chain from the crossmember, but, instead, put the loose end with a good bit of length in the trunk and closed the lid to the first catch making sure nothing was dragging. After driving over a speed bump, I started to hear the chain dragging. Using my cellphone as a flashlight I found the chain hook dragging under the crossmember, so pulled it out and added that end to the end already in the trunk and continued to Ariel’s. After she and her fiancé, Jeff, drove off, I sat down on their front stoop and reached into my pocket for my cellphone, but it wasn’t there. Must’ve fallen out in Ringo – no worries. When they returned a few minutes later, I climbed behind the wheel and drove home where I grabbed a flashlight to find the phone, but it wasn’t there either. Okay, maybe it fell out when I climbed out of the car at Ariel’s. Using Brianna’s phone I called Ariel and she did a quick search but found nothing. Not good. It then occurred to me I didn’t remember having the phone with me after I used it to deal with the loose chain, so I wandered out to the spot where I’d used it as flashlight. I fully expected to find a smashed phone lying on the pavement, but saw nothing there or along the first few blocks of the drive after that corner. Big time not good. Fuming at my stupidity, I re-hitched Ringo to the truck and called it a night.

Saturday morning I arrived at Ringo’s new home around 9:30. John and I conducted the transaction and I headed on to the Corvair Ranch. After relieving the truck bed of its contents of cylinder heads, Glinda’s back seat, a large collection of wheel covers, and some other odds and ends, I headed into their office to gather the few parts on my shopping list. Jeff had the new key ready and I verified it fit the trunk lock I’d brought along. Next, Jeb (Jeff’s assistant) and I headed upstairs in one of the buildings to hunt for a ’64 Monza wheelcover for Scarlett and a driver’s door panel for Glinda. The former showed up right away, but I didn’t find the latter until the last section of panels. Fortunately, the first one I finally came across was in pretty good condition with just a few edges peeled from the cardboard – easily fixed with some spray contact cement. The last item on the list was a GUP finned, rear drum for Scarlett. Jeb had pulled a good one from their stash and I was set. Once I was back home, it was time for Mikhaila and I to do some work on her car. We decided to tackle the door weatherstripping. It took careful cement application, a bit of masking taped, and some sore fingertips to get both doors done, but done they were. At that point, we decided to be done with Scarlett until the next afternoon.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I needed to get Glinda back on the road, so putting in the floor was next on my agenda. I measured out and cut a large patch from an old LM hood and tacked it into place along the edge and with some plug welds where the u-beam ran under the floor patch. A smaller patch covering the forward part of the missing floor was cut and welded in as well. With the floor whole again, I coated all the added metal with primer and left the windows down so the primer could dry. Dinner time was fast approaching at that point, so I put the welder and the rest of the tools and supplies away for the day.

Sunday, before Mikhaila got back from work, I opened the garage door with the intention of ensuring Scarlett was running right for her first foray onto the street. I wanted to make sure all was good with the drivetrain before we spent the time putting the rear window in. With the brand new DieHard hooked up, I turned the key and a few cranks later the engine fired right up. As the engine warmed up, I put the shifter in D, but the transmission did not respond. The dipstick was dry, so I poured about a quart of ATF down the fill tube. After that, a flip of the shifter was followed with the associated lurch forward and drop in rpm. Same response when I flipped the lever to R, with the lurch being backwards. With that victory, I went back to the engine compartment and noticed the choke on the right side wasn’t opening up like the one on the left. I put my hand over the air horn and heard a lot of hissing – crap, a vacuum leak. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for me to determine the hissing was coming from the hole for the air cleaner hold-down j-hook. Since Mikhaila had decided she wanted the EM air cleaner set up, we didn’t need that hole, so I shut off the engine, mixed up a tiny batch of JB Weld, and plugged the hole. She arrived home soon after that, but, sadly, the new plug had to harden before we could start up the car again for its maiden voyage. So, instead, we changed the rear shocks. We’d put new ones in a few months back, but I never liked the way the rear of the car was way too bouncy. I dug through my stash and came up with a pair of GUP KYB’s that I decided were stiffer than the Clark’s Red Ryders. We swapped them out and then Mikhaila was done for the day – too tired from her job to continue contributing.


The final (I thought) fleet activity for the day was bolting in Glinda’s driver’s seat so I could put her back into daily-drivership. That went easily enough, but when I fired up the engine I noticed the oil gauge stayed on zero. Since the idiot light was not illuminated, I knew the issue was with the switch not the engine, so I backed the car out to the street. After helping my future son-in-law change the oil in his car, I went back to the street to put Glinda up on the ramps to adjust the clutch. As I approached the car, I noticed a shiny puddle under Glinda. I stuck my finger in it and the cause of the non-functioning gauge became apparent – a break in the nylon tube. For once I was actually prepared for such a failure. I opened the tool bag I pack for my trips to the track, dug out the small plastic bag with the pipe plug. With plug and wrenches in hand, I removed the fitting at the engine and filled it to keep any more oil excaping from the engine. Then, instead of backing onto the ramps to access the clutch linkage, I pulled forward onto them so I could remove the tunnel cover and clean up the oily mess I was sure the tunnel’s inside surface was coated with. A bunch of screws later the pan was loose and leaning against the fence where I coated it with Purple Power and brushed and rinsed the oil away. Thinking it was one of the splices on the clutch cable that had caused the tube to fail, I also removed the inside cover so both splices were exposed. Neither of them appeared to be rubbing on anything critical, but the upper splice was catching on a zip tie causing the catch near the end of the pedal travel. I cut it off and put on a new just out of reach of the moving splice. I also wrapped both splices completely with vinyl tape before putting the covers back on. I decided I’ll buy a whole new length of tubing with the fittings since I also needed to deal with the leak at the back of the gauge. Then I drove off the ramps, moved the ramps to rear of the car, and backed up onto them so I could move the clutch clevis a few turns out. Back down off the ramps and it was time to put away all the tools.

Sold, But Not Quite Gone

Yesterday evening I was hit by another bittersweet moment. The selling of a fleet member, while a relief to my limited time and funds, still brings the proverbial tear to my eye. I recounted to the buyer how Ariel and I spent many hours together getting her car on the road and many more keeping it there. Yes, Ringo had more than his fair share of breakdowns, but it’s not those memories that’ll stick with me. It’s the evenings and weekends I got to spend with my daughter turning wrenches and screwdrivers, wielding wire wheels and paint brushes, swearing at the frustrations, and celebrating the victories. By the way, the above photo of Ringo was taken the evening of April, 2006 when I first saw him.

“It’s going to a good home,” John promised after we sealed the deal with a handshake. He plans on taking care of all the issues I haven’t been able to get to. He’s got a friend that’s good with a welder, so replacing rust and bondo are already on his to-do list.

Part of the deal will be me delivering the car to his home just across the PA line. Even though I was just at the Corvair Ranch, I needed another excuse to head up there, since I’d forgotten a couple items I should’ve picked up on last Saturday’s visit.

Three Piles

Last Friday I was contacted by a prospective Ringo buyer who said he’d try to come out and kick some tires Monday. In preparation for that I went digging for the good EM hood I’d promised would be part of the deal. I knew it was in the stall behind the garage, so Saturday I went digging. That area, for a while, was a catch-all for all things automotive and otherwise that I didn’t want cluttering up the garage. As I flipped up the tarp that partially covers the open end of the stall, I decided it was time to get rid of some of the excess stuff. The creation of three piles ensued. Pile 1 would be nastiness destined for the dump. Pile 2 would be bound for the Corvair Ranch. Pile 3 was the keeper pile – the stuff I’m just positive I’ll find a use for in the future.

Pile 1 ended up being three destroyed tires and a set of 14” 4-bolt wheels from an old Toyota. I’m sure the lovely Loriann would be disappointed to hear that I couldn’t find more for the pile. Pile 2 currently consists of a couple bucket seat frames, a box of LM parts, five 5-lug stock wheels, and a single 4-lug. Earmarked for this pile are an aluminum steering box, a rebuildable EM axle assembly, a couple Powerglides, a pair of bellhousings, a ’64 empty engine with bellhousing, a couple boxes of pistons, rods, and cylinders, an engine blocks, the seats out of Glinda, and some odd sheetmetal pieces. Pile 3 ended up being the aforementioned EM hood, a LM hood, two LM engine lids, and bottom section of a LM trunk.

The rest of the items in the stall are the LeMans and LeMans-related parts and pieces, gardening stuff, the sand-blast barrel, and a car-top carrier Brianna won’t let me throw away. Back to Ringo and my efforts to sell him. The prospective buyer couldn’t make it Monday, so it looks like he’s planning on coming Saturday. Also, another guy is interested and he may also come down over this weekend for a look. Not holding my breath.

For Scarlett, we’re down to just the rear window install, and weatherstripping and window fuzzies, which I’m planning on picking up Saturday morning. Bright and early I’ll make the drive up to the Corvair Ranch to get rid of the Pile 2 stuff and bring home the Scarlett stuff as well as a few items for Glinda (500 fender badge and a GUP steering box).

Speaking of Glinda; one picture is worth a thousand.
Yeah, she’s been sitting, interior empty, for far too long. Need to get the floor patched and the Cobalt seats installed before I have to park her for the salt season.

A Little Toe-in

After being contacted by a prospective buyer, I decided to address Ringo’s front end alignment. I’d successfully done a front end alignment before – judged by the subsequent lack of odd front tire wear. The method I used required four jackstands and two lengths of yarn. I stretched each piece of yarn between two jackstands along each side of the car. I adjusted the jackstand locations until I got exactly ten inches from the yarn to the outside face of the center of each wheel cover (after I made sure each cover was fully seated). I then checked the parallel by measuring from the yarn to the rocker panel just behind the front wheel and just in front of the rear. Since I knew the left front was the one needing adjustment, I started at the right front tire. I measured from the yarn to the forward-most edge of the whitewall and then from the yarn to the rear-most edge of the whitewall. I turned then turned the steering wheel until both measurements were the same. This meant the tire was facing perfectly forward. I then went to the left tire and made the same measurements. Sure enough, the front measurement was nearly three-quarters of an inch less than the rear. This translated to about two-and-a-half degrees total front toe-out. Looking for a very slight toe-in, it was necessary to tighten the tie-rod adjuster until the front measurement was only an eighth of an inch less than the rear’s. It took a lot of PB Blaster and heat on both ends of the adjusting sleeve before I was able to break it loose with a pipe wrench. I spun the adjuster a few turns, pushed the car back and forth to settle the suspension, repeated all the yarn adjustments, and finally checked the change of toe. I lucked out. It was just about to the eighth of an inch. I left well enough alone, put away the tools, and called it an evening.

Dead as a Doornail

This morning I slid behind the wheel of Glinda and went to insert the key into the ignition and found something distressing. The switch had been left in the ACCESSORIES position. When I turned the key to the ON, ironically no idiot lights came on even though I felt like an idiot. BTW, is that the correct usage of ironic?

Expectedly, the starter was silent - and motionless too. I let the car roll down the hill some and let out the clutch with the transmission in third gear. The engine spun, but never came close to firing. Irr. I walked back to the house, moved the awesome Challenger out of the driveway, swapped the battery from Scarlett to Ringo, and drove him to work.

Never a dull moment.

I received a response to Ringo's For Sale posting on Facebook's Corvair Trader group. The interested party wanted to know if, 1. I'd be willing to meet him halfway between Baltimore and his home in Maine, and 2. did I think Ringo could make the drive. I responded yes to both with the caveat that the money changes hands (virtually = PayPal) before I hitch Ringo to the truck for a six hour tow. I explained to him the only reason I was towing was I needed transportation to get back home.

Too Tight?

Mikhaila and I had a few goals to attain last night, and we got to most of them. First, we wanted to return Ringo’s borrowed parts. While Mikhaila removed Ringo’s carbs, fuel lines, and throttle linkage, I finished rebuilding two carburetors I’d started on months ago. We bolted them onto Scarlett along with GUP fuel lines and linkage. We started the engine and I adjusted the idle speed screw. I was so intent upon the two screws, I missed that right carb’s fuel fitting was not tight enough and gas was spraying all over the front of the engine compartment. I immediately pulled the coil lead from the distributor cap. We wiped up the gas and tightened the fitting before moving on to Ringo. I found a fuel pump that did not have the word BAD marked on it, and we installed it into its hole in Ringo’s engine. Fuel lines went in next while Mikhaila bolted the carbs in place. We retrieved the batter from Scarlett’s engine compartment , dropped it into place, and attached the leads. A push of the “start” button and Ringo fired right up. I kept waiting for the engine to stall due to a bad pump, but, instead, I was rewarded with some spewing fuel from another loose fitting. Actually a good sign since it indicated the pump was still good.

With Ringo functional again (just in case someone wants to test drive him before buying), we moved on to the second goal of the night; checking compression. I had Mikhaila remove all the spark plugs while I swapped the battery back into Scarlett. With the compression tester screwed into Cylinder #1, Mikhaila turned the key to spin then engine. The needle did not move – zero compression. I connected the tester to #3 – same result. I moved it to #2 – 65 psi. This was an improvement of 20 psi from the last time we checked compression – certainly moving the right direction. As for #1 and #3, I must’ve gone too far with tightening the valves during the readjust of months ago. Pulling the valve cover and re-setting the lash is now at the top of the to-do list.

The final goal for the night was to pull the transmission shifter linkage from the trans and reinsert following the manual’s directions. We didn’t get there.

SOLD! - Ringo's For Sale

Click here to see a video this car starting and running.

My daughter and I got this car back on the road about ten years ago. It got her back and forth to high school, college, and assorted jobs. Five years ago, when the original engine started to burn and blow lots of oil and rust issues became too extensive to ignore, we took the car off the road and put some real work into it. I decided to rebuild a newer 95 HP engine with new bearings, rings, pistons, cylinders, and seals and bolted that to a rebuilt Powerglide transmission. As part of the drivetrain swap we replaced the heavy, inefficient generator with a modern alternator. To deal with the rust, we welded in new rocker panels, floor panels, and body patches before coating the underside with POR-15, and laying down Black Cherry Pearl 2K paint over epoxy primer.

About a year ago, she decided to upgrade, so the car became my daily-driverIt was her daily-driver until recently when she upgraded. and has been, for the past year getting me to-and-from The new engine runs nicely on 87 octane, starts up every time, purrs around town, and cruises easily on the interstate at speeds above the local posted limits.

Purists will see that, in addition to the non-factory paint, this ’61 has the rare (okay, never factory offered) ’64 Monza trim and the even rarer (okay, also never offered) ’62 seats. The rear bumper guards, however, were offered by the factory back in the day.

The rigors of driving during the salt season have taken its toll on the body and there is some rust that should be dealt with. New patch panels are available from Clark’s Corvair Parts and used panels are out there as well. I’m including a solid replacement hood, wheelwell trim, and leftover paint, and more is available from Summit Racing. The bodywork on the right rear was necessary due to a tire coming apart on the highway and beating the inside of the wheelwell and the fender. I didn’t replace the torn wheelwell, but patched it with adhesive-backed membrane. This has served well for the past year properly sealing the interior from road noise and rainwater.

Two issues that I live with, but would be easily fixed (if I had the time) are: 1. the heater cable won’t slide freely so every fall and spring I slide under the car and manually switch from no heat to full heat or vice-versa (I am including a replacement cable – the defroster cable/lever works fine); 2. either the solenoid or the ignition switch is unreliable, so I’ve installed a switch on the inside that always energizes the starter (Corvair Ranch will sell you replacements for both that are easily installed).

I’ve got quite a stash of parts, so if the buyer is interested, I can sweeten the deal with spares like a good, used cylinder head and a starter (while I’ve not needed these on the rebuilt engine, it can’t hurt to have backups).

I’m asking $1800. Feel free to make me an offer, but please don’t ask what my minimum price is. I don’t have to sell this car, but it’s time to move it on, so I’m only somewhat motivated.

Some Tweaks Required

This morning I chose Glinda to by my whip-of-the-day. It took a bit of musical cars last night to make her available. After dinner yesterday the lovely Loriann, Mikhaila, and I drove the truck over to the nearest, still open, tire shop with the wheels and tires that needed swapping. The manager told me he couldn’t do the swap because the tires were tool old (date mark of 2006), but he did let his technician (I think that’s what they’re called now), pop the tires off the bead - I can do the rest of the job.

When we got home, I needed to move the awesome Challenger (it’s appropriate the lovely Loriann drives an awesome Challenger), and Glinda out of the driveway and garage respectively. That opened a slot for Ringo to go into the driveway because he can’t sit on the street risking a ticket for not moving for 24 hrs.; followed by the truck because I didn’t want to roll the tires so far; followed by the awesome Challenger because we won’t park that car on the street.

The first annoyance I noticed when moving Glinda is the take-up for the clutch is now way too high. Not so much that the clutch is slipping, but still annoying. I’ll adjust that when I get an evening. The second annoyance is another seam in the headliner has fallen apart. I’m giving up on sewing it myself and will have to support my Corvair parts supplier to the tune of $105. The third annoyance is the door panel is still peeling away. The fourth annoyance is the fitting at the back of the oil pressure gauge still leaks and I will have to get another ferrule and install it correctly. The fifth annoyance is the steering is still too loose and I will need to get to the Ranch and pick up that replacement steering box. The sixth annoyance is the Cobalt seats are still not installed. The final annoyance is the car’s body and it’s rust and missing 500 emblem. Even in the face of all these annoyances, I still REALLY love driving this car. I wish it was nicer looking (read no rust and a new coat of orange paint).

To address some of the issues, I gave Jeff a call at the Corvair Ranch. He’s still got the steering box, he’s got plenty of door panels for me to pick through, and he’s got some good used emblems I can choose one from. I told him I had a bunch of parts I needed to bring up to him, and he promised we could work out some sort of deal.

Need a Scorecard

Yesterday afternoon I was explaining to my eldest and her husband the tire and wheel swapping required since Mikhaila had her collision with the curb (more on that below). As I relayed how Glinda’s stock rear wheels needed to come off and be replaced with the Camaro wheels since I needed the tires off those wheels to replace Ringo’s destroyed ones since Scarlett needed her two wheels back that were current on Ringo, they just smiled at me and nodded.

So what precipitated all this swapping? Thursday afternoon I got THE call from Mikhaila. Through tears, “Daddy, a car cut me off, and I swerved to miss it, and Ringo hit the curb of the median, and both left tires are flat. I didn’t hit anything though.” After I made sure she was unhurt and Ringo was out of traffic, I grabbed my keys and left work to rescue the car. Mikhaila was able to walk home, so I told her to change to be ready to help me get the car home. After quickly changing into grungies, we headed out into the rain. First, we had to get a couple spare tires to replace the damaged one, so I jacked up the front end of Scarlett and put it on jackstands while Mikhaila held the umbrella over me. Off came the two front wheels and they were tossed into the bed of the pickup. Added to that were the jack and the wrench required to spin off the lug nuts. As the drops continued to fall, we drove out to Ringo’s resting spot and quickly swapped out the bad for the good so Mikhaila could drive him the final three blocks home.

Saturday afternoon I got some garage time, and used it to put Glinda back together. That started with testing the three threaded transmission mounting holes. I first took some photos to try and determine which hole I’d installed the helicoil in months ago. I determined the hole missing the bolt was not the hole with the helicoil. It's in the center hole, while the missing bolt hole is the right one as viewed from the front. To make sure all threads were good, I “bolted” a nut to each hole torqueing the fasteners to the 30 ft-lbs max. Each hole, thankfully, held the torque. Reassembly then commenced by bolting the crossmember first to the front of the trans and then, while lifting the drivetrain with the jack, to the two mounting studs sticking down from the body. With the drivetrain in place and the jack out of the way, I proceeded to reattach the linkages and such that I’d previously taken apart. Before hooking up the clutch cable, I shortened its length by a few turns of the swivel to move the take-up point to a point higher off the floor. I probably should’ve checked the splices I’d put in to fix the broken cable, but didn’t want to deal with removing all the tunnel screws. Since I was already under the car and it was basically level, I did check the transmission lube level and the oil on the tip of my pinkie finger indicated it was close to the check hole – good (see top photo).

I then threw a towel over the seat, slid behind the wheel and checked the clutch’s operation. With car running and the trans in first gear, I slowly let up on the clutch pedal until the rpm started dropping – an inch or so – good. Also, I could get the trans to shift into all gears without any grinding. With the car drivable again, I called it an evening.

Yesterday, I started the tire domino’s falling by pulling the Camaro wheels out of storage and swapping them for Glinda’s stock ones. I had Mikhaila load those and Ringo’s damaged ones into the back of the truck for me to haul to a tire store to get them swapped.

A Story To Tell

Last night, as I walked into the house from the garage, I passed the lovely Loriann and said to her, “at least I got a good story to blog.” With the kitchen mostly functional and no other car requiring my attention, I decided to tackle Ringo’s starter switch issue. Yeah, this is the same problem that was not fixed during my last foray into the garage. When that effort failed, I switched focus to the ignition switch, so that’s what I worked on last night.

Getting an old GM ignition switch out of the dash requires a stiff wire and the ignition key. With the key turned to the lock position, you stick the wire into the tiny hole in the cylinder and push while turning the cylinder counterclockwise. After some jiggling, the cylinder turns past LOCK and will pull out. Once the cylinder’s removed, the retaining ring can be spun off freeing the switch assembly. Note that I put the shifter in LOW to improve access to the ring – this is important later on the tale. Snaking the switch with its harness still connected out from behind the dash is daunting, but doable.

With the switch out, I clamped it into the vise and tapped the little swaged tangs out to free the plastic inner contact retainer from the housing. Being careful to note the orientation, I removed the retainer and inner copper plate. After some light wire brushing all the black nastiness was gone with shiny copper remaining. A coat of dielectric grease and I put the sandwich back together and swaged over the three tangs to make things solid again. The multi-meter confirmed good continuity in both the run and start positions, so I slithered back under the dash and snaked the switch back into its home after first plugging in the mating connector. On went the retaining ring and in went the cylinder. A test-turn of the key and … WHAT? NOTHING? IRRRR!

One thing I noticed when I’d removed the mating plug was that there was some exposed wire at the back of the plug before the wire insulation started. Thinking maybe pulling on the plug had pulled a conductor from its contact, I re-removed the switch and tested continuity between the spade and the exposed wire on the back of the connector – zero ohms is good. So what’s the issue? I then decided to jumper the hot terminal to the start terminal and see if I had 12 volts at the engine bay connector. Nope – zero volts is NOT good. Pondering the places where the wire would be interrupted, it finally occurred to me that the circuit goes through a safety switch in the shifter that prevents starting the car with it gear. And, yes, I’d left the shifter in LOW. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I reattached the plug to the switch, popped the cylinder in, put the shifter in NEUTRAL, and – what do you know – the engine turned when I twisted the key. Success; so back out came the cylinder, and I re-snaked the switch back into its home, put on the retainer, and RE-re-inserted the cylinder. One more test and I’ll be good-to-… WHAT? NOTHING? IRRRR! A search behind the dash and the culprit was quickly found. My snaking the switch into place had pulled one of terminal off the aforementioned safety switch. Plugged it in and THIS time the starter spun immediately with the turn of the key.

The car started right up again when I went to back it down the driveway after putting all the tools away. Great; problem solved I’m thinking. Not so fast. This morning I went out to drive the car to work, and, wouldn’t you know it, the darn thing wouldn’t start with just the key. Thank goodness I didn’t remove the starter switch. Now what to do? NOTHING – just live with the switch.

Starter Woes Go Un-fixed

Yesterday evening, I was in a huge funk after finally giving up on my unprofessional skills fixing Victoria’s car. I decided that, while I was already dressed in grungies, and the garage was already open, and Ringo was already sitting in said garage, I’d go ahead and swap in a GUP solenoid and fix the starter problem. After disconnecting the driver’s side air duct and only breaking one of the terminals on the crusty, old solenoid, I had the starter/solenoid assembly out in no time. Pulled the nicest looking solenoid off the shelf and swapped it in place of the discardable piece. Using battery cables and a jumper wire I made sure the Bendix would fire out before reinstalling the unit back onto the bell housing. Before reattaching the duct, I hooked up the battery and gave the key a twist – nothing. Irr. The switch, though, caused the starter to spin the engine just fine, so I guess it was an improvement, but the ignition switch still needs to come out and be cleaned or replaced. After I put all the tools away, it occurred to me I hadn't put the duct back on. Fortunately, the car was still up on jackstands, so the assembly wasn't too bad.

Will This Be the Beginning of Consistent Blogging Again?

My lack of blog entries in the last three months has been due to a couple of non-Corvair projects sucking all my free time away. First, I’m still working on a new kitchen for the lovely Loriann. Second, Victoria and I were dealing with her daily-driver Acadia. To summarize the latter, a timing chain slipped, intake valves hit pistons, compression was lost, engine was dropped out of the car, heads were pulled and rebuilt with new valves and machined surfaces, engine was reassembled and raised back into the car, everything was hooked back up and fluids topped off, key was turned, engine started (TYL). All that took roughly four months.

In the midst of all that, I did get some Corvair problems to solve. Since Victoria needed a vehicle to use, as did Mikhaila, Ringo became my daily-driver, while Mikhaila got the pleasure of wrestling Glinda around town.

Ringo, for the most part, has been well behaved. The only work I’ve done has been to extend the jump-start wire into the salon and insert a temporary toggle switch between it and a 12V tab on the fuse block. The starter won’t energize by just turning the ignition switch anymore (solenoid? – probably!), so I have to double up on sending voltage to the solenoid. I do this by turning the key and toggling the jump-start wire at the same time. I’m sure, in the end, it would have been more effective to swap out the solenoid which I still plan to do. Oh well. Glinda has had some issues that have sucked up some time. A couple weeks back, with Victoria’s car out of the garage, I decided to weld up her cracked exhaust pipe (Glinda’s not Victoria’s). While brushing the surfaces clean with a wire wheel on my grinder, I took a big chunk out of the air hose that runs in that space. I did the best I could to weld up the crack without removing the pipe, but figured I hadn’t gotten it all. That was confirmed when I started up the car and pulsing hot air was still coming out of the pipe near the weld. After replacing the hose with a GNP off the shelf, I sent Mikhaila on her way. She got about 3 miles down the road when the pipe broke taking out the muffler hanger with it. Mikhaila immediately pulled off the side of the road and gave me a call. I got her the rest of the way to work and then returned with bailing wire and the tow stuff to get Glinda back home. Fortunately, the Flowmaster didn’t drag on the ground – one of the clamp u-bolts did the dragging. With Glinda in the garage and her rear up on jackstands, I unbolted the broken hanger and pipe and then went rummaging for replacements. The hanger had failed at the rubber square, so I pulled a GNP square and nut and bolt kit, drilled out the old rivets, and installed the new square – job done. I then closely inspected the two pipes I found in the rafters, but one had a crack and went into the recycling can. The second one had had its muffler cut off at some point in its life, so clamping the Flowmaster onto its end was not going to happen. It was going to have to be a welded joint. Fortunately, there’s a short transition pipe installed into the inlet of the muffler that meant I wasn’t welding the muffler, but the transition pipe’s end to the exhaust pipe end. The mating areas and surrounding surfaces of the two pipes were thoroughly cleaned to bare metal with the wire wheel on my stand grinder before I climbed under the car with them. With the repaired muffler hanger in place supporting the rear of the muffler, I bolted the replacement exhaust pipe to the exhaust manifolds with copious amounts of exhaust sealing paste (no new donuts available) and slid the inlet of the muffler over the abbreviated pipe as far as it would go – only about a half-inch. Out came the welder and I laid down a bead (or what passes as a bead given my lack of welding skills) all the way around the joint. The next morning Mikhaila started the car up, and it was noticeably quieter during her commute. When she got home, I inspected my work and found the strap had

pulled out of the hanger (see circled in red below). Back into the garage went Glinda, and I removed the strap and the portion of the hanger that the strap attaches to. I then welded the two together. I’d been struggling with seeing the weld using my self-darkening helmet, so I adjusted the darkness of the lens to the next smaller number – huge difference. I could see the puddle much better. With the strap and hanger piece as one, the assembly went back together and has held ever since.

It seems starter issues are contagious, as that was Glinda’s second significant issue. For the longest time, her starter’s Bendix drive would sometimes not engage with the ring gear on the pressure plate resulting in the starter spinning, but no engine turning. Usually, it would happen once and on the second turn of the key everything spun as it should. When the clutch cable broke a few months back, I had to abuse the starter to get the car home, and the starter issue immediately got worse. It would still, eventually, work, but it would take a few tries before operating properly. Last week, while I was away on a youth mission trip with the lovely Loriann and her enthusiastic group of high schoolers, I got a text telling me Glinda would not start. Fortunately, it happened right in front of the house, so Mikhaila wasn’t stranded somewhere. When I returned the following Saturday, I roll-started the car and drove it into the garage where she assumed the position – rear-end up on jackstands. After disconnecting the battery’s negative lead, I slid under the car, disconnected the leads to the solenoid, and went to remove the two bolts retaining the starter to the bell housing. They were both loose. Odd. So, thinking I’d found the issue, I tightened the two bolts, reattached all the electrical leads, and turned the key to test my fix – nothing. Well, something did happen - the idiot lights on the dash faded. Odd. Thinking the solenoid had finally crapped out, I disconnected the wires again, and removed the starter. Using jumper cables, I then went to my milk-crate of starters to find one that worked. By the time I’d gone through a couple with anything but a few sparks to show for my efforts, I tested the battery. It had died, but not an “I’m out of juice, please recharge me” death, but a “I’ve had something bad happen inside me, and no amount of charging will make me work” death. Odd (there’s that word again). Grabbing Luna’s battery (she doesn’t’ need it), I tested the starter/solenoid that I’d just pulled out of Glinda and it looked to work fine – Bendix slid out and stayed out just as Vincent Hugo Bendix had invented it to do. Thinking the dying battery was the culprit behind the non-starting (not enough juice to engage the Bendix properly), I bolted in the “original” starter again, and, this time, after hooking up all the wiring, turning the key turned the engine. I exercised the starter at least a half-dozen times before pronouncing all was good and lowering the car onto the garage floor. The car started right up when I went to drive it out to the street, but a couple hours later, when Mikhaila wanted to use the car, the starter was back to its misbehaving ways. Odd (AGAIN!). Quite fed up with the whole thing at this point, I handed her the keys to Ringo and pondered how big a sledge hammer I’d need to destroy this royal pain in my butt. The next day, once I’d calmed down over the whole affair, I had drug Mikhaila out to the street where I taught her how to roll-start a car with a manual transmission. Once she got Glinda running, she drove her into the garage where the two of us went to work. After disconnecting the battery, we used jumper cables to test prospective starter/solenoid replacements from my cache. The first one we hooked up spun nicely and the Bendix moved properly (just like the faulty one in the car had done, so I was still leery), so she and I swapped the supposed good for the known bad. Guess what? The car has started perfectly every time since then.

It's Been A Quiet Winter

Between house projects (new kitchen) and other car projects, I haven't been able to tackle any of the projects I'd hoped to. Thankfully, gas is cheap since Ringo is slurping it up like crazy. I'd really love to try harder to improve on the 16 mpg he's been providing as my daily-driver, but I don't have time. If he weren't so reliable, things might be different. But he gets me to and from work without issue, so I just leave well enough alone.

The Garage Sees Three-Quarters of the Fleet

Got to deal with three of the four fleet members over the weekend.

Friday evening, priority one was to get Ringo back on the road, but that changed with a phone call from Mikhaila. “Daddy, the clutch pedal’s not working – it’s very loose and I can’t shift into first gear.” Busted clutch cable, so off I went in the truck with the towing gear still bouncing around the bed. Upon arrival at the breakdown, I confirmed the cable was at fault by finding the pedal end loose and completely disconnected from the pedal linkage. Since we were less than three miles from home and it was late enough that traffic shouldn’t be an issue, I chose to save time and just drive the car home without using the clutch. With Mikhaila driving the truck, I figured if this adventure failed, we’d revert to towing. Since the engine was still warm, I put the shifter into first, checked traffic, and turned the key. The starter got us moving and the engine turning. I kept it going until the engine was running and we were moving down the road. Upshifting into second was a matter of letting off the throttle, pulling the shifter into neutral, and, once the rpms had dropped sufficiently, snicking the shifter into the next higher gear. I negotiated neighborhood streets and only had to blow through one stop sign. I did, however, catch one red light forcing me to shift into neutral, turn off the car, and coast up to the line. Once the light went green, I repeated the first gear starter thing and was parked in front of the house a few minutes later. This feat of clutchless motoring impressed the lovely Loriann (not an easy thing to do). I tried to convince her that we should go out and try it on her Challenger, but she forbade it.

Saturday morning came and went with yard projects taking my attention, but I was able to get out to the garage in the afternoon. Mikhaila had put the rear wheels on Scarlett and lowered her to the garage floor. Then son-in-law Nicholas (Mikhaila had to go to work) helped me push Scarlett out into the driveway to her winter parking spot where I covered her with a heavy-duty tarp.

Into the garage went the noisy Ringo for a muffler transplant. I had found a complete EM exhaust system (pipe and correct round muffler) up in the rafters, but had failed to turn up any exhaust gaskets. Since most of the old gasket material was still in place on the pipe ends, I was planning on a liberal application of exhaust sealer paste from NAPA to fill in any gaps. The old pipe and muffler came off together rather easily and without any fastener breakage. The hanger, however, had rusted away enough that I wouldn’t trust it to hold the strap on a new installation. I removed it from the engine, cut out a patch, and welded it on to the cleaned-up hanger to give it new life. Back on the car went the hanger and then I supported the muffler with the loosely installed strap. I squeezed a nice bead of sealer over the gaskets and mated them to the exhaust manifolds. After coating the manifold stud threads with anti-seize, I put on the four nuts capturing the flanges against the manifolds and tightened the strap before pushing the car off the ramps to let the sealant cure overnight.

The next day, after getting home from church, I fired up Ringo’s engine and thankfully the exhaust system sounded quiet again. It was interesting to see how much fluff got blown out of the muffler – one less cozy mouse-house in the garage.

With Ringo now parked at the curb, I finagled Glinda in to the garage to investigate the clutch cable issue. Two jackstands got the entire left side up off the floor so I could slide under and, after confirming the engine end of the cable was still in place, remove the two tunnel covers. Once the forward one was on the floor, it broken end of the cable presented itself. It appears it broke right at the pulley wheel. I checked and the wheel still turned so I’m not sure what caused the failure of a less than two-year-old part. Thankfully, Clark’s Corvair Parts stood behind their product and agreed to send me a new replacement for just the cost of shipping.

The rest of yesterday was spent working with Nicholas on replacing a couple pulleys on his Dodge Caliber. I was quickly reminded why working on older cars, Corvairs included, is much, MUCH easier than the newer ones, especially those with transverse engines. Thanks to YouTube and more body flexibility than I’d expected, we were able to complete the job and get their daily-driver back on the road.

This morning Ringo was back on daily-driver duty and performed admirably. No backfiring or hesitation on the street or highway.

Baby, It Was Cold Outside

With Scarlett still occupying the garage, work on getting Ringo back on the road had to take place in the twenty-something degree discomfort of the driveway. I had quick to point the finger at a carburetor, but a Facebook posting by my Corvair-buddy Geoff reminded me of the saying, “95% of fuel problems are electrical.” So, the first thing I did after donning layers of grungies was hook up the dwell meter and crank the engine. Dwell was still reading 32, but I went ahead and put back on the previous point’s plate with a GUP set of points with the contacts slightly sanded. Since the cold battery didn’t have enough oomph left to set the dwell by cranking with the starter, I went old-school and set the point gap. As I was turning the engine with a wrench to get the point’s rubbing block on top of a cam, I noticed gas dripping from the fuel pump. Irr. I pulled off the offending part and replaced it with the newish-looking one off Scarlett. After a little gas went into each carb, the engine fired right up and settled into a nice idle … for about a twenty seconds before dying. Irr. Figuring the supposedly functional fuel pump wasn’t so functional, I cracked open one of the fuel line fittings and cranked the engine – sure enough, no gas. Off came that pump and I immediately marked it BAD. On went the next newish-looking pump from the

stash. After attaching the inlet tube, I poured a little gas down each carb, started the engine, and crossed my fingers that I’d see pulses of fuel come out of the outlets. Nothing. Another pump gets BAD written on it. The final pump from my stash was seized, so I had no choice but to put the original back on. With all the fitting tightened, I started the engine and tightened the pump’s screws to stem the drops to just a slow ooze. The dwellmeter indicated my gap-setting, while good enough to get the engine running, wasn’t quite where it needed to be. A tweak or two with a screwdriver and dwell was back to about 32 degrees. That was followed by a re-setting of the timing to 12 degrees BTDC.

At that point my fingers were too cold to continue. Replacing the muffler had to wait until another evening – hopefully one with temps at least in the thirties.

Two Steps Forward; Blah, Blah, Blah

Yeah, I like making strides forward, but I abhor going backwards. That, however, is how the last couple days have been.

Yesterday, Mikhaila and I spent an hour or so in the garage adjusting Scarlett’s valve lash. With the low compression ratio in cylinder number two, I was hoping maladjusted valves would be the cause. We started by lowering the front end off the jackstands and onto wheels for the first time in quite a while. We then put a wheel on the right rear and lowered it to the ground. Up went the left side as high as the heavy-duty jackstand and jack would put it. Mikhaila wielded the wrenches while I directed the removal of the valve cover and the checking of the valve lash. All valves seemed to be too loose (meaning probably not the cause of low compression). We got them up to spec and then repeated the same procedure to cylinders one, three, and five. We were going to move on and begin bolting shrouds back onto the engine (being the optimist that I am), but that was stymied by the fact that I’d forgotten we hadn’t yet riveted the rubber seals to the side shrouds, or the front shroud for that matter. With the hour heading towards nine PM, we decided to turn out the lights and heaters and head into the house.

On to Ringo’s and his frustratives (see sidebar).

About a week ago, I went out to the driveway to tackle two issues. First, the maddening driver’s door. It took a few minutes to remove the fresh air grill and carpet from the left front footwell exposing the door-hinge bolt heads. I loosened all six of them, but not so much as to let the door move. A rubber mallet provided the impetus to adjust the door in its opening. I was trying to bump the lower hinge slightly forward, but all I accomplished was knocking loose some rust from the bottom rear corner of the door. With each hinge bolts a turn looser I was able to get the door moved where I wanted it. I screwed the latch plate back into place and now the door closes without slamming. We’ll see how long that lasts. Out came the power grinder with a wire brush on to clean up the rust mess I’d just made. After getting rid of all the loose stuff, I liberally applied a coat of POR-15 to stem the rusty tide.

On to the second issue – no choke on the left carburetor. I backed Ringo’s rear up onto the ramps and, after exhaustively (pun intended) trying to get the coil and rod out, I ended up having to lower the left exhaust manifold to provide passage. A spare head gave up a new rod and the stash gave up a set of three GNP exhaust donuts. A few minutes later, the engine was running and I was listening to make sure the exhaust was leak-less. With that confirmed I reinstalled the dangling lower shroud, rolled the car off the ramps, put away the tools, and called it a day.

Now, jump to this morning – the first time I’ve driven Ringo in a week and a half. While his engine started right up and settled into a proper idle, pulling on to the beltway a few minutes later seemed to require more effort than usual. As we neared the end of my ten mile commute, the engine started stumbling, and as I made my last turn into the parking lot a steady stream of backfiring ensued. I dropped the transmission into Low and matted the gas pedal to ensure I’d make it into a parking spot. That maneuver was rewarded with a very loud backfire, but I did barely make it into a spot. As soon as I braked to a stop, the engine died. I got out and surveyed the damage – yep the entire seam of the muffler had been blown out. I quickly pulled the tops off the two air cleaners to see the state of fuel. The right side seemed okay, but the left side seemed to have two problems. One, the throat had a cloud of gas in it (stuck needle and seat perhaps – running rich = exhaust backfiring), and two, I couldn’t see a shot of gas when I blipped the throttle. Good thing the towing equipment’s in the bed of the truck.

Holidays are made for Car Work

Yesterday, Mikhaila finally had a day off from work, so we went out to work on Scarlett. I told her the primary goal was to get her engine running, and that we needed to borrow some stuff from Ringo in order to make that happen. With me directing and her turning the wrenches, we removed the carburetors and linkage as an assembly and bolted them onto Scarlett’s engine. After transplanting the battery and rigging up a gravity feed for filling the carbs with fuel, we were ready to go. First check was dwell. I hooked up the meter and had Mikhaila turn the key to on and energize the purple wire to get the engine to turn. It took a few tweaks of the points, but I was finally able to get the meter to point at 32 degrees. Next, we rotated the crank until the groove on the balancer was lined up with 8 degrees on the engine block scale. With the timing light now connected, we twisted the distributor trying to get a spark, but were unsuccessful, so I had Mikhaila aim the timing light with the engine spinning by the starter and we turned the distributor until we could get the groove to show anywhere on the scale. With the timing somewhere within reason, I poured a little gas down each carb’s throat and had Mikhaila start the starter cranking. It took a few tries, but we finally got the engine to fire and run. The strange thing was, that even after twenty-plus years of sitting, there was no lifter clatter and not a whole lot of smoke. We went through a few refills of fuel before calling the exercise a success and I Mikhaila out to the driveway to clean engine shroud pieces while I did a compression check on each of the six cylinders.

Last October we did the same test on the engine and came up with the following results: one @ 160 psi, three @ 150 psi, one @ 120 psi, and one @ 60 psi. This time, with engine warmed up, testing showed two @ 140, one @ 135, two @ 130 and cylinder number two at 45. I squirted some oil down in the spark plug hole and did another check. It went up to 60, so there are still issues. All-in-all, though, the test run was a success since nothing banged, clattered, or untowardly spewed fire. My next move on this will be pulling the left valve cover and checking the rocker arm adjustment on the two valves to that cylinder.

#1 #3 #5
#2 #4 #6

The testing complete, I returned the carburetors and battery to Ringo’s engine compartment. By this point, Mikhaila had finished separating the engine seal retainers from the shrouds, so I released her from working. I, however, still had another project to attend to – this one on Ringo’s distributor. When I’d previously checked the dwell, I’d noticed that it would change with the revving of the engine. In my experience, this indicates a loose pivot pin on the points’ plate. At that time, I’d just plugged the vacuum hose, verified the dwell was holding steady at 32 degrees and moved on. Yesterday, I decided to replace the points’ plate with one that I had removed from Glinda when I’d installed the Ignitor II ignition system a few months back. After the swap, I hooked up the dwell meter, set the dwell to 32 degrees, hooked up the vacuum line, and fired the engine. It would start, but barely and wouldn’t idle. It took me a few minutes to discover my error – I’d neglected to tighten the fitting where the fuel line enters the fuel pump. Sucking air was never going to re-fill the carburetor bowls. With the fitting tight, it only took a few cranks of the engine to get gas in the carbs and the engine running smoothly. Sadly, the dwell still wouldn’t sit still as I revved the engine, so it looks like the distributor shaft bushing gets put on the list for replacement. With a golf tee securely plugging the vacuum hose, I checked the timing – still sitting at 12 degrees BTDC.

At that point I called it a day, put away the tools, and locked up the garage.