Gone, but Not Forgotten

I told the lovely Loriann, there’s a space in my driveway and a hole in my heart. I’m always saddened when I sell a car; Saturday was no different when TwoTone was hauled away. I can take comfort in the knowledge that the new owner, a really nice guy and his teenage son, will probably have her back on the road faster than Mikhaila and I would have. ‘Vair buddy, John’s, free ’64 coupe sealed the deal. They’ll be converting TwoTone to a 4-speed. It’ll be too cool.

What else is happening with the fleet?

There’s no change, sadly, with the ongoing battle with Ringo’s driver’s door. Even after adjusting the door, it’s back to needing to be slammed. Irrr. It’s nice to report, though, that Ariel’s only needed to use the ignition bypass once.

I spent some time on Glinda last weekend. Saturday afternoon I decided to install the new clutch and brake pedal assembly. When I first started planning to do this swap, I researched what I’d need to do, and had been led to believe that the large support bracket was different to accommodate the clutch, so I bought a used version along with the pedals and pertinent parts. Over the last few weeks I’d cleaned up the used parts, primed them, and shot them with a couple coats of Rustoleum gloss black. With them ready to go, I crawled under the dash to determine the best path of attack. It didn’t take long for me to figure out the bracket that was in the car looked exactly like the one I’d bought. Okay, the hardest part of the job didn’t need to be done. Yay. The existing brake pedal came out once I’d popped off the clips that held the two shafts (pivot and master cylinder rod) in place, slid the shafts out, and dropped the pedal straight down. Getting the new, longer clutch pedal shaft into its pivot hole required me to remove the defroster duct; which required me to remove the glovebox; which required me to remove the new radio housing. With all that stuff out of the way, the clutch shaft slid into the hole, through the brake pedal, out the other side of the bracket. The clutch pedal slid over the end and was retained with a washer and nut. It took a while to convince the duct it needed to go back in, but it finally succumbed, and the rest of the reassembly went well. An adjustment to the brake pedal switch completed the pedal swap. The other task I undertook was repairing the failing vinyl on the driver’s seatback. I’d purchased a repair kit a while back. Step 1 was to glue a backing cloth to the backside of the vinyl surrounding the hole. Since it required a four hour cure, that was the end of Glinda work for the weekend.





Sunday was Luna day. Yes, the car that hasn’t moved in months got some attention. Victoria and I decided it was time to tackle installing the convertible top. With the sun beating down on us, we fought with the attaching the rear window piece to the trim sticks for a couple hours. Finally, we had to give up since the baking black vinyl and cloth were getting too hot to handle. While we made some good headway, it would have been nicer to finish the job. Well, they’ll be other weekends. While she (Luna) was out in the driveway I fixed the tie-rod problem I’d discovered when we did a lube job soon after bringing her home. A previous mechanic had adjusted the joint in such a way as to bind the balljoints. I needed to turn one end relative to the adjusting sleeve, but that entailed some doing. First, I needed to loosen the two clamp nuts from there associated bolts. This was done with great trepidation since these guys are known to just torque right off due to being seized. Well, God was looking down on me since both came off cleanly with only penetrating fluid and careful wrenching. The threaded connection of the tie-rod end into the sleeve took the aggressive application of flame to get it to the point where, with me standing on the end of a pipe wrench, I could get it to move. It only took a few degrees of rotation to free the tie-rod centering it in its travel. After cleaning the bolts on the wire wheel and generously applying anti-seize, I reassembled the clamps, dropped the car off the jackstands, and called it a day.

Such a Deal I Have for You

With the acquisition of Scarlett, I find myself needing to rid myself of TwoTone to get fleet membership back to four. I could part her out and probably make back the $500 I paid for her, but she deserves a better fate. As I mentioned a few posts back, the guy who sold us Scarlett (John) also offered me his rusty, ’64 coupe complete with a 4-speed transmission and a 110 HP engine. The key word in that last sentence is “complete.” FYI – here’s a link to the Craigslist ad.

Since John never finished reassembling Scarlett after her new paintjob quite a while back, some parts have gone missing over the years. Last night Mikhaila and I did a quick inventory of Scarlett and compiled a list of items that she needed. We then raided the stash of parts we’d pulled off TwoTone for suitable replacements. We snagged the parts I’d purchased from Clark’s like brake hoses and the fuel tank install kit, the parts I’d purchased online like the dual master cylinder, and even parts that came with Wilma like shock absorbers. The only items we took that had come off TwoTone were the sideview mirror, rear taillight lenses, heater vents, and the gas tank. Hence the aforementioned “complete” since TwoTone is now not complete.

One Daily-Driver Corvair

There’s been a lot of snow this winter, thus a lot of salt, and since I’m sick of fixing rust, I’ve parked Glinda except for the occasional jaunt to the store. That means Ringo is the only consistently driven member of the fleet.

Until Friday he’d been behaving, but that day he had a failure that, while not fatal, was certainly inconvenient. Ariel had just driven him to her job, and after climbing from behind the wheel, she went to close his door, and it jammed about halfway shut. She called me and explained her plight – it wouldn’t be prudent to park a car in a mall parking lot with its door seriously ajar. I was in line at Taco Bell at the time, but told her I was on my way. While I was en route, she fiddled with the door until she got it to close enough to catch the first latch. Thanks to California Corvair Parts for the photo.



When I arrived, twenty minutes later, I opened the door and discovered a pin had fallen out (see photo). One of the small linkage pieces was jammed against the door frame by the now-unfettered spring. Not having come prepared with any tools, I went searching for something suitable to pop the spring out. Ringo’s glovebox contained a Phillips screwdriver, while the lovely Loriann’s daily-driver (we swapped vehicles for the day), provided Chrysler’s equivalent of a lug wrench. With them, I was able to pry out the spring without having it take flight into any body part. Once the spring was out of the way, I carefully aligned the two linkages and closed the door tightly. Until repaired properly, Ariel had to use the passenger door for ingress and egress.

Yesterday, I rolled TwoTone out into the driveway just as it was beginning to rain (of course) and quickly threw a tarp over her and tied it in place. I then drove Ringo into the garage and tried to replace the missing pin. Sadly, I couldn’t find a pin of proper diameter, nor could I find a locknut that would allow me to use a bolt/washer/nut solution, but I did find a pin from an old-house hinge that, while smaller around than desired, will do the job until I get a high-strength bolt with locknut from the hardware store.

With Ringo ready for Ariel’s retrieval, I put Glinda in the garage. My hope is to get to checking the fuel pressure with the gauge setup that recently arrived from Amazon.com.

Spinning Wheel

It’s always a unique experience waking an engine after decades of dormancy. The last time I’ve done this was when Ariel and I were working on Redvair (http://corvairfleet.blogspot.com/2009/12/cpotd-18-eternal-optimist.html). This time TwoTone’s powerplant joined the land of the living after at least twenty years of inactivity. It all happened as follows:

Yesterday afternoon it only took about fifteen minutes for the heaters to get the garage warm enough that I could comfortably remove the stocking cap from my hair-challenged noggin. First task of the afternoon was to install the borrowed starter/solenoid which went in easily including attaching the battery cable and the Start and Run wires. After turning off the heaters, I touched the purple Start wire to the battery’s positive terminal, but got nothing but sparks. I swapped in another battery cable and was rewarded with a spinning engine once the starter wire was energized. I let the engine spin a little before it was apparent it wasn’t going to start. I’d forgotten to set the point gap, but once that was set, and the static timing checked, I gave the starter the juice again and the engine caught and smoke filled the garage. Success! I let the engine run just above idle for the few second it took to burn all the gas from the carburetor bowls. Doors and windows were then opened to dissipate the fog that had enveloped the rear of the garage. I escaped to the backyard catch some fresh air and snagged the gas can from the garden shed – yay, it contained some fuel. Back into the garage to remove the other rear wheel so I could test the tranny. With TwoTone’s rear securely raised on jackstands, I then refilled the carbs and refired the engine. The smoke was less, but the valve clattering didn’t seem to be any quieter. After it ran out of gas, I put the shifter in Drive, refilled the carbs, and energized the starter. This time, instead of staring at the engine, I gave a quick glance at the rear wheels. The right rear hub was happily spinning clockwise – the correct direction. I repeated the fill-shift-start procedure this time testing Reverse, and the right rear’s rotation had reversed. Success.

After escaping the exhaust-filled garage to let it air out for a few minutes, I returned and pulled all the spark plugs and then proceeded to do a compression check on all six cylinders. All but #2 came in at 160 to 180 psi. #2 could only move the gauge up to 92. I think that it would improve with some more running. I’m going to call the drivetrain a runner.

With that experiment complete, I pulled the borrowed the starter and reinstalled a placeholder. Off the jackstands and then off with the loaner carbs. Other than pushing her out of the garage once the snow melts, I think we’re done with TwoTone.

However (and it’s a huge however), I’m toying with the idea of trying to push out the front dent. The metal seems to all be there and it’s un-torn, so who knows what kind of result I could get. I figure it’s worth a try and then the car would be more saleable.

Winter Blues

In another attempt to decry my credo, “Don’t Do It,” the lovely Loriann took pity on my car-less state and shooed me out into the cold Saturday air to finally get some car-stuff done. Sadly, it didn't work as I was thwarted at each turn.

First, with great anticipation, I swapped back in the recently re-rebuilt carburetors onto my ’68. These were the ones that bogged when I floored the throttle too quickly. I had high hopes given the reputable rebuilder went over them extensively. All I did was pull them out of the box and bolt them on the engine. After a few cranks of the engine to pump some gas in the bowls, the engine fired up. Even though the engine wasn’t warmed up, I couldn’t resist and gave the gas pedal a quick, three-quarters stab. Well, the problem is still there. Just to verify, I let the engine run until both chokes plates were fully open. Then I adjusted the idle to roughly 550 in Drive, synched the two sides using my length of clear tubing, popped the trans back into Neutral and did a blip or two. The bog was still there. Upon closer inspection, I discovered the right carb does not respond with a squirt of gas from the accelerator pump. That would explain the symptom. I put this in an e-mail to the rebuilder and he quickly responded that he was quite surprised since he “checked the pump shots before finishing them and both were working.” He offered to send me a replacement pump, or even swap these carbs for two stock ones. I’ve got at least one spare pump that I know works that I’ll try next.




At that point, Mikhaila joined me in the garage where we proceeded to finish prepping TwoTone’s engine for starting, and, hopefully, running. First, though, I had her take some photos of the painted floor so that when we try to sell the car and it's interior is full of parts, we'll have a record of how solid the floor is. We mounted the recently pulled carbs so we knew there would be gas in the bowls. We pulled the battery and spark plug leads from Glinda and installed them in TwoTone. Next, we marked the distributor’s exact location with the timing mark at 8 degrees BTDC. After pulling out the distributor, we primed the oiling system using the drill-mounted special shaft. With the distributor back in place, we excitedly put 12 volts to the coil and then she touched the purple wire to 12 volts to energize the solenoid, but nothing happened other than some sparks from the lead touching the battery terminal. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised since the engine has sat for over thirty years, but I was still disappointed. I had Mikhaila help jack the car, rest it on a jackstand, and remove the left rear wheel before I sent her back in the house to warm up while I removed the starter. A test on the ground confirmed it was dead. I went to my milkcrate of starters and pulled out all four, but none of them worked either. After another half-hour of unsuccessfully swapping solenoids onto different starters, I gave up and called it a day. Yesterday, I drove to Vince’s house and borrowed a known, good starter/solenoid and will, hopefully, soon get the opportunity to put it on.

Should I “Just Do It”?

The lovely Loriann recently wrote an article for our church’s newsletter titled Just Do It. In it she shared that the Nike slogan is her New Year’s resolution, and ended the missive with the encouragement for all of us to “Just Do It” a little more in our lives.

With the cold weather icing any impetus to go work on cars, I’m feeling rather frustrated with what has become my credo – “Don’t Do It”. Should I drag Mikhaila out to the garage to work on TwoTone? Nah, don’t do it. Should I finish prepping the front end to weld onto TwoTone? Nah, don’t do it. Should I disassemble the Powerglide that I’m planning on rebuilding? Nah, don’t do it. Should I install the stereo in Glinda that I bought months ago? Nah, don’t do it. You get the message.

So what am I to do to get out of this funk? Maybe changing some of our plans would put a new perspective on things. Hunting down and acquiring a TwoTone replacement is one change that is currently afoot. Giving up on Glinda’s PG swap and diving into the 4-speed conversion could be another change. Moving Luna into the garage extension and putting the LeMans into the portable garage so I can easily access and work on it is also a possibility.

I Surrender

As I posted last time another weekend passed without any work getting done on TwoTone. Some of this is the weather’s fault (two darn cold), some is mine (too many projects), and some is Mikhaila’s (too overwhelmed). As we removed all the exterior trim, it was quite discouraging to find more sections of the body that’ll need replacing. Then I found a previous repair on the left front that’ll need some attention to go with the already estimated fifty hours plus to cut off the collision-damaged left front corner and replace it with the spare front piece. That front piece, by the way, is not in the greatest shape. Replacing rusty, bent metal with rusty, bent metal is not my idea of moving forward.

So, for the last few weeks I’ve been pondering the possibility of finding a better starting point for Mikhaila and I. Another EM 4-door requiring far less of my time than TwoTone. I think I’ve found one and I’m hoping Mikhaila and I can travel the couple hours to check it out tomorrow. We’ll see – could be a very interesting weekend.

Once we find a replacement, I’ll try to sell TwoTone as-is with spare front end. If I get no interest, I’ll probably tow her up to the Corvair Ranch and get some credit from Jeff. Most, if not all, of the new parts I’ve purchased would be used on whatever new project car we get. That's the beauty of Corvairs - much of what's EM is interchangeable from '61 to '64.

A Weekend of Not Much

Here’s what last weekend’s checklist looked like come Monday morning:

Do some work (any work) on TwoTone – not checked
- Dry out Glinda’s carpets and find the leak – not checked
- Select and start tearing down the Powerglide – not checked (although, thanks to CorvairCenter forum, I now know which unit is definitely a late, and thus stronger, one)
- Disassemble race carbs to see if they were correctly modified – check (They were so now there’s something else wrong that needs fixing. Fortunately, the pro that modified has offered to set them up for me, so I’m confident they’ll be good-to-go once their back from him)
- Fix and reinstall Ringo’s flat tire – check (it was a rusty bead that needed smoothing)
- Install a good starter on Glinda – check (the starter off Ringo was electrically bad, so a GUP was pulled from the milk-crate and paired with a GUP solenoid and she got me to and from work yesterday)

So life goes on. Not sure how I’ll get to all my car projects, but I keep praying for a miracle.

Progress, But Certainly Not Enough

The recent cold snap has slowed our blood and brains to the point where just venturing into the garage to work on TwoTone has become a dreaded task. Nonetheless, I was able to burn enough kerosene and make enough threats to get Mikhaila out to work on her car last Sunday. We were able to coat the floor with POR-15 patching the handful of holes with fiberglass cloth. A few more coats over the patches and the floor will be water tight and rust resistant. Sadly, that is the only task we’ve accomplished on this neglected ‘vair for quite a while. At this rate, Mikhaila will be graduated from college (if that’s what she chooses to do) before TwoTone is roadified.

Ringo continues to remind me he’s part of the fleet with sporadic incidences of misbehavior. The most recent of which occurred last Thursday when he refused to start for Ariel. She driven him to work and then to the bank, but upon trying to leave there, turning the key returned nothing but silence. She had to walk back to work in the freezing rain. This experience enticed her to get more serious about obtaining a new daily driver. That evening, fortunately for both of us, Ringo started so I didn't have to leave work early to tow him home. The next day I stopped by their house intending to drive him over to my garage to do a starter swap, but he refused to cooperate. Turning the key got me nowhere, and connecting the solenoid wire directly to the positive terminal of the battery got me nothing but sparks. So, Saturday, I removed the Glinda's starter swapped it in place of Ringo’s suspect assembly. Ever since then his engine cranks with each turn of the key.

A Hush Has Fallen Over the Fleet

With only one of our Corvairs in use the past couple weeks, the odds were in my favor that it would be a quiet holiday season. In fact, it was. Ringo’s only misbehavior came courtesy of a flat tire. Ariel and I swapped a good tire and wheel from TwoTone and they were good-to-go again.

This reminds me of one of my little quandaries: what's the clearest, most concise way to refer to a tire and wheel assembly? In the previous paragraph, I wanted to just type, “swapped a good tire,” but I felt the need to elaborate, so I added the words “and wheel” to the phrase. However, it is perfectly clear, even to my engineer’s ear, to just say, “changed a flat tire,” and trust that my audience would never believe 1) I’d demounted the deflated tire from its wheel and mounted a replacement right there on the side of the road, and 2) I'd exchanged one flat tire for another flat tire. I guess it would have been easiest if I’d just said, “The only fleet maintenance during the last two weeks was changing a flat tire.” The automotive world has drive train (engine-differential-transmission) and air cleaner (which includes the air filter cartridge and a bunch of sheetmetal), but they’ve never come up with a word or two signifying the rolling thing consisting of a metal wheel with a rubber tire mounted around it and filled with air. What about “rolling stock?” Nope; that doesn’t work for me. “I swapped rolling stock” is too vague regarding plurality or lack thereof. I guess I could try to introduce a completely new word like twerk (Tire Wheel – get it?) to the English language, but given I’m not Miley Cyrus and I’m already trying to get Websters to recognize scramble-do (your hair-do when you get of bed in the morning – feel free to spread that one around), I’m reluctant to take on another quest. But I digress (or have I actually double-digressed).

Now for something completely different. ‘Tis the season to share your resolutions (I will be less of a curmudgeon) and plans for the upcoming twelve months, so here are my plans for the fleet. TwoTone will get a real name as well as plenty of attention. Given the glacial-rate at which Mikhaila and I are proceeding with her sedan’s roadification, I’m hesitant to use the word complete in stating my intentions for that car, so I’ll just say I hope we can get her on the road. Ariel will be replacing Ringo with a modern vehicle as her daily-driver. She insists, though, that she wants to keep her ‘vair, so I don’t see any reduction in the size of the fleet. It would be really nice if Victoria and I could get Luna drivable, but she is so busy and we’re still not sure what that car truly needs (in addition to the convertible top installed) to be a reliable road-goer. Finally, Glinda. Visions of a 140 HP engine and a 4-speed transmission have been dancing in my head for quite a while now, but I’m afraid those grand plans will not be executed in 2014. Too many demands on my precious time and our tight budget mean the best I can hope for is a rebuilt Powerglide and a re-seated windshield. The tranny rebuild needs to be completed before May 24th since that’s when the next track day has been scheduled by the NECC (Northeast Corvair Council) at the brand-new New York Safety Track. Click here to go on a tour of the track. Looks fun, even for an automatic.

I Don't Mind Being Wrong

A decade-plus of maintaining old cars as daily-driver has taken its toll on my optimistic nature. When anything goes wrong with a fleet vehicle, I now automatically jump to worst-case scenarios. After last Thursday’s report from Ariel on Ringo’s misbehavior, I got all doomsday on myself. I couldn’t help but assume another engine teardown was in my future – perhaps another ring had broken or a valve had burned. After driving him the short distance that night, my jaded brain still believed the worst.

Given the weather conditions of this weekend past, I really should have dealt with him Saturday when temps were tolerable and the skies weren’t leaking white stuff, but my belief that his issue was beyond a simple fix caused me to put off the inevitable. As it was, Sunday was the day of reckoning. Planning for long-term times under the car, I felt it was mandatory to get him in the garage before commencing any repair. That meant, sadly, I needed to get TwoTone off the jackstands and out into the driveway. For that to happen, though, I had to repack the front wheel bearings, mount the two front hubs followed by wheels at all four corners, and put all the boxes of recently removed parts into the salon. Only then was I able to drop her to the floor. Oh yeah, at this point in the afternoon, there was now three inches or more of snow on the ground and on Ringo, so some quality time with a snow shovel and broom was required before I could roll any car anywhere.

With TwoTone out of the way, I climbed behind the wheel of the supposedly broken car and turned the key. Hmm. Started right up. Hmm. Settled into a smooth idle. This was nothing like I’d encountered a couple night earlier. I was able to drive him into the garage without a hint of a problem. As he calmly idled, I did the pull-a-spark-plug-lead-and-listen-for-a-drop-in-rpms test and all cylinders seemed to be contributing to the engine’s output. A quick-blip of the throttle revealed the problem as a slight banging commenced from the fuel pump area. I discovered the screw retaining the pump was loose. Less than a full turn with the ½ wrench followed by a snugging of the jam nut and all appeared good-to-go. With sleet now coming down and the lovely Loriann’s vehicle blocking my way to the street for a shakedown drive, I decided to quite while I was ahead. In hindsight I decided the loosening of the fuel pump caused a reduction in fuel flow until there wasn't enough left in the carburetor bowls to feed the engine as Ariel was cruising down the interstate to work.

This morning I was greatly relieved when he delivered me to work with nary an indication that only four days earlier I’d been convinced the sky was falling.

We Have a Color Scheme

While Mikhaila is still pondering what her car’s final name will be, she has decided upon a color scheme:

• Exterior (except for roof): Fathom Green
• Roof: Ermine White
• Interior upholstery: White
• Carpet: Gray
• Interior Painted surfaces: Fathom Green (flattened to a semi-gloss)

By the way, Glinda is still leaving a puddle of ATF at each parking spot I place her in. This is quite disappointing, and maybe the magic elixir from Lucas takes a few days or so to effect a change. Regarding her gas mileage – it doesn’t look too promising.

Ringo has been out of the news lately – and that’s a VERY, VERY good thing. TYL!

Long Weekends are Wonderful

Two solid outings in the garage over the past four days and Mikhaila and I have got TwoTone nearly stripped down to the state where we can start bodywork. All that work and I can count on one hand the number of broken fasteners (one bumper bolt, one seat stud, one gas door screw, and one heater vent screw). At this point: the interior is empty except for the gauge set and the headliner; the trunk is empty except for the wiper motor, and the exterior is bare except for the door handles. Sadly, rusted-out areas were revealed as the trim came off – especially the rocker panel area at the front of the rear wheel opening. The floor has a couple holes about an inch-and-a-half in diameter. Both these areas will need to be cut out and new metal welded in. This, in addition to replacing the bashed-in left front corner, appears to be all the welding required.


Another sad discovery we made while clearing out the interior was that the brake lines had all been cut. I’m not sure why someone thought it a necessary act, but it will cost me some time and money to replace what looked to be solid, rust-free tubes.

On the Glinda front, I re-reassembled the “bad” carburetor from TwoTone and installed it in place of the left carburetor (let’s call this one an original). The engine would not run right, so I’m writing that carburetor off completely and will obtain a rebuildable replacement from Vince (Rich’s unsold stash). The original went back on and a test drive around the neighborhood proved to me she’d probably get me to and from work. So, today I pressed her back into daily-driving duty. My first stop of the morning was the gas station where I put in about $40 of 93 octane. I texted Fuelly.com the mileage and amount it took to fill the tank and immediately received a text back telling me that the last tank-full elicited a whopping 11 miles per gallon. My hope is putting the new carbs on will return the mileage back to the 18-19 range I was seeing before I put on the carbs with the relocated jets. To add insult to injury the leak from the rear of the transmission is getting worse. I happened to have some Lucas transmission treatment on the shelf, so I poured a pint down the fill tube and we’ll see what happens.

Time and Money Spent on TwoTone

My time with the fleet actually started Friday night with Glinda, but Saturday afternoon was mostly consumed by working with Mikhaila on her car, TwoTone.

The Glinda work consisted of using her engine to determine which subassembly of TwoTone’s rebuilt carburetors is bad. As I posted last week, one carburetor assembly appeared to function properly, while the other wouldn’t work right when bolted to the Glinda’s left head. So, on Friday I created a table like the following (yeah, I am an engineer):

Wouldn’t Work		Seemed to Work
Bad Top		Good Top
Bad Cluster		Good Cluster
Bad Bottom		Good Bottom

With the assumption that only one portion of the bad carb was causing the malfunctioning, I swapped both the Bad Top and Bad Cluster onto the mounted Good Bottom. While the engine started and ran fairly smoothly, the right side would not heat up telling me it wasn’t getting the proper flow of fuel. Off came the Bad Top and back on went the Good Top. This time the engine ran nicely and soon after the restart, the choke opened up all the way. With the engine fully warmed up and shut off, I hooked up my length of clear tubing with some water in it to the vacuum ports on the two carbs. With the engine running again and the left carb disconnected from the throttle shaft, I turned that carb’s idle screw in until the water was static in the tube. I then turned the small linkage rod until its end lined up with the hole in the throttle shaft. The new carb was now balanced with Glinda’s old carb. Before quitting for the night, I disassembled the presumed bad top and dropped it into the carb cleaner for a good soak. Referring back to my table, the two carbs now looked like this:

Installed & Working		Unproven & Soaking
Good Top		Bad Top
Bad Cluster		Good Cluster
Good Bottom		Bad Bottom

Saturday afternoon, both Mikhaila and I had finished our house chores and we headed to the warmed-up garage (I’d gone out about an hour earlier and fired up two of the kerosene heaters). She started by spraying gloss black Rustoleum on the front brake backing plates while I emptied out a bin to collect TwoTone’s removed parts. We then worked together to empty out the salon (interior space) of all the loose pieces I’d stored there. We found some new parts that will be used in the roadification. Next, we moved on to removing the seats. All the fasteners but one were cooperative. I slathered the stubborn nut with the magic elixir of 50/50 acetone/transmission fluid. We’ll let that one sit a while. The final actions for the day were removing sill plates, vent grills and covers, and the seatbelts. Once that last nut is loose, we’ll finish exposing all the floor and Mikhaila can have fun with the wire brush getting rid of any loose rust.


Speaking of rust, I can’t say it too many times - disassembling this car has been quite a treat compared to previous projects. As mentioned before, only one threaded joint out of a couple dozen was seized. We’re quite fortunate to have landed another barn find (Heidi was the other one and more accurately they were garage finds).


Finally, this morning I got on the phone with Clark’s and placed an order for POR-15 for coating TwoTone's floor, a bunch of carpet, paint, and upholstery samples (more on that later) and three wheel cylinders (there was a brand new right front cylinder assembly amongst the parts we pulled out of the salon). Not wanting to pay the nearly $100 for a rebuilt master cylinder, I hopped on Amazon and bought an aftermarket dual master cylinder for $33. I’ve decided I’ll do the conversion to dual from single (1964s only came with a single master cylinder). I’ll need to buy some fittings and a couple short brake lines, but I’ll do that once I have the master in hand. The running expense tally on the sidebar has taken a hit. Won’t be long before we’ve topped a grand.

I mentioned samples – it looks like Mikhaila has a color scheme for this car. She shared with me that she likes a darker green for the body with a white top. For the interior she’s thinking white seats and door panels, black carpet, and a flatter version of the exterior green for the exposed interior metal (dash, doors outside the panels, etc.). I pulled up a photo of a 1960 Corvair in Jade Green, and she liked it so one of the samples I ordered was for that color. The other was for a Fathom Green from 1969. Much darker, but not nearly as 50s as she mentioned she was going for.

Let the Swap-a-Carb Game Begin

Now that I have the truck on the road, I haven’t been too inclined to spend any cold evenings out in the driveway, nor has much happened with TwoTone of late. I really thought I’d be able to get Mikhaila out into the garage over the weekend, but that didn’t happen – too much going on in her social life.

I did, however, don some grungies last night and went out to the driveway to play swap-a-carb with Glinda. I pulled off the current left side carburetor and bolted on the recently re-rebuilt carb of TwoTone. Sadly, the engine would not run right and the entire left bank of the motor stayed cold, so that carb is still non-functioning. After yanking that one off and replacing it with the TwoTone’s other carb, the engine went back to normal – at least normal when defined as “the engine idles smoothly, revs easily, and doesn’t send copious amounts of dark exhaust into the night sky.” I need to put some miles on the car before I determine if the left carb caused the gas guzzling. Before I do that, I’ve got to balance the new carb to the existing left side one. That’ll wait for another evening.

An additional exercise will be to swap the internals and lid from the still non-functioning carb over to the working one on Glinda’s engine’s left side. Not as critical to Glinda’s problem, but I do need to figure out what’s causing TwoTone’s other carb to malfunction – my bet is there’s still a clog in a passage of the carb’s base.

Now onto the paragraph Corvair purists may choose to skip – the paragraph where I regale you, gentle reader(s), with the story of my conquering the truck’s rear end (gee, that sounds dirty). Anyway, last Friday I was lying under the truck on the cold concrete of the driveway and all went amazingly well. The forward bearing was liberally lubricated with gear oil and place into its race. The seal was greased and installed with the gentle persuasion of a hammer via a 4X4. The balance of the pinion assembly was slid home from the back of the pumpkin. The yoke’s spline was greased before being engaged with the pinion’s front end. The washer and old nut were used to apply just enough torque to crush the crush sleeve with only about ten foot-lbs of effort to turn the pinion. The old washer and nut were replaced by the new washer and locknut with liberal amounts of Loctite on the thread to give added insurance against the same problem reappearing. The differential assembly with ring gear and bearings were rolled into place. The spacers filled the gaps on either side. The axles were shoved into engagement and c-rings installed followed by the diff pin and locking screw. The cover was bolted into place with a new gasket. About two and a half quarts of gear oil were squirted in until the level came up to the bottom of the fill hole. The plug was reinserted and it was test-time. I turned on the engine, put the shifter in D, and walked to the rear to listen for any untoward noises. All was quiet, so I bolted on the wheels and dropped her off the jackstands. The next morning’s drive to and from the dump was uneventful – in fact she has no vibrations from the rear at all (surprise, surprise). A big TYL that that project’s behind me.

Must Make Her Rollable

Last night, at the dinner table, I blurted out that Mikhaila and I had to spend some quality time with her car. I went on to explain that, with all the bad luck I’ve been having with the fleet and the onset of brrr-cold nights, I needed to be able to roll TwoTone out of the garage to make room for the next daily-driver that craps out. In order for that happen, I went on, she and I needed to finish the work we’d started on the front end. Loriann asked how long that would take, and I replied three hours of Mikhaila’s wire-brushing, priming and painting the brake backing plates would be her commitment, while I would then rebuild the brakes, pack and install the wheel bearings, and bolt on the hubs and wheels before lowering her off the jackstands.

Mikhaila offered to go out to the garage that night and get started, so right after dinner, I fired up a couple of the kerosene heaters. Thirty minutes later she and I were hard at work – her wire brushing the right front backing plate while I disassembled the brakes on the left. By the end of the evening, all the priming was done. A couple coats of gloss black Rustoleum and some cleanup on the seal surfaces is all that’s left to do before I bolt up the mix of GNP and GUP brake components.

Yesterday I blogged about unreliable my memory is. Well, it’s not quite all gone. As I gathered up the recently cleaned front wheel bearing parts, I inspected the front seals and pronounced them unusable. I actually remembered seeing new Clark’s replacements in a box, so I went to the shelves, opened the box I thought they were in, and pulled out the package with C319A written on the outside. There were, in fact, EM wheel bearing seals. Inventorying all the GNPs I’ve got in assorted boxes is still on my general to-do list.

Since the garage was warm and my clothes were grungy, I moved on to other projects. I took apart TwoTone’s left side carburetor and dropped the body into carb cleaner. This was the carb that seemed dead when it was bolted onto Glinda’s guzzling engine a few days back. It’s my hope to prove out both carbs before they’re used to fire up TwoTone’s long-dormant engine. At the same time, installing them onto Glinda’s engine should prove or rule out her current carbs as the cause of abysmal gas mileage she’s currently getting.

Finally, I unpacked the Amazon.com box that had showed up earlier in the day. Out came the carpeted speaker boxes which were immediately filled with my new 6X9 speakers. Not sure why I’m spending time and money on a car that I’m really disgusted with right now, but I started down this path of going beyond AM before Glinda began misbehavin’.

Glinda’s A Guzzler

I didn’t expect that fixing the gas starvation issue would just create a gluttony issue. Once I replaced Glinda’s fuel filter, she’s been going through 93 octane like a camel after a couple months in the Sahara. Friday, with the needle just above E, I filled the tank. Since I use fuelly.com to track gas mileage, my reply to the text to them told me her gulp-rate was 14 mpg. Ouch! My first thought was a leak somewhere, so as soon as I got home I put my nose to the ground and then in the engine compartment. Nothing smelled like gas.

That night, I needed to first deal with the leaky exhaust before going further with her thirty ways. The crux of the exhaust problem was a bad gasket (donut, packing) between the left exhaust manifold and the exhaust pipe. As is nearly always the case, the fasteners at this joint were a rusty mess barely resembling a nut and stud. Knowing there was no way I’d be able to cleanly undo that joint, I was prepared with replacement GUP manifolds complete with stainless studs and brass nuts as well as a set of GNP gaskets. As expected it didn’t take much effort to wring off the nuts and the associated portion of each manifold stud. With the pipe disconnected, the six nuts holding the manifolds were far more cooperative and the old manifolds were free in no time at all. With new gaskets the replacement manifolds were bolted into place followed by reattachment of the exhaust pipe with its new gaskets. With the car still up on ramps to listen for leaks, I turned the engine on and my efforts were rewarded with a much quieter condition and no leaks detected. A silent CO monitor will be the final proof, so I'll only know after I put some miles on the car with the heater on full-blast.

Back to the mileage issue. I decided to try swapping out the current carburetors for the set Mikhaila and I recently rebuilt for TwoTone. Once everything was hooked up it took a few cranks to get some gas into the bowls, but the engine eventually fired up. Sadly, one of the carbs was not working. Something must be clogging the jet or an inner passage. With that disappointing discovery, I got to remove those carbs and bolt back on the old carbs.

The next morning I drove down the interstate and was able to seemingly watch the needle descend - an indicated quarter tank burned in about 40 miles of driving. That’s about 13 mpg. Arghhh! The next fix I tried was replacing the fuel pump while not hooking up the vapor return line. If the leak is in that line, I wanted it out of the equation. Sadly, more driving yesterday showed apparently no improvement.

While I was still in grungies, I spent some time later that day clearing out more parts I’ll never use. They went into the bed of the truck freeing up some shelf space in the garage. With that done, I turned my attention to TwoTone. I first cleaned all the bearings and stuff we’d removed from the front hubs. Then I finished disassembling the right front brake system. It’s now ready for Mikhaila to wire brush clean and then coat with Rustoleum rusty metal primer and black paint. Then we’ll be able to put the brakes and hubs back together and drop the car back to the floor.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I worked on Luna too. Whilst putting Ringo back on the road I needed to borrow a couple items off Victoria's car - the alternator and the choke tripper. Clark's came through with a new tripper and I tore down Ringo's loose alternator, inspected everything, and put it back together without any of the slop there was there before. Not sure what I did, but I hope I did it right. With those parts put back on the engine, it’s back where it was a year ago. Victoria and I have had some conversations about Luna. She is soooo busy I can’t imagine her ever having time to take a weekend off to help me install the convertible top on her car. She promises she’ll turn down some nanny jobs and will be able to get the top on early next spring. With that in mind, I told her I would squeeze some Luna-time into my schedule. That car, while able to stop and go, has a number of issues that should get corrected before it can be considered reliable transportation. It too, seems to have a gas issue. The few times we’ve tried to take it out, we’ve ended up having to put about three gallons of gas into the tank in order to get it to start. Since the gauge doesn’t work, all we know is that it won’t start, we pour in three gallons, and it starts. Anyway, that needs to be resolved (I’ve got a couple gauges of suspect condition I’ll swap in before pointing my finger at the fuel sender in the tank - although I even have a GNP for that).

A Big Dent

I’m talking about the parts sale yesterday, thankfully, not one of the fleet. At least a couple dozen buyers showed up yesterday and scarfed up a bunch of Rich’s stash. With proceeds over $6000 and low prices, that’s a lot of parts going to a lot of happy Corvair folks. I bought two sets of wheels, an IROC –Z set with tires for Glinda

and a set of 14” Torque Thrust wheels for my LeMans.

I also selected a gasket set to re-seal TwoTone’s engine, a Hurst shifter and LM manual shift dash for Glinda’s transformation, a complete LM engine block (all cleaned up and read for assembly) to replace the 140 block that’s still greasy and has broken bolts stuck in it, an interesting custom dual exhaust pipe with a crossover for Glinda, a set of brand new VelveTouch brake shoes for the next time she and I hit the track, and a GUP Powerglide shift cable for Ringo. I’m reviewing the parts list and photos to see if there’s anything left that I’m still interested in. At the same time, I’m struggling with where I put all this new stuff.

Speaking of Ringo, I answered a local e-mail offering a free bucket seat to the first person willing to drive to Laurel, MD to claim. I immediately replied since Ringo could really use a new driver’s seat that had enough life left in to to allow Ariel to see over the steering wheel. That seat is now sitting on Luna's engine lid waiting for me to have a day where I can do a seat cover swap with Ringo's sad seat.

I did get a few hours of garage/driveway time this weekend. Friday night, I disassembled Glinda’s front suspension enough to extract the two lower control arms. Saturday, after helping with the sale setup (which included loading all my buys into the bed of my truck), I stopped by guru Gary’s house and borrowed his balljoint R&R tool. When I got home, I drug Mikhaila out to the garage where she applied the rest of the primer coat to TwoTone’s gas tank while I did battle with pressing out the old balljoints and pressing in the new. When we were both done, she and I disassembled TwoTone’s left front brake assembly, disconnected the incoming hard brake line from the old flex line, and tapped out the innards of the wheel cylinder. Just by virtue of us being able to tear down the cylinder assembly, I’m confident the bore will be in usable shape after a good honing.

After dinner, she was too tired to continue, so I went back out to complete Glinda’s suspension renew and had the last bolt in place and the rubber of the new-to-her front wheels on the ground by 10:30. Only a few issues: 1. it appears my grease gun doesn’t have the gumption to pump grease into the new joints - I’ll buy a new one this evening; 2. the right front tire was flat – hopefully it’s just from sitting for a few months; and 3. I’m just not sure about how I’ll like Glinda’s stance and look with the new-to-her IROC wheels and tires. The front tires are lower profile 205/50-15s while the rears are 225/60-15. With the fronts being about two-and-a-half inches smaller in diameter, I decided to leave Glinda’s front springs alone rather than executing my original plan of cutting off another half a coil - I figured the difference in tire diameter would drop her front enough to level out her current up-facing rake. That may still be, but the look I need to get used to (or not) is front tires that look tiny in the large wheelwell. I’ll drive her with the new set up for a while and see if it grows on me. I still have the option of swapping the stock steelies and tires back on. Photos forthcoming once she’s completely re-shod.

It Ain’t Easy Selling Parts

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm working with the family of a friend and Corvair-nut that recently passed away to find new homes for the vast collection of 'vair stuff he'd collected over many years. I spent last Saturday morning with Rich's hard-working son, Vince, clearing out some room in the garage, moving big items to allow access to everything, and attempting to catalog everything that will be available for sale. The photos I took can be found on this flickr set:

I've finalized the sale date (this coming Sunday noon to 4) and sent out invitations along with a 185-item price sheet. I thought I'd been clear in my e-mails that you had to attend with cash to buy parts, but I'm still getting replies with people placing orders and asking about shipping. Oh well – as I like to say, "The world is full of people." Regardless, it looks like there'll be a pretty good turnout, and the weather's supposed to be nice (TYL).

I've struggled to price the items as attractively as possible to sell as much as possible and still be fair to Rich's family. When Rich asked me to help, he indicated he felt a third-off pricing would be good. For less desirable parts, I've gone with that using Clark's catalog prices as a guide, but for the hard-to-find, really cool stuff (of which there are many), I've bumped that percentage up to fifty. I'm sure many will end up finding exceptional deals, including me. In addition to the wonderful feeling I'm getting from helping out Rich's family, I'm getting the benefit of selecting the parts I want before anyone else. It has been VERY, VERY hard to restrain myself. There are, as I mentioned before, some really cool stuff in Rich's stash that I would love to have. And then there are many parts that Mikhaila and I will need for TwoTone's roadification, as well as many parts I'll need when building the 140 HP engine for Glinda. I'll be at their place again Saturday morning to make my final choices and clear them out of the way.

Now, back to what's happening in my garage. TwoTone got some attention last Sunday afternoon.  Mikhaila and I finished assembling our father-daughter pair of carburetors. We then moved on to the recently removed gas tank. After shaking out what seemed like a tank-full of dusty, brown, flaky chunks of stinking yuck, we attacked the inside using the flattish end of a long pry bar scraping off as much of the ancient gasoline residue from the inner walls as possible. More shaking with the two-inch drain hole facing down resulted in a sizable addition to the yuck pile. Amazingly, some of the residue was still gooey. I speculated the car was parked back in the early-80s with a full tank of gas.

With the tank's inside nearly empty, Mikhaila turned her attention to its exterior. A wire wheel inserted into my drill proved to be the right tool for her to remove all the loose rust. Thankfully there wasn't much, so she was able to move on brushing on a coat of Rusty Metal Primer before telling me she was too tired to continue. I'm not pushing things with her, hoping to build old car endurance over time.

After she headed inside to detoxify herself, I went around to the all the front brake fittings soaking each in the 50/50 acetone/ATF solution in preparation of the next big project – brake renew. We've got the soft parts (cylinder rebuild kits, hoses) and the tubing, brake pads, and hardware all look to be in terrific shape, so we're just a master cylinder away from having everything necessary to make TwoTone stop on a dime.

I Love a Productive Weekend

The disappointment I felt as Rich’s Corsa drove away Saturday with a new owner behind the wheel has turned to relief since, sadly, I’ve been in communication with the new owner and the Corsa’s giving him nothing but trouble. First, it wouldn’t start as he tried to leave my driveway (needed a jump), then it wouldn’t idle (needed the idle speed screws turned up a bit), then it died about forty miles down the road and wouldn’t re-start, so he had to have it towed the last twenty miles to his house. When working on it yesterday, it refused to start and then made an ominous clunk and the starter stopped turning altogether. I’ve given him some words of advice, but I told him the most important thing he could do was get connected with the capable guys of the Northern VA Corvair Club. I feel badly for him; it’s strange how well the car ran before he drove it away.

A large portion of Sunday afternoon was spent in the driveway and garage – yeah, car time. It started with Mikhaila and I getting TwoTone’s carburetors about 95% reassembled. Sadly, my breaking a cardinal rule of old car repair prevented us from getting the final pieces (throttle shaft assemblies) installed - don’t ever throw away an old part until the replacement has been installed and is functioning. I was confused by Clark’s catalog drawing showing the throttle shaft with its endplate attached. I thought that meant the new shafts I had ordered included the endplate, but it was just a bare shaft enclosed in the box I recently received. I only had one spare in my bucket of carb parts, so completing this task will have to wait until the Corvair Ranch comes through with a box of parts I ordered today.

Along with the used throttle shaft with endplate still attached, I asked Jeff to ship me two GNP fuel filters for TwoTone’s carbs, and for Glinda two GNP lower balljoints, four GUP special washers for her rear suspension, and a broken ’68 turn signal switch assembly that I can cannibalize. Jeff had to give me a hard time about my actually buying a few new parts. Normally, I limit my purchases to good AND used.

The parts for Glinda were a result of some checks I made yesterday. I confirmed that both lower balljoints on her front suspension were loose and that the issue with the turn signal not latching on right turns was due to a broken post in the baseplate of the switch assembly. I also decided to order the special washers (they center the outer bushing of the rear strut rods) since they were damaged during disassembly part of the suspension rebuild.

When I was done with Glinda, I returned to the garage and went back to work on TwoTone. I only broke three bolts during the extraction of her stabilizer (anti-sway)bar and then just one J-bolt while removing her gas tank [note: I’m calling Mikhaila’s as yet unnamed car a her since I’ve had more trouble with male-named (Ringo) than the all the female-named Corvairs]. Part of the gas tank removal required me to also remove the forward tunnel cover. It is still so refreshing to find the parts on the nearly fifty year old car to be in such good condition.

With the tank out, Mikhaila’s now got a big chore added to her to-do list – flushing, brushing, painting, and sealing the reservoir. Good luck to her.