Temporarily Back in the Black

Until Ariel’s phone call this morning, I had the fleet back in the black. Saturday, Wilma went off to her new home where she’ll be higher on her owner’s priority list. With the cars shuffled around such that Ringo could take up temporary residence in the garage, I pulled his starter and confirmed its very worn bushings. I went through my stash of starters, but couldn’t find one I was comfortable relying on. Remembering I had a starter rebuild kit on the shelf, I selected the starter with the best-looking pinion teeth and tore it down. A couple hours later, I had replaced the bushings, cleaned the commutator, removed rust from the shafts, lubricated everything, and reassembled the rebuilt starter. After a few test starts on the floor, I bolted it back onto Ringo’s engine, hooked up the wiring, and gave the key a half-dozen test turns. Each and every time, the starter spun the engine easily.

With some garage time still left, I tackled the steering wheel assembly. To refresh, she had some sticking when turning the wheel that, by process of elimination, I found was the blinker canceller. With the steering wheel off, I reattached the canceller to the back of the wheel, ground a little off each end and bent them in a bit. With the wheel back on the end of the column, I gave it a few lock-to-locks and found no sticking. Good-to-go, so I tightened the retaining nut and put back all the horn stuff. One more thing to cross off his to-do list.

Now, back to Ariel’s phone call of this morning, “Daddy, I turn Ringo’s key and all I hear is the starter spinning, but not the engine turning.” Not sure what the deal is, but I suspect a cheap Chinese solenoid has bitten me. I get to leave work early, drive home, load up the Suburban, and haul the car home again. Argh!

Sunday I backed Glinda up on the ramps in the garage and investigated the source of the loud exhaust noises. As I suspected, the exhaust pipe had cracked at a joint. This also caused the right flange to vibrate loose by wearing down the exhaust gasket. I tried tightening the two bolts retaining the flange to the manifold, but they wouldn’t budge. The fix? After I welded closed the crack, I cut a washer in half, jammed the pieces under the head of one of the bolts and welded the shims to the flange to keep them from falling out. With that done, I started up the engine and all was quiet again. The last task I had time to do on her before dinner was lubricating the heater and defroster controls. The factory option of choosing where the hot air was going to enter the salon was not back.

The Fleet’s in the Red

When there are more of this family’s Corvairs that are undrivable rather than drivable, the fleet’s in the red. Currently, the score is: six with usability issues and only Heidi being roadworthy.

While the numbers will be helped when Wilma goes away tomorrow, Glinda has exhaust issues (the CO detector went off last night), Ringo needs his starter replaced, Luna needs a top, Lucy needs a floor, and TwoTone needs everything.

This evening I’ll get started by making sure Wilma’s ready to go and moved out of the portable garage. Then I’ll move cars around so I have access to the garage. That will include putting Luna in the portable garage to spend the winter with TwoTone temporarily taking her place in the driveway.

Finally, with the garage heaters on high, I’ll start tipping the scales by dealing with Ringo. By the end of the weekend, I plan on Glinda being back on the road and maybe even a floor and speedometer cable installed in Lucy.

As mentioned in a previous post, I’m leaning towards converting Glinda’s transmission from an automatic to a manual. I found a list of all the parts that are necessary to accomplish this. While most of the parts will be coming from a car at the Corvair Ranch (probably the ’66 Corsa I hauled up there a couple months back), I do need a late LM brake/clutch pedal assembly. For 1967 and beyond, Chevy used a larger, collapsible steering column which necessitated redesigning the clutch pedal shaft. Today, with the help of the CorvairCenter forum, I agreed to purchase the unique assembly from a guy out west that just parted out a ’67. Looks like Glinda will stay part of the fleet.

Christmas Break

Highlights from the last two weeks are:

• I sold Wilma to a guy in Ohio. He’s coming by Saturday to trailer her away. I’m sad to see her go, but the $1500 will be nice to have as well as the open stall in the portable garage. I’m thinking Luna will take up residence there so her spot just outside the garage is available to push TwoTone into when I need to use the garage. Now I need to do some wheel swapping so I don’t give away my good spare tires.
• I’ve got a tentative deal to sell Lucy. The prospective buyer, however, needs to sell his EM before he can buy mine. Right now Lucy’s listed on Craigslist for $2800 as-is (rusted out floors, but all the go-fast goodies I’ve installed over the years). As time goes on I may choose to deal with the floors so she’s a more attractive product.
• 
  I got some awesome Christmas presents. The best of which is a promised new garage floor from the lovely Loriann. She gave me the choice, and after reading the forums and weighing all the factors I’m leaning towards these. I can’t wait to have them laid down since it should help insulate my body from the cold concrete. I also received some additional car-related gifts including a Clark’s gift certificate and a new set of screwdrivers.
• Mikhaila and I moved some parts out of Wilma and into the garage to support the roadification of TwoTone. We filled her old little red wagon with new shock absorbers, spark plugs, fan belts, distributor cap, and some other old stuff that looked like it went with a convertible.
• Last night I got a call from Ariel. “Ringo won’t start.” I pressed her for more details and she related how he barely started that morning and the night before, but she was running late for work, so she took the chance she’d be able to get back home. Thinking it was a dead battery (which in full disclosure Ariel said it wasn’t), I drove Glinda out to her place of employment and attempted to jump-start her car. At first the engine turned, but wouldn’t fire. Then the engine wouldn’t turn at all. I’m now thinking it’s a starter or solenoid issue. Regardless, I loaded the Suburban this morning with all the Corvair rescue accouterments (tow-bar, safety chain, hitch, towlights, wrench, and gloves). My commute home will have a major detour. From now on I won’t be so confident in my over-the-phone diagnoses and will always drive the tow vehicle prepared to haul home the misbehaving fleet member.
• I moved the engines, transmissions, differentials, and larger pieces of sheetmetal out to the portable garage freeing up some valuable floor-space in the garage. One of the engines will go away with Wilma since I won’t have a need for wagon-correct powerplant. I’m also thinking of throwing in the ’64 rear suspension and differential to whomever buys Lucy since I won’t need them and the new owner may want to do the upgrade.
• I prepped and painted a car door for a buddy of mine. It’s always good to get more practice with painting, and doing it on someone else’s part with that someone else buying the primer and paint is even nicer.
• I finished insulating the garage ceiling. It took a package and a half of R13, but the garage already feels warmer and brighter. I’m planning on painting the paper facing white to brighten up the space even more and also provide some protection from sparks touching off a fire. I also used the Home Depot card to get some decent weather-strip for the main door and a plastic temporary storm window kit for the two windows. All this will make the space easier to heat and more hospitable for Mikhaila and I while we’re working on TwoTone.

Almost a Dozen

As I mentioned in my last post, the recent arrivals of Mikhaila’s project car and Victoria’s modern car has our yard and front curb (and neighbor’s curb) bursting at the seams. When our 1920s vintage neighborhood was laid out, I don’t think the city planners had any idea that, nearly a century later, some crazy family would possess and attempt to park eleven vehicles and a trailer. Where do we have all these vehicles? The garage holds TwoTone; the driveway has Luna, Wilma, the Suburban, and the PT Cruiser; the backyard is home to the LeMans and the trailer; while our front curb catches Lucy, Heidi, and Glinda. Finally, two of our understanding neighbors (only one car each and rarely, if ever, have visitors) see Ringo and Victoria’s Mazda5 when they look out their front windows. INSANITY!!!!

A line must be drawn in the pavement. After asking me which ones are going away, the lovely Loriann posed two more questions. “Do you want to continue to call a Corvair your daily-driver?” and “What one Corvair would you have for the foreseeable future?” Both excellent questions; and ones which I could, surprisingly, quickly answer. First, no, I don’t want to continue to rely upon a Corvair for my daily commute through the forthcoming salt and snow. So the Suburban will be going away, replaced by a nice, used medium-sized pickup. Second, with high hopes of participating in at least three track events next year, I want a LM coupe. There are many reasons LM Corvairs outnumber the EMs nine-to-one at track events – the two biggest ones being Corvette-style suspension and Chevelle brakes. I’ve wrung all I can out of Lucy short of fitting her with a 140 HP engine – that, I’m afraid, would make me afraid. And an EM wagon is NOT a track car, no matter how many creative band-aids I could put on during Wilma's roadification.

So that means both Lucy and Wilma will be going up for sale starting this weekend. I’d like to still put some flooring into Lucy and put her interior back together, and I just placed an order with the Corvair Ranch for a GUP speedometer cable to replace the one I stole to put in Ringo. With that done, I’m thinking I’ll put a $2500 price on her since she’s really ready to go racing as-is. Wilma’s another thing. She doesn’t run and she needs floors – actually an entire restoration, but she’s a rare and quite desirable wagon. Plus there’ll be a lot of extra parts included. I’m thinking $1900. Is that crazy?

That brings me to Glinda. Do I sell her and try and find a replacement LM coupe with a manual transmission setup, or do I heed the recommendation of a Corvair buddy and convert her? He reminded me that: one, “you know what you have with your ‘68”, and two, “you’ll spend more registering and tagging the replacement than you would on the parts you need to do the swap.” Both excellent points. Glinda is a pretty solid car and her current engine is a strong one, albeit a thirsty one. Since Victoria is always behind the wheel of her new car, I’ve been commuting in Glinda and enjoying everything but watching the noticably steady decline of the gas gauge needle. It may not be as bad as I perceive, but I won’t know until I run a couple tankfulls of high-test through her.

I hate making decisions.

Seven is More than Enough

The final father-daughter Corvair has joined the fleet.

Work has gotten in the way of promptly posting fleet updates, but things have calmed down some, and hopefully my contributions to the blogosphere can be timelier.

On the evening of Friday the 7th, I loaded the Suburban with a set of four good EM wheels, jack, lug-wrench, new come-along (winch), tow-chain, and large ratcheting strap. These, and the beautiful aluminum car trailer of my ‘vair-pal Jonathan, were the tools needed to bring home Mikhaila’s car.

As I described to others afterwards, Saturday was a perfect day for fetching a Corvair. It rained lightly over the night, but the drops had stopped falling by the time Mikhaila and I for Riverdale, MD and the detached garage of a buddy of mine. Dave, Mikhaila, and I attempted to roll the ’64 Monza 4-door across the floor of the large 8-car building, but were stymied by a locked-up right rear wheel. With the car’s rear on a large rolling jack, we were able to get it to the nearest opened door, but no farther since the loaded wheels of the jack quickly sank into the soil off the garage’s apron of concrete. Fortunately, our path was still blanketed in damp, fallen leaves so the Suburban was easily up to the task of dragging the car across the backyard, down the driveway, and out to the waiting trailer. Some more gyrations with the jack, and a few minutes with strapping and chain and we were ready to roll. As we drove home, the sky started to clear. This made my telling Mikhaila she needed to give the car a good bath much more palatable. By the time we home and I backed the trailer up our driveway, the sun had come out and temps were in the low 50s. She actually had a smile on her face as she scrubbed off thirty-plus years of the dust and grime off the car. I snapped a few pictures which can be viewed here.

Sadly, at that point life got in the way and the car just sat on Jonathan’s trailer.

Finally, yesterday afternoon afforded me the opportunity to unseize the stuck wheel. It took me over an hour, and resulted in a scrapped brake drum, but the car was now rollable. With Mikhaila steering, the car was in the garage before dark.

Since Dave couldn’t locate a key to our acquisition, the last task of the day was going through my rings of Corvair keys to find one that would work in the ignition. Lo-and-behold Lucy’s worked, so were now good-to-go. There are many hours of labor ahead of us, but she’s excited.

Now that brings me to the title of this posting. The more rightly insinuates that the fleet needs some culling. After some hard thinking, I’ve decided that Lucy and Wilma are the victims. I’ve spent many, many enjoyable hours driving and working on Lucy, but the fact that she’s sat for weeks now with no attempt to renew her rusted floorboards is proof she’s the apple of my car-eye she used to be. And while I’ve always wanted a wagon, I want a capable track car and an EM wagon with its rear-heavy, tail happy design is not the best basis for go-fast and turn-fast escapades.

So what will I take to the track? Victoria recently bought herself a modern car since her job requires it, so that makes Glinda available (she’s selected Luna as her Corvair keeper). My first thought was to sell the Glinda too and then buy a 4-speed equipped LM coupe, but Dave reminded me that the cost of converting a car from automatic to manual is about what it would cost me to register a replacement at MVA. Plus I know exactly what I’m getting with Glinda. Now I’m waiting to hear back from Jeff at the Corvair Ranch regarding just how financially painful the parts and assemblies would be if the swap-route is the way I go.

Too Busy to Blog

When last I posted the lovely Loriann’s daily-driver was out of commission and the wobble-fronted Suburban had been pressed into service as her mode of transportation. That’s been resolved. The Cruiser is back on the road with a new timing belt, water pump, tensioner, and idler and the Suburban is now my daily-driver instead of Heidi.

With the Cruiser work completed, Lucy’s back in the garage awaiting floor patches. I’ve been familiarizing myself with my new MIG welder. One of the jobs I used it for was repairing my drill press’s table. I’d broken it when I was using it as a press for assembling Ringo’s Powerglide transmission. Cast iron, which the table is, does not like to be welded, so I’ll need to take it easy on the table – no more using it as a press.

Here’s the latest from the rest of the fleet.

Heidi – Other than the defroster cable recently breaking, she’s behaving admirably.

Ringo – Broke a fan belt on Ariel’s drive home from work last night. Fortunately, she was nearing the house at the time, so it was a short drive to get to the car and swap in a replacement. I still need to keep a closer watch on that engine’s propensity to eat belts.

Luna – Started right up when it was time to park her in the garage during hurricane Sandy’s visit to our neighborhood. She behaved once again when it was time to move her back into the driveway. She’s now got two layers of tarp tied tightly over her. This will have to do until Lucy leaves the garage.

Glinda – Has developed a new noise emanating from the engine area. I think it’s developing an exhaust leak, but I can’t pinpoint the origin. I asked Victoria to make sure her CO detector was properly functioning and to let me know if the sound’s intensity increases. The only other attention she demanded was tweaking the left rear taillight/brakelight socket to fix an intermittent illumination of the taillight bulb. Victoria and I have been tracking Glinda’s fuel mileage. Lately, she’s been averaging around 18 mpg – a large improvement from 13 she was getting a few months back. I think the big difference-maker was the rebuilt distributor.

Wilma – Prior to hurricane Sandy’s arrival, I moved the portable garage back against the inoperative door of my permanent garage and anchored down the four corners. Additionally, I tied the frame to Wilma’s front bumper in hopes that everything would still be there the morning after. Thankfully, we fared much better than all the dire warnings had said we would. Wilma stayed dry.

YellowVert – It looks like she’ll be heading to her new home in Delaware tomorrow morning. I struck a deal with a guy who hopes to restore her. I’m relieved that I didn’t have to scrap her since ridding her of her rusty portions doesn’t appear to be that daunting an effort. I’m still left with the bright blue interior that I’ll peddle online.

More Miscellaneous Missives

A few months back, when I felt sure I was to get Phil's collection, I asked his brother about vehicle titles.He passed my request on to Phil’s widow and her response was she’d been looking, but nothing had turned up. This wasn’t an issue for the three ‘vairs that went to the Ranch, but I needed the titles for Wilma and YellowVert. Well, last week, Becky miraculously discovered the title for Wilma and dropped it in the mail to me. It arrived yesterday, and I couldn’t be more relieved. Now maybe the same miracle will cause YellowVert’s title to also appear.

The story behind Phil obtaining YellowVert is a typical Corvair story. Someone found out he was into ‘vairs, knew of one just sitting and told Phil, Phil knocked on the door, and the next thing he knew he’s just increased his collection by one. Also, like many of these tales, it appears he never went through with transferring the ownership of the vehicle (been there, done that). Now that I’m the new possessor of YellowVert, I’d like to have a valid title in my hand so whether I decide to sell or save the car, I can do it all as painlessly as possible.

All my dealings with Maryland’s Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) have been fairly straightforward other than the two trailers I’ve titled (those are two interesting stories in themselves), but a cursory Googling showed my situation to be rather hopeless. I then sent the MVA an e-mail detailing my plight and asking for the contact information of the current registered owner. The gist of their response was: 1) due to MD privacy laws, they won’t be handing out any owner information; 2) the only way to get a properly assigned (to me) title in my situation is to obtain a Writ of Mandamus. The latter of which seems to be a type of Get Out Of Jail Free card compelling the MVA to ignore everything and just give me a title. It doesn’t really matter though, since the cost of a lawyer would far outweigh the current value of YellowVert. That’s what I told them in my reply. I also asked if they’d be able to forward a letter to the current owner asking him to contact me. That way I wouldn’t have his info, but he’d have my contact info. No response to that request yet.

If they shoot that down too, what am I to do? There is the Maine-way. Yes, the state of Maine has very lenient titling laws, and I could pay an online company $500 to get a Maine title in my name. I don’t think the car is worth $500 in its current condition though. It would be a real shame if this car gets cut up, but legally, I don’t think I have any recourse – at least not one I can afford. I am, however, still holding out hope that Phil’s widow can unearth the title as she was magically able to do with Wilma’s.

And now for something completely different. A buddy of mine has the entire back half of a Lakewood he’s been storing for many, many years. He’s offered it to me now that I’m the proud owner of Wilma. Rather than part it out, I’m toying with the idea of turning it into a trailer. Should I go enclosed or chop-top?

Body Tag Decoding

The other day, I took a few photos of Wilma, one of which was of her body tag. For those not in the know on this, the body tag is a smallish, embossed, metal tag with lots of information about the car it’s riveted to. Not as extensive as the build sheet, but still quite revealing as to the as-built state of the vehicle. Here’s what I found out about Wilma.

• Line 1: She’s a Chevy
• Line 2: built in January (01) during the fifth week (E)
• Line 3 (STYLE and BODY): a ’62 (62-) Monza (09) wagon (35) built at the Willow Run assembly plant (WR) and assigned the sequential body number 1830 (this means she was the 1830th Corvair built at Willow Run for ’62)
• Line 4 (TRIM and PAINT): with Fawn seats, door panels, headliner, and trim pieces (759), a Honduras Maroon exterior (948) and a Fawn-painted interior (-4)
• Line 5 (ACC): a direct-air heater (as opposed to the gas heater)(A), tinted windows all around (K), and a manual transmission (O)

No real surprises other than I thought her body number would be lower. Her cloth interior indicates she was an earlier ’62 Monza, but I guess January is early.

On the other hand, here’s the decoding for Lucy. Bear in mind she was a red car with a black interior when I got her.

• Line 1: A Chevy
• Line 2: built in January (01) during the fourth week (D)
• Line 3 (STYLE and BODY): a ’63 (63-) Monza (09) club coupe (27) built at the Willow Run assembly plant (WR) and assigned the sequential body number 46381 (this means she was the 46381st Corvair built in Willow Run for ’63)
• Line 4 (TRIM and PAINT): with Aqua seats, door panels, headliner, and trim pieces (755), an Ermine White exterior (936) and an Aqua -painted interior (-3)
• Line 5 (ACC): Comfort and Convenience Group (P) which, from what I’ve been able to find, means a two-speed wiper with windshield washer pump and reservoir.

I want to do the same decoding with the rest of the fleet – another time, another project.

Speaking of projects, what did I accomplish last night? I did spend some time in the garage dealing with the engines, but not until after I unhitched Lucy from the Suburban’s hitch and put away the towbar. It was with great trepidation that I removed the oil pan drain plug, but TTL it was just good old oil, black gold, Texas Tea. With the crankcase devoid of fluids, I tipped the engine over and set it in the corner of the garage resting on the face of the bellhousing. I then gathered all the pieces of the watery one-ten’s engine into an area in front of the shelf (I deal with all that later). The last task for the day was removing the Powerglide from the wagon drivetrain and then hoisting the engine/differential up onto the engine cart. Removing the exhaust pipe and differential will wait another time.

I Love Numbers

Being an engineer, I'm all about the numbers. Here they are from last weekend..

2700 – dollars is the approximate value of the collection (if I were to sell the cars for scrap and liquidate the parts – which I’m not doing since it wasn’t Phil’s wish)
950 – miles driven to move Phil’s collection
525 – miles on the Suburban’s trip odometer
425 – miles Jonathan put on his Suburban
300 – dollars is the estimated value of stuff I will sell (4-barrel and adapter, wheelcovers, extra carburetors)
230 – dollars of gas burned during the move
11 – cars currently at my house
8 – Corvairs currently at my house
7 - boxes of parts and manuals
5 – Corvairs in Phil’s collection
3 – cars added to the fleet (with 1 being very temporary)
2 – ‘vairs taken directly to the Corvair Ranch
2 – engines and transmissions sitting in my utility trailer
2 – neighbors who (as far as I know) haven’t reported me to the city
1 - very big favor I owe Jonathan
1 – extremely tolerant lovely wife

It was, indeed, an epic weekend. It started Friday with an early arrival at Phil’s home where his brother, Bryan, and I sorted through parts, loaded two drivetrains and an engine cart into my trailer, and winched the good wagon onto Phil’s trailer. With the garage dealt with, we turned our attention to the four Corvairs sitting at the bottom of the yard. We changed the four tires that wouldn’t hold air and filled the rest. With Bryan steering and me driving the Suburban, we drug each hulk up to the driveway staging them for their subsequent removal. I got back home around 4:30, unloaded the wagon (now named Wilma – more on that later) into my new portable garage, unhitched the trailer, and proceeded to replace the Suburban’s leaking water pump.

Sunday morning I met Jonathan (with his Suburban and car trailer) at the park-and-ride. After an uneventful ninety minute drive to Waldorf, we winched the two LMs onto the trailers and headed back to Baltimore. The Corsa ‘vert was first off and we, with Victoria’s help, rolled it into the garage. Mikhaila’s Monza ‘vert rolled off easily and was placed in line in front of the wagon where Mikhaila and I immediately put a tarp over it in front of the incoming thunderstorms.

I then fed Jonathan an extravagant lunch of Doritos and a sandwich before we hit the road for our second run to Waldorf. We’d only been on the beltway for about ten minutes when the skies opened up. The rain, thunder, and lightening were tremendous. We were carefully driving around 30 mph with the rest of the cars on the interstates until we reached Rt 50 when it finally let up, but didn’t stop completely. We were able to start driving at the posted limit after that. The rain finally stopped about 20 minutes from Phil’s house and we thought we’d be okay, but as soon as we backed Jonathan’s trailer down the driveway to load the parts wagon it started raining again and didn’t stop until four hours later as we neared the Corvair Ranch. The afternoon was really rough because of the rain, but it ended nicely with us rolling the two EMs off the trailer and into the Ranch’s yard before we lost daylight. Jonathan informed me that my temporary trailer lights were not working, so I ended up driving home with the flashers going arriving just before 9. A very long day.

It was a lot of work and a lot of time, but I feel good knowing I honored Phil’s wish that I make sure his Corvair “stuff” will be re-used and I helped his widow by removing five non-running vehicles from her home.

My Excitement Builds

This butchered version of Pontiac's (RIP) last slogan amply applies to my current state of mind. A few days ago I received the "let's do this" e-mail from Phil's brother, Bryan. The gist of the e-mail exchange that ensued was: he would be in Maryland the 24^th and 25^th; we would go through Phil's collection, gathering all the Corvair stuff (the five cars included); load it onto trailers; and I'd haul it away.

When I mentioned this to the lovely Loriann, she reminded me of two things. First, the city of Baltimore frowns greatly upon the operation of a salvage yard in a residential neighborhood. Second, she will not tolerate our driveway looking like a junkyard – some stuff needs to go before anything new shows up.

What’s my plan to keep peace with the zoning Nazis and my tolerant-to-a-point spouse? I’ve been able to find a generous club member who has offered me a spot in their yard for the fall/winter storage of the popup tent trailer, Victoria and I put her sailboat on Craigslist, and I just bought a portable garage.

Victoria and I still intend to get Luna’s top installed before the end of the weekend so she can be parked on the street with the rest of the fleet. It’s a good thing our neighbors never park their cars on the street or have visitors stop by that need a parking spot.

While there are five Corvairs in Phil’s collection, only three will ever darken our driveway. The parts wagon and the ’62 coupe will go directly to the Corvair Ranch with, hopefully, the understanding from proprietor Jeff that I can come up in the near future and remove some parts without charge. The rusty, unsaveable Corsa ‘vert will get parted out for its 140HP/4-speed drivetrain for my future use and some Corsa-specific parts that will be sold to make back some gas money. Afterwards it too will end up at the Ranch. Only the wagon and hopefully the LM Monza ‘vert will become part of the fleet with the latter being Mikhaila’s and my father-daughter project.

Phil’s Collection

Last Thursday I drove down to Phil’s house and met his brother, Bryan. Not surprisingly, he’s a very friendly guy with great stories to share just like his brother. After I extended my condolences, we began chatting about cars and planes as avid motorheads are prone to do. Before I knew it nearly two hours had passed. We had walked around the yard and into the garage with me inspecting and photographing each of the cars in Phil’s collection.

As we walked, we talked, and Bryan agreed that most likely only the ’62 wagon in the garage was restorable, while rust had eaten away too much of the rest of the cars. The 4-speed Monza wagon sitting in the garage seemed to be in quite solid shape other than the floors. The front valance was holey, but a new replacement panel was sitting on the floor in front of the car. The drivetrain had been removed, but there were a couple engines in the garage, so rebuilding candidates are available.Sadly, the most valuable of the Corvairs, a ’66 Corsa convertible (one of only 3,142 made that year), is in very rusty condition. The rocker panels – the backbone of these cars – are swiss cheese. The car may be savable, but would take someone with lots of welding experience and lots of time. I didn’t check the serial number of the 140 engine residing under the engine lid, but the four-barrel intake setup topped by a large-looking Holley indicated this one had been modified. The other convertible in the collection may (and it’s still a big may) end up being Mikhaila’s project car. While it has some rust-through in the passenger door jamb (never an easy fix), the rest seemed solid. The rest of the ‘vairs will more than likely go to the Corvair Ranch donating their good parts to other people’s projects.

At the end of our walk, I confessed to Bryan that I was the typical Corvair owner - perpetually on a tight budget. Therefore, while I couldn’t offer them any money for the Corvairs, I would make sure each was put to its best use. I’d haul the part cars to the Corvair Ranch and I’d find good homes for the restorable one(s). This way I felt I was keeping the promise I made to Phil to help him get rid of his “Corvair stuff.” Bryan said that he would pass my offer on to Phil’s widow and get back to me. Additionally, I offered to post the photos of the ’38 Nash and ’41 Buick on the web and pass on to him any reasonable offers that come from that. I’m not in any hurry to take on the task of moving the cars since I’m still trying to finish up Ringo, but I told Bryan that once we had a deal, I’d make sure the Corvairs were moved as quickly as possible. I can only imagine how the sight of them sitting in the backyard is painful to Phil’s widow.

Currently, I’m patiently waiting for a response from Bryan. It’s fine with me that I haven’t yet heard from him since I must finish Ringo before I can afford the time required to move Phil’s collection.