The Fleet is Pared Down Again – Possibly Temporarily

What a roller-coaster. This year has been rather tumultuous with the acquisition of Phil’s Corvair collection, and the subsequent dispersal of all but one of the five cars. The last one, YellowVert, was trailered off by her new owner Wednesday. A much better demise for a savable car than the alternative – a tow trip to the Corvair Ranch. I did, however, have to throw in the blue seats to close the deal. The buyer was scared by some rot he'd not seen in the picture. He ended up with a great deal, and now I don't need to deal with trying to sell them.

Now that I’ve got the fleet pared down, is it time to add another one? Mikhaila’s been struggling with which Corvair model will be our father-daughter project. She’s expressed a fondness for the four-door earlies, so we’ll be checking out one tomorrow morning. It’s owned by a buddy of mine at work, and has been sitting in his dad’s garage since at least the 80s. It’s a ’64 Monza, black with a white top (cool two-tone) and a red interior. While it needs some bodywork where the front end was rearranged in a collision, the car is extremely rust-free. Something I’ve not had the luxury of experiencing in the fleet since Heidi was drug out of a garage and into our lives. I hope she likes it, but, more importantly, I pray she loves it enough to tolerate working nights and weekends with her old man so it can be hers.

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.

No Spares is a Tenuous Situation

I’m praying I don’t jinx myself by posting the following bit of information. The lovely Loriann is relying on an eighteen year old vehicle with a wobble and over 318,000 miles as her daily-driver while I do battle with her PT Cruiser. My daily-driver is the ever-faithful Heidi while Lucy languishes in the driveway with most of her interior bits piled on her roof (this really needs a photo). The PT Cruiser work is a not-so-simple timing belt change, while Lucy awaits the welding in of floor patches. Tonight is crunch time on the Cruiser with high hopes for completion.

It hasn’t been all house-painting (the other massive consumer of my limited time away from work and family) and swearing at Chrysler engineers. I’ve had some time for ‘vairs and garage. When last I posted (which was too long ago), I’d filled a cart with discarded engine parts. The next night I promised a fellow CORSA of Baltimore club member my perceived expertness in getting his Corsa on the road. He’d had the electronic ignition quit on him, so he was reverting back to the tried-and-true points and condenser. Simplistically, a running engine is an equation consisting of compression, spark, and fuel. Since the car ran fine before the electronics crapped out, we assumed the compression part was good. I was able to get the spark part working using the instructions found here. Since the car had sat for a few months, the fuel part was missing. We tried a few cranking sessions without seeing any fuel squirting from the primary carburetors. Since my bedtime was quickly approaching, we called it a night with the fun and games to continue in two weeks.

Thursday, I received a hopeful e-mail in reply to my YellowVert Craigslist ad. Subsequent back-and-forth resulted in James’ arrival at fleet headquarter that afternoon. He shared how he was shopping for a father-son project, but knew nothing about Corvairs. So I did a sell job going so far as taking him for a spin around the neighborhood in Glinda. By the end of our drive I’d dropped the price to $300 minus the second interior and he seemed ready to pull the trigger, but instead of saying, “I’ll take it,” he asked me, “Would you be willing to take payments?” He went on to explain that’s the only way his wife would let him get the car. I had to tell him no since I still had some other parties interested. He left me with a request I reconsider his offer if none of the other parties comes through. Sadly, those other parties haven’t come through. Someone e-mailed with me Sunday with everything all set for him to drive out that afternoon and give me a deposit to hold the car for him, but all of my high hopes came crashing down when a final e-mail showed up telling me his buddy told him he was paying too much for the car. I responded that his buddy was wrong and the $300 I’d come down to was a good deal considering I could part out the car selling and then still get $200 from the scrap-man. Oh well, it’s looking more and more like I’ll be removing her engine, cutting off fenders and such, and hauling her to the ranch.

Thursday evening I rolled Lucy out of the garage and stapled up the insulation I’d purchased a week back. That project went well other than some of the long boards and pipes I’d been storing in the rafters would not go back up since the insulation was taking up space they’d previously been using. Oh well, I love a storage challenge – NOT! I spent the rest of the evening moving more stuff around making room for the PT Cruiser project.

Lucy had been garaged for a couple reasons. First, the aforementioned missing metal in the floor. Second, the forcible expulsion of spark plug number four from its threaded home. The latter issue was corrected Saturday morning by the tapping of the stripped hole and subsequent installation of a K-D insert. Like nearly every other project I undertake, this one was not without its frustration. Following the recommendations I’d read on a Corvair Center forum thread, I rotated the engine until the rotor was pointed at the number four cap terminal. Then, to capture all the chips from tapping, I filled the combustion chamber with shaving cream and gave the tap a healthy coat of grease. I slowly turned the tap in the hole, being careful to keep the driven end centered in the hole in the engine cover. After a few turns, I’d back out the tap, clean out the chips, recoat, and cut a few more turns. After repeating these steps about a dozen more times, the tap was turning freely indicating I now had new threads along the hole’s entire length. With a smaller hose attached to the end of the shop vac, I sucked out the shaving cream and then cleaned out the threads with a solvent-soaked rag. The instructions that came with the insert directed me to spin the insert onto a spark plug, coat the external threads with the included sealer, and install the spark plug until it bottomed out. I did all that, but, inexplicably, the plug didn’t go in as far as I’d expected before it became really difficult to torque. I gave it a few more turns using some serious effort before calling good-to-go. Fearing I’d just back out the insert, I left the plug installed and patted myself on the back for deciding to use a new plug since it may be stuck in the head until I have to do an engine rebuild. I finished up the effort by installing new plugs in the rest of the holes. After pouring a little gas down a carb’s throat the engine started right up, and, if not for the clatter of a lazy lifter, she was running as good as she ever did.

The rest of Saturday’s garage time was devoted to the PT Cruiser so, other than reiterating what a struggle it is working within a VERY confining engine compartment, I’ll leave this non-Corvair missive for a different outlet.

Dealing with a Beast

Tuesday night I unloaded the compressor tank from the back of the Surburban – it must weigh a couple hundred pounds. With Victoria’s able help, it’s now safely on the concrete of the driveway. Now I have a number of hurdles to go over before it becomes part of my air supply. First, I need to make sure it’s safe by conducting a hydrostatic test. That is done by: plugging all the outlets in the tank buy one, orientating the tank so that the one open hole is at the highest point, filling the tank completely with water, screwing in a Schrader valve fitting, pressuring the water to roughly 200 psi (150% max), looking for leaks. Once I’ve proven the tank’s not going to kill anyone, I’ll drain the water, brush off any loose rust and shoot some Rustoleum primer all over it followed by a coat of paint that causes it to blend in with the brick wall of the garage that it’ll be sitting in front of. Then it’s just a matter of moving it into place and plumbing it into the system. After searching the web and questioning my car buddy, I’ll be putting the tank in-line as opposed to connecting it with a T fitting.

Part of Tuesday’s antics included moving Luna out of the driveway. In order to do this, I had to deal with replacing the fuel pump. As reported a couple weeks ago, Luna’s carbs weren’t getting any gas after I installed a replacement fuel pump. Since we’d put about five gallons of gas in her tank before her test drives, I assumed there was plenty left in the tank and the issue was with the pump. So, I installed a different new pump that had showed up with Phil’s stuff, primed the carbs, and started the engine. It took a few times of unsuccessfully seeing gas squirting before I decided to make sure there really was gas in the tank. While blowing air back through the fuel line leading to the tank, I had Victoria listen for bubbles – nothing. After pouring a couple gallons of 87 octane into the empty chamber, lo and behold the engine ran, the pump pumped … and leaked. Irrr. A few turns on each of the screws that hold the pump together and the dripping ceased. Success … in a way. Where did all the gas go? Could it have really all evaporated during Luna’s extensive inactivity? I carefully searched for dripping fuel and could find none. We’ll know more once she gets her new top installed and is on the road as a daily-driver.

Last night, being one of my two designated garage nights, was spent dealing with more garage things. I believe all I accomplished was making a larger mess of the space. I picked up some free insulation yesterday and it’s now piled on top of Lucy. Looks like it’ll just fit between the roof rafters. Any help will be appreciated with winter just around the corner. Now I just need to find time to staple it up. I also took some time to deal with the beast of an air tank. After moving it out of the middle of the driveway, I removed the lower drain plug and was thankful when no water came out. There was some powdery rust residue, but not too much. I am a lot of confidence the tank will past testing. I also removed the other fittings and created a mental list (uh-oh) of the plugs and caps necessary to close off every port. The only unknown is how to connect the top port to a pressure source. I’m sure I’ll do my typical thirty minutes of pawing through all the brass and iron fittings at Home Depot.

My last effort of the evening was actually car-related. I popped the engine lid on YellowVert and put wrench to harmonic balancer bolt and successfully rotated the engine. Feeling the euphoria of learning the engine was not seized, I endeavored to the pull the spark plugs with the plan of doing a compression test on each of the six combustion chambers. After removing the three plug wires from the driver’s side, I was greeted by the sight of more acorns. When vacuuming failed to get them out, I decided the car will be sold as-is. I’ll throw the acorns in for free.

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?

Rust Never EVER Sleeps

Such an enlightening weekend, fleet-wise - as they usually are. It started Friday evening when I drove chuff-chuff-chuffing Lucy into the garage, opened her engine lid, and found that sparkplug #4 had been ejected from its threaded hole. Amongst all the possible failures I had imagined, this one was the best since I’ll be able to repair the failed hole with a KD insert using tools I’ll borrow from the Corvair go-to guy Gary. The only disassembly required is removing the left carburetor. TYL it wasn’t a dropped valve seat.

Since the night was young, the family was away, and I was in my grungies, I decided to find out how bad Lucy’s spongy floor really was. After removing the sill plates, I pulled back the carpet and found a LOT of ugliness. Needing to go farther, I removed the front seatbelts, all the seats, all the carpet, and the rear heater duct and it only got worse. I guess if one is into abstract art, like those photos of the earth from outer space, they would appreciate some level of beauty in the natural erosion of steel by the elements. I’m not that kind of person. Fortunately, the main support for the seats is still solid as are the rocker panels – a better scenario than I had with Ringo. I went to Clark’s website and they get over $100 for just the driver’s side, so it looks like I’ll be hacking up a hood again, just like I did for Ringo, to create floor patches. After cutting away the rot, I called it a night.

Sunday afternoon was my next opportunity to attend to the fleet. Mikhaila and I rolled YellowVert out into the sunshine for consideration. She’s still on the fence as to whether this LM convertible will be HER car or not. After taking a closer look Sunday, to say she was not enthused would be a vast understatement. She’s quite discouraged about the level of effort she perceives will be necessary to roadify this currently dilapidated looking vehicle. It didn’t help when, not knowing it had a power top, we unsuccessfully tried to manually lower the top. She's thinking there are better candidates out there. After further conversation with her mom, we’re tabling the decision for a little while.

In the meantime, I vacuumed about two gallons of acorns out of the engine compartment and interior of the car before pulling back the carpets to reveal that the tin worm had gorged himself on this car’s floors just as he’d done on Lucy’s. Fortunately, the doors are still centered in their openings and it appears that, structurally, the car is still sound. I vacuumed out all the rust flakes and, while it’s worse than Lucy in some places, other places are still quite solid. If we decide to keep this one, I will be forced to use Clark’s floor patches – there are some important features, like the gas pedal mounting, that I don’t have the skill (or desire) to fabricate.

The next step for this car is to remove the seats and evaluate their condition. If they are solid enough, I’ll sell the seats I pulled out of CorsaVert. If not, I’ll toss the bad seats and temporarily insert the better seats to get them out of the way. If we decide to sell this car, I want to make it as attractive a purchase as I can, and touting all the solid features will be important.

Speaking of features, I took the time to decode the body tags of Heidi and YellowVert. Here’s what I found:


Heidi

• Data (01C): Third week of January 1964
• Style (64-0967): 1964-Monza Convertible
• Body (WR13129): Willow Run - 13,129 Corvair for that year built there
• Trim (781-1): Medium red bucket seats w/ White Top
• Paint (900): Tuxedo Black Exterior
• Acc (2MP3C): Powerglide, C&C (2 spd wiper w/washer, day/night mirror, backup lights), Padded Dash
• Extra (D): Red interior painted surfaces

YellowVert

• Data 05C: Third week of May 1966
• Style (66-10567): 1966-Monza Convertible
• Body: (WRN8772): Willow Run - 8772 1966 Corvair built there
• Trim: (758-): Black All-Vinyl Interior
• Paint: (N-2): Madeira Maroon w/ Black Top
• Acc: (WD2M5Y): Windshield Tinted Glass, Power Convertible Top, Powerglide Trans, Custom Deluxe Front & Rear Seatbelts w/ Front Retractors

A Space Has Been Carved

Over the last few evenings I've been in the garage making order from the chaos that was multiple drivetrains just haphazardly spread across the floor. Last night, I finally put the last tool away. There are three transmissions and two differentials on the floor under the shelves, a completely disassembled engine in a pile on the floor in front of the shelves, and two complete engines on end in the corner sitting next to a partial engine (only the case and bellhousing with crank and cam). Also, in the corner, surrounding the engines, is Larry’s engine hoist (folded up), my new-to-me engine stand, and the engine cart. Across the room are boxes filled with Corsa interior bits and pieces. You get the message – it’s still pretty chaotic.

However, there is enough room to get a Corvair and still have a bit of work space around it. The plan for this evening is to figure out what’s gone wrong with Lucy. I’m struggling with whether driving it from the street to the garage is going to do any more damage to the engine, but I guess that after Ariel drove it, even a short time on the interstate, a quick trip up the driveway won’t be of much consequence. I’ll be reporting back Monday on what I find.

Also, again on the agenda for the weekend is to drag Mikhaila out to the portable garage and decide what interior is to go in YellowVert. My hope is her current seats are still decent enough to be recovered, and then I can sell the interior that came out of CorsaVert. Speaking of selling things, I need to put some of the other items from CorsaVert on Craigslist or eBay. That should happen sometime soon as well. Anyone out there interested in a Carter 4-barrel with a 1-into-4 intake adapter?

Fleet Trimmed Back to Lucky Seven

Sunday, after church, I spent the afternoon in the garage removing parts off the CorsaVert. After getting the engine out, I removed the seats, dash components, seatbelts, door panels, armrests, visors, rearview mirror, and rear bumper. I'm not sure what I'll use and what I'll sell yet. It depends on the condition of said parts in the MonzaVert. Convertible rear seats are hard to come by, so the frame condition will drive my decision.
Finding places for the stuff I just removed is an issue. I put the interior parts and the hood and engine lid in the portable garage on top off and next to YellowVert. The tranny and differential need to be separated from the engine, and the engine needs to carefully investigated to determine its condition before tearing it down.

With the car back down on all fours, I pulled the hood and engine lid to be cut up and used for patches on the yellow convertible. A significantly lighter vehicle easily pulled up onto Phil's car trailer before I called it a day.

Yesterday I was tied up until late in the afternoon, so I hopped in the Suburban around 4:30 and towed the CorsaVert to the Corvair Ranch. I met proprietor Jeff who unloaded the car under sprinkling skies. It stopped raining while we removed the four wheels that I’d recently had re-shod with good tires. We chatted about what bits I still wanted off the PartsWagon (bumpers, engine cover, hatch cover pieces), and, after a little more socializing and parts beggin’ on my part, I drove back home and arrived around 7:30. Not too bad.

Away From Prying Eyes

Yesterday evening I walked out to the garage and noticed the front corner of the tarp over Mikhaila's Monza 'vert had been pulled up. Immediately I became suspicious of neighborhood snoops looking to turn me in or, worse, city zoning inspectors looking to fill the city's coffers. Obviously I needed to finish the portable garage.

First, though, I needed to make a run to Home Depot for the fittings necessary to re-plumb my compressor’s ¼ outlet to the ¾ pipe in the garage. Sadly, they were out of the size I needed, so I drove down the road to Lowes, where I successfully found the fittings.

Once back home, I then needed to look at Glinda to see if the pinging Victoria was hearing was caused by another shift in the dwell setting. I attached the dwellmeter and the needle rose to 32 degrees and stuck there – just where it needed to be. With the timing light hooked up and flashing at the indicator on the engine, I found the timing was still around the 12 degrees BTDC I’d set it at a few weeks back. I took her for spin down the hill and back up, making sure to lug the engine on the back up part, but I was unable to get the engine to ping. Victoria and I decided I’d drive her car to work today to see if I can replicate the undesirable noise.

Finally, I was able to address putting the cover on the garage frame. Since half of the Monza ‘vert was sticking past the front of the new garage, I moved the frame away from the garage until its front was flush with the car’s front. Then I pulled out the directions (yeah, I know - an engineer reading the directions) and first attached the front piece with the zip-up door. It went on as advertised, so I moved on to installing the main cover. It would’ve been easier with help, but I was able to drag it up and over the top of the frame and then get the four corners battened down. Now I’m safe from fines, but hopefully, I wasn’t too late.

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.