Making Moves?

My dad’s been visiting the past few days, and the other day we stood in the garage and discussed my desire to park two Corvairs in the garage and still have enough room to work on both. My mindset was I needed to empty the space of spare parts and little-used tools, but I hadn’t decided where to put these items. The easy answer is haul all the parts to the Corvair Ranch and sell the little-used tools on Craigslist, but that would mean someday having to buy back a head or a sunvisor or a rust-free piece of engine shrouding to deal with a dropped seat or busted stitching or a cancerous piece of sheetmetal respectively. So, getting rid of ALL the parts is not an option, nor is getting rid of the tools I’ve amassed over the years. So, additional options needed to be explored.

My solution to the problem? A grand plan that deserves a flowchart of course (see above). Since both Glinda and Luna are at risk of leaving the fleet, I’ve considered multiple permutations. A little background here since I don’t think I’ve ever gone into detail on the lean-to rear stall I built behind the garage fairly soon after we bought the house. The previous owner had sunk some 6X6 posts into the ground along the back fence, so I finished the project he started by bolting a header along the tops of the posts, nailing up 2X4 rafters and sheathing, followed by underlayment and shingles. Currently, the walls are old Harbor Freight tarps. The following photo was taken before we moved into the house over ten years ago. The red chunk in the photo represents the end view. The enclosure is just large enough to accommodate a ’65 LeMans (17’ by 6’).

In order to execute my grand plan, beyond moving the cars around, I’ll get to cut a doorway in the solid brick wall of the garage; install a decent door and doorframe in the opening; screw plywood to the six-by-sixes to create three solid walls on the rear stall; lay down some flooring (perhaps recycled pavers or gravel); put in a couple light fixtures; and then move the shelves, workbenches, and parts, and nearly all the tools out to the revamped space. The result of all this will be as follows:

My dad attempted to talk me out of my plan with his main concern being my cutting a thirty inch wide by eighty inch tall hole through the foot thick all brick wall. I think he had visions of the roof falling in. His recommendation was to build a platform in one corner of the existing garage and move the parts and any possible tools up on to that. That would, he felt allow me to gain floor space for the two cars with less time and money expended than my grand plan. I wasn’t sold on that idea since I felt the support posts and framing would interfere with the floor space and I wasn’t getting any new area to accommodate a workbench. Also, there’d be a lot of work and hardware to create the platform he had in mind.

So when will I get to this grand project? I have no idea. Even though the new kitchen is basically done, I still have projects in the laundry room and half-bath, not to mention the rowhouse basement. No rest for the weary.

Exhausting Work

Night before last, I finally got some time to work on Glinda’s leaky exhaust. I had thought that the donuts (gaskets) between the exhaust manifolds were the only failed parts in the system, so I backed Glinda up on the ramps to do a remove-and-replace (R&R). After letting the pipes cool down, I unbolted the two manifold flanges and the hanger strap and slid the exhaust assembly out from under the car. The next chore was to clean off the old gaskets which had hardened to into rings of rock. My quarrying tools of choice were hammer, small cold chisel, and a couple screwdrivers. Way too many minutes later most of the old stuff was off and I was able to wirebrush the rest off at the bench grinder. I’d previously purchased a couple new gaskets from Gary the Corvair guru a week ago, so I slipped them on and slid myself and the assembly back under the car and bolted everything back together. With the engine fired up, I immediately noticed I hadn’t solved the entire problem. There was still exhaust escaping someplace other than the tailpipe. I slid under the car again and felt around until I found pulsing hot air from the top side of the joint where the straight pipe goes into the crossover pipe. Out came the assembly again and my MIG welder made molten metal closing up the crack. Sadly, the last extraction broke the rubber piece of the muffler hanger, so I had to R&R with a GNP that I had sitting in a cubbie. Once the assembly was properly bolted into place, the only exit available for the exhaust was outlet of the Flowmaster. The car sounds soooo much nicer now.

One other quick task I did before calling it a night was to get out my Vernier calipers and measure the journals of the crankshaft I’d removed from Corsavert. For the mains, I got 2.0985 for all four. The manual says they’re acceptable between 2.0978 and 2.0988 for #1 and #2 and 2.0983 and 2.0993 for #3 and #4, so I’m good. For the rods, I got a range of 1.798 to 1.800. The manual says they need to be between 1.799 and 1.800, so I’m a thousandth low on two. The reason I did this was I wanted to see if I could buy standard bearings and begin assembling a 140 horsepower engine for Glinda. I think I’ll buy the standards and cross my fingers that my measurements are a hair off. The proof will be when I check the assembly using Plastigauge. That’s more accurate than a Vernier caliper.

Scarlett’s Gonna’ Get Safer

I started this blog post on Tuesday the 27th. Due to a busy schedule I never got farther than the first paragraph. Sadly, the title of this post and the initial paragraph were a bad omen. Here’s that paragraph.

I have been extremely fortunate that none of my daughters (or myself for that matter) have been injured while driving our Corvairs. Glinda has been the only ‘vair we’ve owned that had shoulder belts. Well, that’s gonna’ change. Today, I bought a pair of front bucket seats out of a Chrysler Sebring convertible. I want to make sure that Mikhaila doesn’t hit the steering (or anything else) if she has an accident.

Now jump ahead to last Thursday when, on slick pavement, Mikhaila lost control of Scarlett and drove her into a guardrail. Mikhaila is pretty banged up, but thankfully nothing that won’t heal in a few weeks. Impacts of note were: the right knee to the heater controls resulting in a flap of skin that should have gotten a few stitches, but she refused; her chest and under her chin collided with the steering wheel and left some nasty bruises and painful breathing, but fortunately negative x-rays; and a bump on the back of the head where a speaker flew up and whacked.

Scarlett did not come through the incident nearly as well as Mikhaila. Amazingly, the bumper is basically still in its stock location and the front wheels still point in the same direction, so I was able to hitch the towbar to her front end once I pulled some of the fender away from the right front tire. The flat-tow home from the tow-yard was, thankfully, uneventful.

So, what are we to do? I’ve not been in the mood to evaluate all the damage, but at the very least she’ll need a new front panel (Clark’s doesn’t sell a replacement) and valence ($126 from Clark’s), as well as a right front fender from at least the center of the wheel forward ($110 from Clark’s) and a trunk bottom ($113). A visit to the Corvair Ranch will be required to get a used front panel, wheel-well, and a replacement bumper. Since the steering and alignment seem to be working properly, I’m thinking the damage is just to body panels. Mikhaila and I have a lot of cutting and welding and bodywork in our future before the car is ready for the road again.

And those Sebring seats? They will go in before Mikhaila gets behind the wheel again.

A Quick Trip to the Pick-a-Part

Yesterday evening I spent about forty-five minutes in the garage between getting home from work and dinner. Since Glinda is now running on the two racing carbs, I wanted the spark plugs to be clean so I can best determine if the fuel mixture is not too lean or too rich. I pulled all six of plugs and wire brushed them back to silver goodness. The photos below show their condition as they came out of the engine. Plugs 2,4, and 6 are on the side that had the race carb on it for a couple weeks now and they look a little sooty (rich), while the 1, 3, and 5 plugs were on a stock carb and they look like the mixture was pretty close to right on. I’ll drive her a bit and recheck the plugs. I may go to a slightly smaller jet from the #53 that’s in both carbs. With a little time left before dinner, I yanked off the stock throttle linkage assembly and starter the reinsallt of the fancy after-market setup. I didn't complete the project, but it's nearly done.




At lunch today I popped over to Crazy Ray’s to see what was available. I’ve been toying with relocating Glinda’s battery out of the engine bay, so I was looking for a BMW so I could harvest their battery cable. BMW typically puts their battery in the trunk and uses a long, thick cable to get the juice to the fuse panel. Within the first couple minutes of entering the yard, I came upon a 3-series. About a half-hour later I had a cable in my now-filthy hands. My Leatherman’s knock-off did a great job freeing the cable from its German home. I came back to my desk at work and promptly ordered a battery box off Amazon. Now it’s just the effort of the install and I can cross another item off the To-Do list.

Nothing to See Here

Victoria has committed to spending at least four hours a week working on her convertible during the Fall and Winter, so the first step was dealing with Luna’s home. Wednesday evening she and I spent an hour or so putting a new cover on the portable garage. It was nice to rip the nasty, worn out one off and expose Luna in all her ignored glory. She’s in need of a good cleaning since the resident cats like to nap on her. The plan is to get her running first so we can drive her between the portable and permanent garages allowing us to do the work in heated comfort but not tying up the heated area when she’s not available. In order to make that happen, I first need to end the carburetor adventure I’ve been on.

That started last night when I successfully got the second modified carb functioning properly on Glinda’s engine, but not without some shenanigans. To catch up: a few weeks back I used the newly modified bases (relocated jets) and tops (vents tubes added) and put together two racing carburetors with GUPs and new gaskets. I bolted them on to Glinda and the left carb flooded – stuck float. I pulled the top, checked the float (it was fine) and needle-and-set (also fine), put it all back together, and re-started the engine. This time there was no flooding, but the left side of the engine was not working right. I swapped back on the previous carb and set the racing carb to the side. Fast forward to last night when I tore down the misbehaving racing carb and blew out all the passages before putting everything back together with new gaskets and installed it onto Glinda’s engine. This time the engine fired up without any gas geysers. I blipped the throttle a few times while looking down the throat of the left carb to see if there was a squirt from the accelerator pump, but there didn't appear to be any. I shut off the engine and tried to blip the throttle again only further this time, but the throttle wouldn’t go past halfway. Irr. I investigated and discovered the linkage rod was hanging up on the tip of the tab that rides on the fast idle cam (see the surfaces indicated by the purple arrows in the above photo; the upper surface is the tab while the lower one is the surface the throttle rod sits against). Off came the carb so I could bend the tab back into place. Once I was convinced it was out of the way, I reinstalled the carb and made sure I could get full throttle travel. I also verified that the accelerator pump was squirting as it should. With those two hurdles crossed, I re-started the engine and happily felt that the engine was finally behaving properly. This was confirmed by both chokes opening simultaneously. I shut off the engine and hooked up the clear tubing to each carb’s vacuum port. With the engine running again, it only took a couple turns of the left carb’s idle speed screw to stop the bubbles from moving in the tube.

By that point, bedtime was fast approaching so I put away the tools, reinstalled the air cleaner, and called it a day.

Carburetor Issues Again

Friday evening Mikhaila drove back home from visiting friends and I got the following text,” I'm almost home. Scarlet is driving weird also so I don't want to be broken down. “ Since we had a 10 AM appointment at Gary’s, I was up early the next morning to see what’s what. I climbed behind the wheel, started Scarlett’s engine, and took her for a quick spin around the neighborhood. While she seemed to idle okay, she was definitely sluggish under acceleration. I felt, however, we could still get her to and from Gary’s, so Mikhaila climbed in and we headed out. We did not even get to the corner before we noticed further power reduction and significant pinging. We limped her back to a parking spot in front of the house and took Glinda to Gary’s instead.

Gary came through on all fronts – door lock retainers AND gaskets, the blower bearing greasing tool, and a bare convertible door to take sideview mirror measurements off of. Once we got back home, we immediately went to work on the car. First, we started Scarlett’s engine and, by pulling spark plug leads, determined the right side of the engine was not functioning. So, I grabbed the proven ’68 carb, swapped it for the bad one, and restarted the engine. It fired right up and idled and revved nicely once the new carb had filled with fuel. I didn’t take the time to balance it since we had other tasks I wanted to get to before running out of time.

We then disconnected the linkage so we could mount the blower bearing greasing tool. I pumped grease into the tool's Zerk fitting, but wasn't sure any was making it into the bearing. After removing the tool, I noticed a gob of grease on top of the shaft, but none around the seal. I tried the process again, but the result was the same. Irr. Giving up, we put everything back together and started the engine. The howl wasn't gone, but it did seem somewhat quieter as we backed the car down the driveway for a successful test-drive.

Since the lovely Loriann returned and parked the awesome Challenger in the driveway, we parked Scarlett at the curb and moved onto the next items on the to-do list. While Mikhaila swapped courtesy light bulbs, I installed the two door locks. The trick was getting the finger of the mechanism into the slot in the latch. Pushing the retainers in place took some tapping on the end of a flathead screwdriver, but they eventually were seated.

Finally, we carefully measured and marked and re-measured the location of the two screws for the side-view mirror retaining plate before drilling the two holes. The plate was installed followed by the barely GUP gasket and attaching the mirror with its Phillips screw finished the job. At that point, it was time to quit for the day.

Monday, Mikhaila took her car out for a drive and came back informing me it wasn’t idling nicely. I believe she used the terms “rumbling” and “rough.” She and I then headed to the curb with a flathead screwdriver, dwellmeter (with tachometer), and the length of clear plastic tubing. The engine was already warmed-up, so I unhooked the throttle linkage to the left carburetor thus isolating the two carbs from each other. Then I hooked both ends of the tubing to the vacuum ports of the carbs and had Mikhaila fire up the engine. Watching the small amount of fluid in the tube, I adjusted the idle speed screws until it the fluid didn’t move. Then I spun the left side linkage until it just lined up with its hole in the carb and secured it into place. Blipping the throttle didn’t cause the fluid to move, so I considered the carbs synchronized. With the engine off, I put the proper vacuum hoses back into place and hooked up the dwellmeter. Mikhaila restarted the engine and put it into Drive, so I could fine-tune the idle speed and mixture. I slowly turned the idle mixture screws in and out until I’d maximized the rpms. Then, I turned each idle speed screw out in equal increments until the engine was turning at a smooth 550 rpm. A spin around the block showed all was operating satisfactorily.

Then, yesterday, she shared with me that things were still not right with the sluggish acceleration. I confirmed the symptoms this morning before I left for work. The car seems to have decent power everywhere other than acceleration from stop. I checked the ATF level and it’s right on. I also pulled plug leads and both sides seem to respond, so I’m thinking there’s still something amiss with the right carb. My plan is to pull the non-modified carb off Glinda and swap it onto Scarlett. Then I’ll deal with carbs on Glinda instead of Scarlett.

A Little Here, a Little There

Mikhaila and I still have plenty to do before Scarlett is finished. Last night we knocked a few more things off the To-Do list. We started by changing the oil and filter (FYI, the odometer read 55790), and then moved on to installing the trunk lock. The other night I had been looking for something else in the GUP cubbies and unearthed a trunk lock with a gasket, two door locks, and, most importantly, the clip that retains the trunk lock – just the part the local Corvair guru, Gary, said he did not have. TYL. After the lock was in, I lubricated the mechanism with some graphite spray and it turned nice and freely.

With the trunk still open, we checked out the electrics controlling the wiper motor. The other day, I thought we’d found out the wipers wouldn’t run, but didn’t get any farther. With a multi-meter, we verified that 12 volts was getting to the plug and then we verified the switch was grounding out the other terminal. With the electrics working, we deduced the issue must be at the motor. I plugged in the connector and lo-and-behold the wiper motor started spinning. Mikhaila quickly turned off the switch so the blades didn’t run on a dry windshield. Then, with me holding blades up, she turned the switch and they started moving again. TYL. She turned off the switch, and we then slid under the dash and sprayed WD-40 on the linkages. Scarlett’s got wipers.

Back to the open trunk, we emptied out the box of still-to-be-installed parts and refilled it with the gas can and ATF jug from the salon, a set of jumper cables, spare fanbelt, and a funnel. Next, I pulled a jack and lug wrench from the shelf and stowed it in the trunks left front corner before shutting the lid.

The final act of the evening was to install the wheelcovers Mikhaila had chosen. The car’s starting to look finished – at least from the outside.

Tomorrow we're scheduled to visit Gary's and use his blower bearing greasing tool to try and quiet the howl from Scarlett's engine bay. I'll also make some measurements so I can drill holes and install Scarlett's side-view mirror. For whatever reason, she has no mounting holes in her driver's door. Finally, we'll be raiding his stash of spare parts for a couple door lock retaining clips so we can finally fill the holes under the door handles.