Too Many Titles

I always try to put a little thought into the title that goes above each blog post, and this morning I have a number of relevant headings that I could not choose between. “Up The Creek, But Gary Threw Me a Paddle,” “The Eagle (ir, Glinda) Has Landed,” “She’s Low, But She Better Not Be Slow,” and “Hey, Five Hours Sleep is Plenty” all would work.

“Up the creek” is appropriate since in my post of yesterday, I stated how much trouble I’d be in if I couldn’t break loose the tie-rod adjustment sleeve. Well, it broke loose, but it also just plain broke. The spanner I was using, once popped with a hammer proceeded to break off a piece of the sleeves rendering the part unusable. A quick call to the local Corvair guru, Gary, confirmed he had a replacement, and I was back under the car installing the part within an hour.

The “landing” part refers to Glinda FINALLY (after exactly one month) sitting on solid ground again. Last night I was able to mount her wheels and lower her off the jackstands. The funny thing was I kept lowering the jack and lowering the jack before she finally settled on her cut-down springs. Needless to say, her underbody is MUCH closer to the ground than when I started this suspension upgrade. Standing next to her I think her roof is no higher than my chest, hence the “Low” title. With the suspension work complete, I moved on to the engine compartment. Job one was getting the carburetors synchronized. After pouring some gas down the carb throats, I cranked the engine and it started to raggedly run, but almost immediately the engine smoothed out as fuel filled the bowls. All was not well, however, as gas was geysering up through the left carb’s vent tubes – the needle was not seated. Off came the carb’s top and a quick check revealed just handling freed the stuck valve. A few minutes later, top was mated to bottom and the engine refired and settled into a nice idle. All my initial adjustments made while rebuilding the pair were close enough to optimum that it only took a few turn of the idle screws and linkage to ensure both were working in concert.

With fuel delivery set, I moved on to the engine’s electrical needs. I’d bought a new set of points, so I pulled out the old and bolted in the new. With a cursory adjustment of dwell, I popped the rotor, shield, and cap back into place and started the engine. The dwellmeter said I nailed the dwell at 32 degrees. The timing light said I needed to retard the timing from 16 down to 14 before-top-dead-center so I did.

The last task for the evening was hooking up the coil end of the tachometer wire. By that point, it was 1 AM and I was so very ready for bed. When I drug my butt off the sheets this morning at 6:30, I’d only gotten five hours of sleep. Now you know the inspiration for the last title.

I just made an appointment to get the alignment done tomorrow at the local Goodyear, so I’ll drop off the car tomorrow morning with the racer-provided specs for the Castor, Camber, and Toe-In. When I pick her up after work, I’ll have to add another $75 to the Pocketbook Status, but I’ll have a transformed LM Corvair.