It wasn’t officially a ‘vair affair, but last Saturday’s Celebration of Life for the recently deceased Rich Coburn brought together nearly a dozen Corvair faithful. To us ‘vair folk he was a great guy, a good friend, a willing participant in club events, and an avid collector of many things Corvair. Not surprisingly he will be missed by many as attested to by the constant flow of well-wisher into and out of a crowded house.
As I’d mentioned about a month ago, he had taken me up on my offer to help by asking me to head up the effort to find new homes for all his Corvair items not earmarked for use by his son, Vince. The first item up for relocation is a LM Corsa 2-door hardtop (140 HP engine with 4-speed transmission). Tomorrow evening I’ll stop by their house, take some photos and jot down notes on the condition of the body, interior, and drivetrain. Per his wishes, the car will be offered first to the local CORSA members. If there’s no interest, I’ll widen the advertising area.
Onto fleet news. Ringo’s recent repair to staunch the ATF leak seems to be holding. Ariel was at the house yesterday and when she left, there was no telltale puddle.
I’m way behind on my Glinda reports since, even though I crossed a slew of items off her to-do list, there was and is still plenty left. Last Friday night I went leak hunting. I discovered an interesting path using the garden hose and dribbling water into and around the fresh air grill at the base of the windshield. The water would trickle onto the surface just under the trunk lid, then run into the weatherstrip groove, and then though a few small rust holes where it traveled down the inside wall of the trunk until it came to the brake line interface where it oozed through and finally dripped onto the carpet. Some silicone RTV plugged those holes, and I figured it fixed. Next I backed her up onto the ramps and removed her transmission pan watching a few quarts of not-so-red-not-so-nice ATF stream into a drain pan. I thoroughly cleaned the mating surfaces of pan and tranny before applying very thin coat of RTV to the pan’s flange surface and laying down the new gasket. A thin coat of plain grease went down on the gaskets exposed surface, and then the pan was bolted back in place. I let the RTV cure overnight before topping off the tranny with about a gallon of nice, new fluid. This time, the dipstick shows red instead of brown, but I’m not sure how long that’ll last.
That evening I drove her Rich’s celebration, during which the skies opened and gully washer passed through the area. Sadly, after a mad dash through the showers, I discovered I hadn’t really made much difference in the under-dash puddling. Irr. So, last night I was leak hunting again. It wasn’t until I ran water down the windshield that drippage inside the car occurred. I’m going to get some clear silicone and run a bead along the trim to body seam and another one along the glass to trim seam. Hopefully, I can get enough in to fix the problem. If not, I get to re-set the windshield.
Finally, last night I went tire rustling though my collection. I wanted to find four decent stock-size tires to have mounted on Glinda’s stock, turquoise painted, steel wheels. I came up with four that were part of the buy I made some months back from a used tire store. I then removed the one Glinda wheel that was holding Luna up (I replaced it with a jackstand so she’s not sitting on the ground), so I’ve got all four of Glinda’s wheels ready to get new rubber.
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