Lots of ‘Vair Time

Starting where I ended on last Friday’s blog, I’ve done some research on the exhaust pipe. An issue that’s popped up is one of the flanges on the exhaust pipe that I got from Rich’s stash of parts has one inlet flange configured for a ’60 Corvair (flat-faced flange). If I want to use this pipe, I’ll need to cut off this flat flange and weld on a standard post-’60 flange.

While I’m on the subject of exhaust, my buddy Jonathan came through with a part number for the Flowmaster mufflers he has on his Corsa. This morning I placed an order on Amazon for a couple of the same ones - Series 40 Deltas with 2.25” center inlet and 2.25” offset outlet. Since I don’t plan on ever driving this car during our season of salt again, I figure I’ll get plenty of years of aural enjoyment from my investment.

Now on to the weekend work. Saturday morning Victoria came over and she and I attacked Luna’s top installation. It took a WHOLE lot of blood, sweat, tears, and one bent wrist (sorry Victoria), but by the middle of the afternoon we finally had the well cover, back window, and top pieces all stapled to the trim sticks in the best-guess locations and all three trim sticks bolted to the body. Sadly, we lost a few of the rubber spacers and were short some to begin with, so we’ll have to go back and sneak them into place after the package from the Corvair Ranch shows up.

As we got back into it yesterday afternoon, I told Victoria that the hard part was done. I was wrong. The first task was to attach the rear side window weatherstrip pieces. At one point there were eight hands working at once as I drug Ariel in to stretch the front of the top forward and Loriann to stretch and hold the flap in place, while Victoria held the weatherstrip and poked an awl through each hole while I attempted to follow the awl’s withdrawal with the point of the screw. Finally, we had all eight screws in and torqued. Sadly, the right rear corner of the top has a nasty furl where it should be smooth. Hoping we could make some adjustments later on, Victoria and I continued. We did the best we could and we did finish, but neither of us is real happy with the results. We do have the option to take Luna to a professional and have them do the tweak(s) necessary to smooth out the one corner.





Once we completed the top work, we tried starting the car. The battery had plenty of charge on it, but it again it seems like the tank is empty since a number of cycles of me pouring gas down the carb throats would not get the car to run longer than it took to burn off the tablespoon or two that was sitting in the intake manifolds. Ironing out this issue needs to be the next task we deal with. Other Corvair activities of the weekend included spending some time Saturday working on Ringo. My initial intent was to only put the battery charger on his batter, but I noticed that his throttle linkage had seized. I isolated the problem to the left carb, so I sprayed some Deep Creep penetrating fluid on both ends of the butterfly shaft and let it sit to, hopefully, work its magic. Yesterday, during one of the breaks, I was able to finally work the shaft loose. I re-attached all the linkages and cranked the engine. After a few seconds, it started up and, as expected, there was some clanking from deep within the block where the lack of running had caused at least one lifter to drain down. I let the engine idle for about ten minutes and the nasty noise abated.

The work on getting Glinda a four-speed setup continues as well. Saturday evening I was in the garage giving the prospective transmission a close inspection. I removed the side cover, gave all the sychros and gears close scrutiny, and, fortunately, saw nothing amiss. I moved the internal shifter parts around until I was sure I’d be able to engage all four forward gears and reverse. At that point, I went to install my fancy new transmission pivot, but found the existing rod had been welded into place – it was supposed to be screwed in. A GUP cover from the Corvair Ranch would have to be added to the shopping list. All-in-all, a ‘vairy nice weekend.