Time and Money Spent on TwoTone

My time with the fleet actually started Friday night with Glinda, but Saturday afternoon was mostly consumed by working with Mikhaila on her car, TwoTone.

The Glinda work consisted of using her engine to determine which subassembly of TwoTone’s rebuilt carburetors is bad. As I posted last week, one carburetor assembly appeared to function properly, while the other wouldn’t work right when bolted to the Glinda’s left head. So, on Friday I created a table like the following (yeah, I am an engineer):

Wouldn’t Work		Seemed to Work
Bad Top		Good Top
Bad Cluster		Good Cluster
Bad Bottom		Good Bottom

With the assumption that only one portion of the bad carb was causing the malfunctioning, I swapped both the Bad Top and Bad Cluster onto the mounted Good Bottom. While the engine started and ran fairly smoothly, the right side would not heat up telling me it wasn’t getting the proper flow of fuel. Off came the Bad Top and back on went the Good Top. This time the engine ran nicely and soon after the restart, the choke opened up all the way. With the engine fully warmed up and shut off, I hooked up my length of clear tubing with some water in it to the vacuum ports on the two carbs. With the engine running again and the left carb disconnected from the throttle shaft, I turned that carb’s idle screw in until the water was static in the tube. I then turned the small linkage rod until its end lined up with the hole in the throttle shaft. The new carb was now balanced with Glinda’s old carb. Before quitting for the night, I disassembled the presumed bad top and dropped it into the carb cleaner for a good soak. Referring back to my table, the two carbs now looked like this:

Installed & Working		Unproven & Soaking
Good Top		Bad Top
Bad Cluster		Good Cluster
Good Bottom		Bad Bottom

Saturday afternoon, both Mikhaila and I had finished our house chores and we headed to the warmed-up garage (I’d gone out about an hour earlier and fired up two of the kerosene heaters). She started by spraying gloss black Rustoleum on the front brake backing plates while I emptied out a bin to collect TwoTone’s removed parts. We then worked together to empty out the salon (interior space) of all the loose pieces I’d stored there. We found some new parts that will be used in the roadification. Next, we moved on to removing the seats. All the fasteners but one were cooperative. I slathered the stubborn nut with the magic elixir of 50/50 acetone/transmission fluid. We’ll let that one sit a while. The final actions for the day were removing sill plates, vent grills and covers, and the seatbelts. Once that last nut is loose, we’ll finish exposing all the floor and Mikhaila can have fun with the wire brush getting rid of any loose rust.


Speaking of rust, I can’t say it too many times - disassembling this car has been quite a treat compared to previous projects. As mentioned before, only one threaded joint out of a couple dozen was seized. We’re quite fortunate to have landed another barn find (Heidi was the other one and more accurately they were garage finds).


Finally, this morning I got on the phone with Clark’s and placed an order for POR-15 for coating TwoTone's floor, a bunch of carpet, paint, and upholstery samples (more on that later) and three wheel cylinders (there was a brand new right front cylinder assembly amongst the parts we pulled out of the salon). Not wanting to pay the nearly $100 for a rebuilt master cylinder, I hopped on Amazon and bought an aftermarket dual master cylinder for $33. I’ve decided I’ll do the conversion to dual from single (1964s only came with a single master cylinder). I’ll need to buy some fittings and a couple short brake lines, but I’ll do that once I have the master in hand. The running expense tally on the sidebar has taken a hit. Won’t be long before we’ve topped a grand.

I mentioned samples – it looks like Mikhaila has a color scheme for this car. She shared with me that she likes a darker green for the body with a white top. For the interior she’s thinking white seats and door panels, black carpet, and a flatter version of the exterior green for the exposed interior metal (dash, doors outside the panels, etc.). I pulled up a photo of a 1960 Corvair in Jade Green, and she liked it so one of the samples I ordered was for that color. The other was for a Fathom Green from 1969. Much darker, but not nearly as 50s as she mentioned she was going for.

Can It Get Any Worse?

Well, of course it can, but right now things seem pretty dismal. While Ringo is back on the road and appears to be behaving, I still have two misbehaving vehicles – Glinda and the truck. The fuel issue with Glinda has been a real pain. After last night, I feel I’ve narrowed it down to the fuel pump. Yeah, yeah, I should’ve started there, but the frugal engineer I am was intent upon to misinterpret the symptoms and fix everything else but the real root of the problem. The truck has recently developed a horrible noise that I need the dealership to diagnose. Anyway, back to the specifics of the fleet work.

This weekend I spent part of Saturday afternoon in the garage stripping the bottom seat upholstery I’m trying to reuse off Ringo’s old driver’s seat. To do that I first needed to separate the bottom from the back which, fortunately, wasn’t too difficult. I then brought up my sewing machine from the basement and replaced a piece of rotten cloth on the seat cover. After putting some Gorilla glue over a cracking seam, I set the cover aside while I stripped the upholstery off the replacement seat bottom. Sunday afternoon I was back in the garage hog-ring pliers in hand putting black seat cover on new (to me) seat bottom frame. After bolting the seat into Ringo, I called Ariel and told her to come get her car.

Yesterday I pulled Glinda’s right front wheel up a ramp so as much gas as possible would shift away from the bottom access hole. After disconnecting the hose, I drained about three gallons out before the stream stopped allowing me to remove the fuel pickup assembly, and replace the sock that filters the gas going into the fuel line. The only problem was the sock I was sure I had was nowhere to be found. Irr. Knowing I had an inline filter farther down the line, I reinstalled the assembly without a sock. This morning I confidently sat behind the wheel and entered the beltway getting up to speed with no problem. Sadly, that confidence was dashed against the rocks a mile later when the motor quickly ran out of oomph and I barely made it to the next offramp. I nursed it home only having the engine die three times before I was able to back her down the driveway. I swapped key rings and drove the truck to work (with all its untoward noises). Tonight I replace the fuel pump.

A Big Dent

I’m talking about the parts sale yesterday, thankfully, not one of the fleet. At least a couple dozen buyers showed up yesterday and scarfed up a bunch of Rich’s stash. With proceeds over $6000 and low prices, that’s a lot of parts going to a lot of happy Corvair folks. I bought two sets of wheels, an IROC –Z set with tires for Glinda

and a set of 14” Torque Thrust wheels for my LeMans.

I also selected a gasket set to re-seal TwoTone’s engine, a Hurst shifter and LM manual shift dash for Glinda’s transformation, a complete LM engine block (all cleaned up and read for assembly) to replace the 140 block that’s still greasy and has broken bolts stuck in it, an interesting custom dual exhaust pipe with a crossover for Glinda, a set of brand new VelveTouch brake shoes for the next time she and I hit the track, and a GUP Powerglide shift cable for Ringo. I’m reviewing the parts list and photos to see if there’s anything left that I’m still interested in. At the same time, I’m struggling with where I put all this new stuff.

Speaking of Ringo, I answered a local e-mail offering a free bucket seat to the first person willing to drive to Laurel, MD to claim. I immediately replied since Ringo could really use a new driver’s seat that had enough life left in to to allow Ariel to see over the steering wheel. That seat is now sitting on Luna's engine lid waiting for me to have a day where I can do a seat cover swap with Ringo's sad seat.

I did get a few hours of garage/driveway time this weekend. Friday night, I disassembled Glinda’s front suspension enough to extract the two lower control arms. Saturday, after helping with the sale setup (which included loading all my buys into the bed of my truck), I stopped by guru Gary’s house and borrowed his balljoint R&R tool. When I got home, I drug Mikhaila out to the garage where she applied the rest of the primer coat to TwoTone’s gas tank while I did battle with pressing out the old balljoints and pressing in the new. When we were both done, she and I disassembled TwoTone’s left front brake assembly, disconnected the incoming hard brake line from the old flex line, and tapped out the innards of the wheel cylinder. Just by virtue of us being able to tear down the cylinder assembly, I’m confident the bore will be in usable shape after a good honing.

After dinner, she was too tired to continue, so I went back out to complete Glinda’s suspension renew and had the last bolt in place and the rubber of the new-to-her front wheels on the ground by 10:30. Only a few issues: 1. it appears my grease gun doesn’t have the gumption to pump grease into the new joints - I’ll buy a new one this evening; 2. the right front tire was flat – hopefully it’s just from sitting for a few months; and 3. I’m just not sure about how I’ll like Glinda’s stance and look with the new-to-her IROC wheels and tires. The front tires are lower profile 205/50-15s while the rears are 225/60-15. With the fronts being about two-and-a-half inches smaller in diameter, I decided to leave Glinda’s front springs alone rather than executing my original plan of cutting off another half a coil - I figured the difference in tire diameter would drop her front enough to level out her current up-facing rake. That may still be, but the look I need to get used to (or not) is front tires that look tiny in the large wheelwell. I’ll drive her with the new set up for a while and see if it grows on me. I still have the option of swapping the stock steelies and tires back on. Photos forthcoming once she’s completely re-shod.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Having had enough of engine and bodywork for a night, I decided to tackle upholstery last evening. I started by carefully disassembling Ringo’s driver seat. Off came the retaining clips,
screws, and plastic washers that then allowed me to separate the back from the bottom. Next I removed the two seat tracks and bumpers from the bottom. I took a couple pictures before commencing to cut all the hog rings that held the old cover onto the frame. Since I’ve done this same upholstery job on Heidi’s bucket seats a few years back, I knew what I was in for; and what I was in for would not be fun. Regardless, it wasn’t necessary to closely document the disassembly. With the frame free of vinyl, I dug out the roll of padding material and cut out new pieces for the center and the two bolster. Next I transferred the stiff wires that fit into the sleeves from the old to the new cover. Two wires were damaged, so I found wire that I’d bought for Heidi and cut and formed two new lengths and installed them in their sleeves.

After laying down the new padding over the center portion of the bottom, the first hog rings I installed attached the cover to the rear edge of the center portion. Then I carefully and frustratingly worked my way forward crimping hog rings attaching the side edges of the center portion to the frame wires nestled between the center foam pad and the side bolsters. The success rate for those rings is about 10%, so it took me about an hour to get the dozen rings properly installed.

With those finally in place, the rest of the job went easily. I placed the new padding over the bolsters and pulled the front, side, and back sections into place. Hog rings were crimped all the way around and the two holes for the pins that retain the back were punched. At that point I had used my quota of swear words, so it was time call it a night.