Carburetor Capers

First, I got in touch with the prospective buyer of Lucy, and he said his wife wouldn’t let him buy an old car. So Lucy's in my competent (wink, wink) care for the foreseeable future. This whole little experience does give me pause. Maybe I should sell her and move on to something else – a different Corvair of course.

When I got home from work Tuesday, I went back to work on Lucy’s vacuum leak. The whole drive home I was hearing a whistling noise from behind me, and since I was carrying no musical passengers it must’ve been the engine. After removing the air cleaners, I stuck my fingers around the base of the right carburetor and could affect the sound. I removed that carb and the plastic insulator that fits between it and the base on the head. I closely inspected the insulator and found it had a crack through in the area where I felt the leak was at. After fishing a GUP insulator out of my box of carburetor GUPs, I reassembled the carb and attempted to start up the car. The car had sat about an hour at this point and that’s when the starter had failed before. At that point dinner was nearing so I acted like everything would be fine enough for me to balance the carbs the next opportunity I had and took all the tools back to the garage except for the clear hose and a screwdriver. I hope my optimism isn’t dashed.

Last night, since the wet weather was not conducive to carburetor adjustment, I spent a couple hours working at my carburetor collection. I wanted to find the two carburetors with the best-fitting throttle shafts. I found a couple that seemed promising, but were in the midst of disassembly with butterfly screws broken off, so I drilled those out and completed their disassembly. Then, one of the carbs I’d swap on to Lucy when trying to get her engine to idle is one I’d pulled off Ringo a while back. When installed on Lucy, it showed signs of flooding – gas dripping into the venturi after shutting off the engine, so I investigated the needle and seat. When supposedly closed, they did not put up much resistance to my blowing, so I replaced them with a new set I’d recently received from the Corvair Ranch. Now it’s, “open it, air blows; close it, air stops.” That’s the way it’s supposed to be. I found a carb marked LM, that, while the shaft would barely turn since the assembly was quite grotty, seemed to have a nice, close fit. I disassembled it completely and put the metal pieces in the gallon carburetor cleaner can for an overnight soak. Tonight I’ll be back in the garage to remove and rinse off the soaking parts. This may be the best candidate for the next rebuild. I’m trying to get a good pair that I can install on Ringo when his engine’s ready.

A Little Scratch Will Do You

Last night I went hunting for a vacuum leak. It took me a while, but I think I’ve found the source - a scratch across the carb mounting surface of the head. I used some high-temp RTV and bolted everything back together and let it sit overnight. This morning I was able to sync the carbs and get the idle down to about 700 rpm without the engine dying, but I still think I hear hissing around where I sealed the crack. I drove the car to work and there’s still something amiss (a slight miss at full throttle), but, for the most part it goes down the road without issue. It currently has one race carb and one original carb. I’d like to swap out the race one for the second original.

I Used to Love Roller Coasters

Saturday evening was our church’s annual spaghetti dinner and since I was helping prepare food, I’d driven Lucy to the event early snagging a prime parking spot near the front door. Later, during the mealtime, one of the diners stuck his head in the door and asked for me. He was a guest of a church member, so I’d never met him before. He’d been asking around trying to find who owned the red Corvair, and someone had finally directed him to me. We chatted for a few minutes about the couple of ‘vairs he’d owned many years ago, then he asked me if I had one to sell. My first response was no, but then I thought, what the heck, if he offers me enough, I’ll sell him Lucy. So I told him that, for the right price, I’d sell the red one. He asked me what the right price was, to which I did some VERY quick mental math before blurting out, “Five-thousand dollars?” His reply was, “Okay, I can bring you cash tomorrow. Do you want to sell?” I told him I needed to sleep on it, but would call him in the morning. He gave me his business card before blending back into the crowd.

Well, I slept on it, and I decided to sell. While I love driving Lucy and I love the way I’ve got her looking, there are so many other Corvairs out there I’d like to own before retiring to a sailboat with the lovely Loriann. After church, I called the number on the card and was connected to his voicemail. I left a message before heading out to the driveway. There were some items on Lucy I didn’t want to part with, so I swapped the LeMans’ seatbelts from the backseat with a couple sets of red ones I’d pulled out of an early-80s GM vehicle. For that job, I enlisted Mikhaila to hold the wrench inside the car while I undid the nuts on the underside. It took no time at all to get the replacements installed, and they don’t look too out of place. The red on the black vinyl actually looks pretty good. Then I removed the last two belts to my harnesses – the crotch belts. With those swapped out, I vacuumed the entire inside, wiped down the vinyl with Armor-all, and re-glued the Velcro along the lower edge of the backlight. The Velcro holds the piece of carpet over the package tray area.

With all that complete, the last task was swapping out the racing carburetor for Ringo’s original one. A few months back, when the TEMP/PRESS light was coming on, I fixed the problem by replacing the right side carb with one of the carburetors I’ve had modified for racing. After investigating that carb, I felt the problem was a bad hose to the choke pulloff valve. With that replaced, I pulled the racing carb and installed the old one back on yesterday. After starting the engine, I noticed the right side did not appear to warm up while idling. Pulling plug wires on the right side plugs didn’t result in the desired drop in rpm, so it appeared there was still an issue with that carb. To make a long story short, I tried many different combinations of carbs and I can’t get the engine to idle. This evening I’ll be back out there again searching for what I feel is a vacuum leak.

Throughout the afternoon, the prosepective buyer never returned my call, hence the roller coaster of: I’m gonna’ sell Lucy, Lucy's giving me problems, will the guy call me back, etc. Another strange thing was that throughout this past weekend, I received more compliments about how nice Lucy looked than I’d ever remembered. Hmm. What’s going on?

So what will I do if I sell Lucy? I'll save that for another post.

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

Started off last evening taking photos of my latest Ringo accomplishments. Below are two photos of the right-side cylinder head without valves and valve-springs.



Next are some photos of the passenger side’s exterior where I’ve cut away the rotted sheetmetal. After I finish brushing off the loose, rusty metal and vacuum up the mess, it’ll be ready for a good coat of POR-15. The last photo was taken after brushing was completed - right before I called it a night.

Head Disassembly Complete

With my path forward for Ringo and Lucy’s engines in limbo, I’ve been holding on to the valve spring compressor I “rented” from Advance Auto a few weeks back. Last weekend I decided I could use the $60 back on my credit card, so it’s going to be returned within the next couple of days. That meant that last night, I needed to disassemble the heads that were on Ringo’s removed engine (a ’64 vintage 110 HP). It only took about forty-five minutes, and while I did struggle with getting some of the retainers out, the tool is now wiped down and ready to return.

I found that there’s slop in these valve guides as well. I could probably use them as-is in an emergency, so I’ll clean them up, lap the valves, and reassemble for that rainy day.

My Sunday Afternoon With Ringo

First church, then lunch, and a few house chores, and then I was free to go out to the garage and weld. After assuring myself I had a fully charged extinguisher close at hand, I donned my welding garb and began making plug welds along the bottom edge of the long rocker panel patch. After filling all but a couple holes, I ran out of welding wire. So much for momentum. Any more welding has to wait until I make another trip to Harbor Freight.


On to the passenger side. I measured the Clark’s rocker panel patch to remind myself where I needed to cut (on top of the rocker, a 1/2 inch inboard from the bend), and then laid out a length of masking tape to serve as my guide. After replacing the wire wheel in my right angle grinder with a new cutoff disc, I removed the rotted rocker pieces all the way forward to the front wheel opening and all the way rearward to five inches past the door opening. I then grabbed the eBay-bought fender patch (see section C in the image) and held it up in front of the spot where it’s supposed to fit. It’s too wide. In for it to fit properly, I get to slice a thin vertical section out of it. Another case of getting what you pay for. With my last cut on the fender safely below the upper edge of the patch, I ended my afternoon so I could eat dinner with the family.

Issues Appear and Disappear

Friday morning, about eight miles into my commute, the TEMP/PRESS light flickered on, then off, then went on to stay. This occurred as I was doing 70 mph down the interstate. I put the transmission in neutral and coasted for thirty seconds or so and the light went back off. I gingerly drove the last mile to my parking spot, and shut down the engine. Before walking into work, I popped the engine lid looking for smoke or at least the aroma of something burnt. TTL nothing seemed or smells amiss. I’d recently checked the oil level and it was well above ADD, so it looks like the right side is running lean again. The drive home through city streets was lightless, as was this morning’s commute where I kept the needle below 60.

The carburetor I removed when last this temp issue had plagued me has been rebuilt with o-rings that should seal the gap between the worn throttle shaft and the two bores in the carb’s body. I’ll swap this carb back into its previous home atop the right cylinder head (the one with the temp switch) and we’ll see what happens.

Then, Saturday, Victoria informed me Glinda was idling rather roughly. She would run down the road just fine, but when sitting at a stop, there was more than the usual shaking coming from the car’s rear. This information coincided with a gas up that indicated Glinda’s mileage keeps improving. This time its up to nearly 18 mpg. With that positive indicator coupled with smooth running and no dying at stops led me to put off any further investigations until after the fully booked weekend.

This morning Victoria texted me that Glinda ran fine. Another issue resolves itself.