Sheet Metal Procured

Well, I have purchased new sheet metal for the Corvair for repairs. It had to be cut off another 65 in California. A buddy is going to California next week and has offered to pick it up for me. Next I have to find somebody who does body work on older cars. The fender has to be welded in place and worked.

It might give me an excuse to paint the whole car Maroon. That would be cool. Unfortunately I'm short on cash so the work may have to wait. At leat I have the major steel for the project on order.

Not too much else to report. I may pull the steering wheel off to put in the speedometer in the mean time.

Mike

Tragedy!

The Corvair was involved in a hit and run accident. Everybody is okay! A car pulled out in front of me and I couldn't stop in time to avoid hitting it and then he took off! Ran away! I've never been the victim of a hit and run before. Let me tell you it sucks!

I have some major damage to the right front fender. The only thing I can think of doing is ripping it out and putting a fiberglass one from Clark's in its place. It sucks because the car was clean looking and now its all screwed up! It sucks because the job of repair it is not small. It sucks because the idiot who pulled out in front of me ran away and will probably get away with it. The police didn't even bother coming to the scene.

I only hope that I really did some substantial damage to his right rear tire. A bent axle would be great! He left quite a bit of metallic blue paint on my car. Maybe the steel Corvair tore off a good section of his rear end. I know I'm ranting here but the guy just an away! I can think of so many words to call this guy, but I'm trying to keep this clean!

The car was running great too. That's the other sucky thing about it. It actually still runs great, it just looks like hell now. I'll have pictures up soon. I'm too pissed off right now to upload the picture from the camera!

Vapor Lock!

The mystery is solved. I suffered my first attack of vapor lock. The conditions just happen to be perfect for it. I had gotten the engine up to temperature and it sat for 20 minutes or so. It started up no problem and I drove it about 800 feet and it died.

I tried starting this morning after some time and it ran without a problem.

I was looking into installing an electric fuel pump for some time, this is defiantely good motivation for doing it.

New look for the Corvair:

Well, here it is. The new improved turbo! It rides much lower than before and feels great! The mechanic did a great job on the springs and shocks as well as an amazing job on the clutch. It rides great.

The bad news:

Unfortunately, about an hour and a half later, the car died. It just stopped firing. It seems more like an ignition issue than a fuel issue so we'll have to do some investigating. Hopefully its nothing serious. I suspect its the igniter ignition I put in several months back. I've found out recently that they don't last long in Corvairs. It probably has to do with all the heat in the engine compartment. I'll know more tomorrow!

"The Worst Clutch I've ever seen"
So says my mechanic. Yes, the Corvair finally made it to the mechanic. The biggest problem was logistics. Our schedules don't line up at all. He's been working on it for the past few days and says everything is going good. The new springs are in and the passenger front looks fine. I was concerned because the Chamber was so severe that it was purhaps bent, but I got the a-ok today.

He also replaced the gaskets on the bell housing which was causing my huge oil leak. Hopefully I'll be relatively leak free after I get the car back.

As for the clutch, I haven't seen it yet, but I'll have to get picture for the blog. Aparently it was in pieces. I'm not surprised because it was fine one day while I was driving it and then it made a thunking noise and started to slip. It was really bad in 4th gear. Forget the turbo kicking in. There was no grip when that happened.

I'm very excited to get the car back. I'm not sure if it will be Monday or Tuesday. Again, we have schedule issues, but it will be soon.

I can't wait!

One last thing. He found somebody in Las Vegas who will do alignment on the Corvair. That will be the next outside project that I will have done. Depending on how bad the alignment is will determine how soon.

Two Weeks Away!
I talked with my mechanic at our monthly club meeting and we have a tentative schedule for two week from now. He's going out of town for a while. When he gets back, we'll get the car over to his shop and start getting the Corvair road ready.

I'm looking forward to it. Las Vegas has car cruise nights every third Friday of the month and I'm hoping to go to some of these events soon. Hopefully, the work needed won't be too time consuming, but we have the clutch, the suspension and the steering box to work on, so I expect it will take a little while, especially if he finds something wrong with the steering. Hopefully not, but if so, there is a new steering box out that I can get to replace mine if needed.

Now part of the Corvair Webring.

I decided to add my blog to the Corvair Webring to get a little more traffic here. If you happen to come via the Webring, welcome. I look forward to your comments as I continue to work on the corvair. Hopefully soon it will make it to "daily driver" status. My plan is not to make it a show car, but a reliable car that I can enjoy all the time. Once the major repairs are out of the way, I'll take a little break to enjoy the car, working on the little things at a leisurely pace.

Parts are in!
I have new springs and shocks waiting to be installed on the Corvair. The mechanic is getting a new flywheel for the transmission. We should be able to get both changed out in one shot. I just need to make the appointment. I also have a spoiler sent as well. I wanted the stock spoiler for the car but Clark's no longer has them. I purchased the Camaro spoiler instead. I'm not sure if I'm going to put it on the car or not. It seems a little big. We shall see.

Happy New Year!

Well, It's time to get the Corvair up and running so that I can take it out like a "daily driver" First things first, I need to get the clutch fixed. I talked to my mechanic this past Wednesday and we should be getting it in the shop in the next few weeks. Second, I need to work on the suspension. I've ordered some new springs from Corvair Motorsports. They are Heavy Duty springs that have had 1 coil removed to lower the car about an inch. Along with that I purchased new gas shocks from Clark's and a front spoiler to help with the handling on the road.

The 65 didn't have a spoiler, but all the other late models did so I think adding it will help my handling situation.

Speaking of handling, my mechanic is going to work on the alignment of the car as well as check out the steering box for too much play. I've been told that there is a new quick steering box available for the Corvair so I may be looking into that as well.

Those are the 2 major stumbling blocks at the moment, after that, there is a lot of stuff that still needs to be done, but the car will be drivable again.

No progress on repairs!
Well, I'm a little bugged with myself. My last post was in July and here it is November and nothing has been done. Granted, I have a lot of stuff going on in my life. I recently got married, we had a honeymoon, work has been out of control, I have a lot of work around the house. Enough said. I'm determined to get the Corvair out of the garage soon! My first step is to call my mechanic and get working on the clutch. That's the main problem with the car right now. After that its the alignment and suspension. I will contact him within the next 2 weeks to set up a time!

New Problems (again)

Well, just when things are coming together, something new breaks. Its been a while since I wrote anything here. A few days after I changed the motor mounts, the clutch started to feel funny. It gave me a thunk and that was it. I let it be for a month until last week. The clutch is now slipping.

The transmission is out of my comfort zone so I'll be calling the mechanic to check it out. We'll see what he has to say. Hopefully its not a huge deal. Like everything else, it can be fixed.

Heat Shield on and off.

I also tried JB Weld to hold the heat shield on the brackets that bolt on to the turbo. I didn't think it would work, but what the heck. If fell off after a few days. I need to get access to a welder or find a way to bolt it together.

Suspension still high
I installed coil spring compressors on the front end of the car recently. Although the spring was 1 inch shorter, it didn't lower the ride height of the car at all. I posted my results on the Corvair Center forum and the basic answer I got is that I need to cut off 2 coils of the spring. They say it can be done while still in the car. That's a little scary to me, and I don't have the cutting torch needed so it may take a little while before I do this. I will probably call my mechanic and have him do it. We shall see.

I still have yet to put on the speedometer. I have that fear of pulling the steering wheel off. I just need to suck it up and do it!

New Motor Mount installed



It wasn't too difficult to do and it was badly needed as you can see from the photo of the good and bad mounts together. My one snag was that whoever put the mount on before me used an SAE nut and a Metric nut to hold the engine to the mount. I had made one trip to pick up some deep SAE sockets, got home, pulled one nut off and then had to go out again to pick up Metric deep sockets. While I was there I picked up some new matching nuts to hold the whole thing together. Aside from that, it was a little time consuming. I had to jack up the engine so it wouldn't fall when I removed the old mount and then I had to jack it up some more to meet up with the new mount which was much higher. The bolts on the mount didn't even come close to going through the mount holes on the engine until I jacked it up a bunch more. The mount compressed some once the engine weight was on it, but it is definitely sitting higher than it was which is probably a good thing.

Time for preventative Maintenance

Well, now that the car is running well, I think its time to think about a few pending repairs that were put on the back burner while the car had a hard time running. First thing is the rear motor mount. It is definitely in need of replacement. The process looks pretty easy. I need to jack up the engine so that the pressure is off the rubber part of the mount. Undue the bolts and replace. Its definitely something that should be done soon. Time to order the part.

Most oil leaks gone

When I replaced the oil line to the turbo, I sealed the oil return line and added a gasket to the oil filler cap. Since then, oil leakage has seemed to come to a minimum. I will continue to monitor the oil. I do need to change the oil. I have the oil filter, I just need to do it.

New Wires are in!

I got the new wires today and installed them. The car is running GREAT! I took it to work today and it didn't have a single misfire. It also boosted like it used to before I got the mag wires that turned out to be bad! The new oil line is looking good, no leaks. I also fixed a leak by the turbo, so there should be less oil loss from now on. We shall see!

I think I'll drive it around for the next few days to see how it does and then consider putting the speedometer in.

New Oil Line in




While I'm waiting for new plug wires to come in I thought I'd put the correct oil line to the turbo in. The job turned out harder than it looked since the old line was wrong, I had difficulty pulling it out. I had to remove the fuel lines from the pump and the oil sensor before I could get the old line out. It turned out looking good though. You can see the new line in the picture. I also replace the pressure retard line with the yellow hose. It will match the new yellow wires that should be here in a day or so. Hopefully we'll be up and running again by the end of the week.

Not a good day for wires

I went to swap the boots on the cables today and had gotten through most of them when I managed to pull off the crimped connector that's inside the boot from 2 of them. Looking at the wire, its not hard to see why. I'm sure pulling on all of the boots stressed all the wires and the jacketing of the wire is very soft. The crimp pulled right off. Needless to say, I have a new set of wires on the way along with a note to the vender complaining about the quality of these Mag Wires. It totally ruined my day. It will be interesting to see if the new wires make a difference to the misfiring problem. I sure hope so. I'm running out of ideas.

Another possibility arrives in the mail

So Check this out. I get a package from Clark's Corvair that was unexpected. All my orders were already delivered. Inside the package are 6 spark plug wire boots. Apparently the boots that came with my newly purchased mag wires were faulty. They were made with the wrong rubber. These faulty boots could cause "Skipping and Arcing". So now I have something new to try and see if the problem was the new wires I just installed into the car. The change will probably happen this weekend.

Still no luck

I've replaced the diaphram on the carb yesterday, but I still seem to have misfiring problems. I'm back to thinking the problem is electrical. My next step is to jump to the coil so I know the wires are okay. There is a resister that drops the voltage down to 6volts. Many people bypass that resister to get extra power to spark. I may end up doing that as well.

Misfiring still a problem



I've replaced the coil, the points with an electronic ignition, the plugs. No true success with the misfiring problem. I thought I had it once or twice, but after some initial success, the car started to misfire again. After some discussion on the Virtual Vairs discussion list, It looks like I'll be pulling the carb apart again to check the pump diaphram. It seem that this rubber part dries up and malfunctions causing an overly rich mix in the engine. That rich mix causes misfiring. I've ordered another diaphram before I take the carb apart because I don't want it sitting in pieces while I get the part. This way, I'll have it apart and together in the same day. On the included picture (courtesy Clark's Corvair - www.corvair.com) the part is labeled #9. Hopefully, this will be my solution.