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Post by PICTUP on May 22, 2023 20:06:59 GMT -8
Just gets better Russ. Looks great
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Post by Volktales on Jun 4, 2023 21:58:38 GMT -8
So it was time to finish everything in the trunk. The last thing to do was to remove the catch mechanism, and strip off all the caked on paint and rust. My big bottle of sauerkraut worked just fine. Actually the original metal can the paint stripper came in had rusted shut, and I destroyed it getting it open... Then the front turn signals decided to no longer play. I have suspected there was funkiness going on under a blob of tape over the column wiring. And there certainly was! These wires were just kinda looped together and taped up. And no that is not a long term solution. I replaced these with those fancy butt connectors that have the shrink tubing built into them. They work well, but were a victim of the dreaded "Covid tax", and are stupidly expensive now... And then time to have another once-over of the engine compartment. Thought I would recheck those points I hurriedly threw in last year, and replace them with the "good quality" versions I ordered from Clark's. You know how that ended... The original name brand points were obviously higher quality and were filed and reused. Another issue that noted was the round NOS foam oiler for the points that I installed last year had turned to crumble, and little chunks of debris were spread throughout the distributor. If any had found there way onto the points then it would have died on the road. The useless oiler was removed for now... The dwell and timing were then tweaked back to ideal settings... I also installed this new and "correct 140 HP spec" vacuum advance canister and it worked out just fine. For now, anyway... Continued...
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Post by Volktales on Jun 4, 2023 22:10:51 GMT -8
Then it was on to a little paint rectification. There was a scratch in the right front fender in the clear coat, and a bit of sanding seemed to get rid of most of this. Then various types of Dad's buffing compounds and waxes were employed. This looked good under the shop lighting, but was not good enough once outside. Going to have to try a bit harder with this... But it did finally make it outside as I took it home this weekend. Some low-life bag of scum tried to break into my Dad's old workshop where the Corvair has been stored, but luckily that ancient lock held and they did not get inside. More work required to repair and reinforce the door now... Lots of work was done to get the front end to the way I wanted it. As previously detailed, work included rebuilding the complete headlight retainers, replacing the lights, bumper, guards, bezels, "grill trim", and installing the missing Corvair nameplate. Glad that is all done now... And this weekend it was test drive time! After all the issues I had last year, I hoped everything would now be fine. And for the most part it was! The slow to response chokes still need attending to, and the transmission still shifts poorly at times, but otherwise it ran just fine at all speeds and loads. And about time, too!!! Put 70 miles on it, and there will be many more to come!!!
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Post by Volktales on Jun 18, 2023 20:35:09 GMT -8
Sooo, there were more things to do in anticipation of the upcoming show... It was time to get at removing that door panel and improving things a bit... But what things??? If you look carefully at the above picture, you can see some bright green tape peeking at you from behind the panel. And that incorrect window winder needs to be replaced... And the worn out chrome armrest base and torn armrest itself need replacing. How easy will all that be? First up is removing those window winders and door handles and for this a special tool is required. Fortunately Dad had one in his stash and this was put to good use. And this is how the tool fits in the slot and releases the horseshoe retainer clips. Easy when you know how... Continued...
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Post by Volktales on Jun 18, 2023 20:51:20 GMT -8
Four small Phillip's head screws on the bottom of the panel, and the rest are the snap in clip style retainers. And here is the previously installed weather shield plastic held on with that nasty tape... This is what GM (and other US car companies) did at the time to make weather shields. This picture shows the shredded remains of the original tar paper that was applied back in '65 on Goldie. Note how the bottom of the shield is slipped into a slot in the bottom of the door... So all the tracks and pivots for the window mechanism and locking mechanism were lubricated with Fluid Film. The door bottoms were sprayed with some Rust Check product I had lying around. And then I made up new heavy duty door weather shields. Those are not garbage bags, but are in fact Asbestos removal bags. One is all you need and they are very heavy duty plastic. And they fit right on with barely any trimming at all! Note the bottom is tucked into the slot just like the originals... And here is one I did earlier... Note the window winder is different, and the arm rest assembly is all new. It was worth a shot borrowing the correct winders from Goldie, and cleaning them up with my favourite Krud Kutter gel. Worked reasonably well, but eventually I will get better condition ones for Bluey. The rear quarter window winders were wrong too, and badly discoloured. My eye was always immediately drawn to the faded knob and it bothered me. Even my Mom didn't like it... These winders are the "safety" style introduced in 1967 and just look out of place... Much better, and now I can sleep at night... After this, I took the car down to Ladysmith to Don's place, and later a trip out to Brian's workshop. This was the Corvair's first trip outside Nanaimo and it was a success. Would it make it to the Qualicum show on Sunday??? Pictures coming...
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Post by Volktales on Jul 3, 2023 21:27:48 GMT -8
Soooo, since the Qualicum show, I have made no improvements to the Corvair, but have driven it quite a bit. Lots of fun, but now time for some more work... And this was the work accomplished. I have had the correct GM key blanks for some time, and called my friend Pat to come and cut the keys to the codes on the barrel. Pat was the guy that I acquired my '62 Beetle from in exchange for my old '67 Cougar. Pat warned me that barrel codes are not always accurate and this was the case for the trunk/glove box key. Years of experience allowed him to identify the key profile by eye, and he cut an extra practice key blank and fine tuned it until it fit the trunk lock perfectly. The glovebox lock needed to be disassembled and rebuilt before it would play nicely however. The ignition and door key is the same code and matched the barrel. These cut perfectly first time. It is nice to have smooth operating keys, as the old keys were extremely worn out originals and were notchy in operation. New keys make a BIG difference and are much thicker and stronger than the fragile originals... Next up on the Corvair is not much until the end of the driving season this summer. I am just having too much fun cruising in it to do further work at this time...
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Post by Volktales on Aug 6, 2023 19:58:55 GMT -8
Sooo, not much has happened to the Corvair lately. I have been out driving it regularly this summer, and have not worked on it since the Qualicum show a couple of months ago.... But given it was a nice long weekend, I had the opportunity to do some work in the shop. And it was time to give the Corvair a little more attention... So it was finally time to get around to changing out the dreaded chokes. And why are they dreaded? The remote choke coils are mounted to the bottom of the cylinder heads, immediately above the exhaust manifolds. The choke is dead centre in the above picture, and is attached with a small bolt (removed in the picture), and a tiny little "twist rivet". That rivet is in theory removable with a chisel, but reality is they break off. Not really an issue, as the rivets' only purpose is to locate the choke until the main bolt is installed (which also holds on the lower engine tins). The worst part was fishing out the old choke and reattaching the new one to the linkage that sticks up through the upper cooling shrouds. Tricky... And there we go. The old ones are closing in on 60 years old and are taking too long to fully open. This is an issue due to the chokes also operating lockout tabs on the secondary carburetors. Meaning the secondary's won't operate until fully warm, so no full acceleration available unless everything is fully opened... Although not shown, I finally did have a go at adjusting the band within the automatic transmission. This is on the very top of the transmission and is not particularly accessible. In reality you are supposed to loosen the locknut, wind the adjuster in to a certain torque setting, and then back off four turns. In reality getting a torque wrench up there is not going to happen. The recommended procedure is to wind in the adjuster until resistance is felt, then back off those four turns. Or do what I did, and just tighten the adjuster a half turn in from where it was. This did improve the shifting and I think I might tweak it a bit more. Obvious the really problem is wear in the trans, but adjusting it should buy me some time before rebuild comes... The only other mechanical thing I wanted to do was replace a bushing in the steering linkage, but do you think I could find where I stashed that bushing? Obviously somewhere for safe keeping...
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Post by Volktales on Oct 22, 2023 21:02:10 GMT -8
So it is my usual fall routine of juggling around cars and their parking spots as everything is switching from driving to storage mode. Bluey was taken out for one final drive for the season.... I would like to say that its final drive of the year was great, but it instead caused me a few issues. Didn't want to start from cold at first, and later liked to stall in reverse. It did neither of these things prior to installing the previously mentioned chokes, so clearly this is scope for more improvements to come. As the top of the engine is all coming apart in anticipation of repainting the engine compartment, I will have a better look at what is going on then. These four carburetors have to be adjusted just right to run properly, and I will be going through the carbs as part of the upcoming winter work... Bluey's new home in Dad's old garage for the next six months... Better get some serious work done, then...
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Post by Volktales on Dec 17, 2023 21:46:37 GMT -8
So there has been a bit of work accomplished... Darren has managed to find the time to recover my front seats in Bluey, and I quickly yanked them out in anticipation. Unlike every other car I have owned, I found nothing of interest at all jammed under the seats. Did find a couple of bumper securing nuts, but I was the one who lost them there so that doesn't count... How do you like this bit of GM cheapness? The areas under the center of the seat are not carpeted as GM saved a bit of money per car by skimping on material under the seat. Somewhat pathetic... So Darren stripped down the seats, and I picked up the frames to clean/paint them before he puts the new upholstery and seat cushion foam back together. Problems soon arose... The passenger side seat frame and springs were in near mint condition, with perfect springs and the lightest coat of surface rust on parts of the frame (these are bare metal). The driver's side was anything but... Heavy rust on the frame, and would you believe SEVEN broken springs. This seat was a complete mess, and why would that be? Pretty sure that earlier in the car's life, the seat upholstery split on the driver's side. The then owner found a matching seat from a rusty Corvair in a wrecking yard with a good cover. And installed it in the car and threw away the original seat. Not sure if that owner was a huge fatty, but someone VERY heavy crushed the hell out of the poor seat. Anything can be fixed, but I need to find a better option... Continued...
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Post by Volktales on Dec 17, 2023 22:22:58 GMT -8
All the seats still did feature their original identification tags in place, so that was kind of neat. So the good passenger seat assembly was treated with phosphoric acid and left to sit for over an hour. Virtually all the rust was eradicated by this and cleaned up well. I rinsed it well with plain water to remove the acid. No other work is needed to this seat frame. Now what about the other one... I did bead blast the other frame and was not impressed. Clark's Corvair does sell spring parts for these seats, but they are generic sections sold by the foot. Darren can also get these and crimp them in place, but I would be happier to start with a better frame. I did take a peek at the seat frame in Goldie, but no surprise, they are a tad rusty. What to do??? Then I remembered that the guy I bought the spare engine/trans assembly for Goldie, had some other Corvair parts kicking around. And I am pretty sure he had some front bucket seats in his stash... So I paid him another visit, and the seats were still there, high on a shelf in his shop. And he thought about it for a bit, but then agreed to sell them to me. Now I do not have them in my hands yet, as he has to move a bunch of things to get them down, but I am very hopeful they will solve my problem. I saw the car they were removed from, and it was not a complete rust bucket, so they might be half decent. Won't know for sure until this week. In the mean time he asked if I wanted some more extra parts like these window winders. As I had swiped them out of Goldie to put in Bluey, you just know I needed these... Already cleaned them up. Not perfect, but probably better then questionable reproductions. Turns out he has some other goodies I might pick up, including stuff for Glacier Grey... Meanwhile I had some other stuff to do. The plastic hinge covers had deteriorated, and the only way to save these is to remove the dead outer layer of plastic which is very brittle and scratches easily. I used a razor knife blade to scrape it off and this worked quite quickly. Followed up with a good sanding, then coating with some decent primer. The result is not perfect, but good enough for me. These parts are not available anyway, so they will have to work. I also blasted and primed the inner seat trims as well. They will be painted with a colour matched spray paint from Rondex. Hope the match is good... The outer seat trims are chrome and much cooler looking. Again GM did not want to fork out for more trim than they felt necessary, hence the lack of chrome on the inner side. Oh well... Anyway I hope the replacement seat frame will do the job, and hopefully will have it in my greasy hands soon!
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Post by Volktales on Dec 28, 2023 22:00:14 GMT -8
So continuing on with this... Finally got my paws on these spare seats, these being out of a 1965 Monza that was scrapped a couple of years ago. This was a Washington State car from what I was told, and was not as rusty as it could have been. So would the frames be any good under those covers? Only one way to find out... That really was not much fun at all. Took a couple of hours with hog rings flying everywhere throughout the shop during the strip down. Was physically a struggle too, but got there in the end. Don't underestimate how much time is required to redo your upholstery... A bit of prior research showed that the Corvair bucket seats are not handed, and this includes both the backrest and cushion. Because of this, I elected to use the likely better passenger seat parts and use them for the driver's side. In reality the replacement passenger seat had no broken springs so this was a bonus. I did end up blasting the replacement cushion frame, but the backrest was fine. The blasting was followed up by primer, two coats of colour, and two coats of clear. Don't want those springs to ever rust again... GM was too cheap to apply any paint at all to these parts... Cleaning and painting the four parts of the seat frame was a lot of effort. A couple of small repairs had to be made as well... There is a small diameter wire covered with thick paper that is secured to the seat. I believe Darren referred to it as "listing", and the outer seat material is attached to it. The list wire on the replacement seat had broken, but I transferred the part from the original seat with the broken springs. I did wrap the wire in hockey tape to replace the paper. I believe it was wrapped to prevent squeaks, and Darren said the hockey tape will work just fine... One more slight modification was this. The backrests are both identical, but the driver's seat has this one extra diagonal reinforcement wire added. This was also transferred from the scrap seat. The passenger seats do not use this part... All ready to go back to Darren to get the new padding and upholstery installed. Going to be sweet! One last seat related thing to do is de-rusting the removeable seat tracks. I didn't really want to pull these apart, so bought an overpriced jug of Metal Rescue, and are soaking the tracks in this pan. Had to take up space with a bunch of old Coke bottles filled with water that I just happened to have lying around for some reason... Once this is done, then back on to the '66 Beetle project. Tomorrow!
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Post by owdlvr on Dec 29, 2023 11:24:18 GMT -8
Yep. That's why I have Darren.
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Post by Volktales on Jan 7, 2024 20:44:17 GMT -8
This is the only thing done to Bluey recently. The Metal Rescue did a fine job on the seat tracks, and all of them cleaned up very well with no effort whatsoever. Just the way I like it...
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