66 Monza Restoration project!

[mart]

This looks all too familiar, post some good shots of your window repairs, I have yet to tackle mine

[zeiss150]

I don't have a tig welder but I do have a mig... that should do the job. I'll make sure to post lots of repair shots. does anyone have any tips on window channel repair?

[zeiss150]

So... I've been doing a bunch of reading about our engines. And I think I have a rough sketch of my engine overhaul. Here it is...
1. pull the heads off
2. get a valve job and replace valve seals and guides if necessary.
3. pull the cylinders and get the outsides blasted (rust problems) paint and bore .20 over where they are at
4. buy new piston and rings for the overbore.
5. Inspect the crank and rod bearings, split case and replace if out of spec.
6 put it all back together with new gaskets and seals.
7. replace steal rocker arms with roller rockers.
8. get aluminum valve covers and oil pan.
9. switch to electronic ignition (Ford EDIS)
10. Get Electronic fuel pump.
11. rebuild carburetors or get new one's (any suggestions?)
12. New exhaust headers or stock ... I'm not sure yet
13. start engine

By the way I have a 66 110. Does any one have a setup like this? What sort of pitfalls should I look out for? Any info would be great. Thanks!, Matt-

[zeiss150]

I finally started working on the body damage. One panel at a time... right I started with the rear passenger side quarter because I thought it would be the easiest. And for once things turned out pretty good. Keep in mind I'm not a "welder" or "body man" I just do the best that I can with what I've got. The way I learned it in my auto body class was, "put in on, then take it off until the panel is razor straight." My first step was to pound out the massive dent that had also split the steel. Hammer and a 2x4... no problem. Then I decided to weld it together for strength and support... no problem. then I ground off the excess weld and now its ready for bondo glass and some more roughing in of the panel. So, pictures or it didn't happen, right?

Before...

yieks! this looks bad!

this is the dent as I got it from the PO. after sandblasting and etching primer.

After....

hammered out and welded closed

different angle

sooooo much better!

off to a good start

I also started pounding out the license plate dent... that one was really scary but ... it pounded out pretty damn good. I need to cut the welds to the coil holder so I can get a better angel to hammer our the rest of the dent I'll just weld it back in when I've got the dent all banged out... More photos you ask...

Before ...

as I got it from the PO

so sad

after sandblasting and etching primer

after a little bit of hammering ... with the right tools of course.

I hope these pictures were fun for everyone to look at. If you have any suggestions please feel free to let me know. I'm not that great at this so any "short cuts" would be great.

Thanks, Matt-

[mart]

Im afraid there are no short cuts....unless you work for Right pedal auto sales and have a rivet gun

[zeiss150]

Hi everyone.... I'M BACK! My last post was May 2012 over 2 years ago! What happened you ask? Well... Life. I also went back to school, and I graduated last week. Soooooo Now I can start doing stuff that is fun for me. I will pick up right where I left off on my Monza resto project. Yesterday I started rebuilding my dash interment cluster. It was a wreck, so I sanded and painted and now it look beautiful. I'll post some photos later tonight.

what is the best way to test all the dash lighting with the dash out side of the car? What kind of battery, cables, what to i hook them to, and so on.

Stay tuned sports fans!

[zeiss150]

Here are a few photos of my dash resto. It's still in progress, of course. Questions? Comments?

[zeiss150]

I bought 10 BA9s blue led replacement bulbs that replace 1895 stock bulbs. They are plug and play so to speak. They were $20 with shipping on eBay. So with the new bulbs I decided to paint the inside of the cluster with "silver" paint. And now the pictures...

[cad-kid]

Welcome back, nice pics!

[zeiss150]

Thanks cal-kid

I did some checking and I think I have a bit of a frankenstine motor. I took a look at my engine block and it tells me that it was made at the Towanda plant march 1st and it's a 1964 110 manual
The problem is the care came with a 2 speed auto trans and it's a 66.

So I decided to check the head casting and according to clArks. The heads are 66-69 95hp smog heads

I did a little more research and it looks like the original engine had domed pistons that made 110 hp with these heads

Without domed pistons the CR is 8:1? Can this motor be turned into. Turbo motor with the low CR?

[zeiss150]

I replaced all the stock bulbs in the dash with 12v blue led's. With painting the inside of the gauge housing silver it's nice and bright. I hooked it up to a 12v battery and I was very happy with the brightness and color. What do you guys think?

[bbodie52]

I THINK YOU ARE A MASTER AT RESTORING INSTRUMENT CLUSTERS - Better than new!

[zeiss150]

Thanks Brad! I'm no were near a master, as evidenced by me breaking the speedo needle off I'm going to start working on the body next week. Then we'll see how much of a master I am.

I also bought the book you recommended " how to hot rod your corvair engine". I'm kind of lost on what to do with the power plant. I'm wanting about 200hp to the wheels that's also an every day driver. I'll let you know what I figure out.

[bbodie52]

Getting a lot of power from an air-cooled engine that is also tractable as a daily driver can be somewhat complicated. 200 horsepower at the rear wheels sounds nice, but the costs in building the engine and in reliability and daily operation may push things farther than you might want to go. Even a stock turbocharged Corvair engine has its drawbacks as a daily driver — including relatively poor fuel mileage, a demand for expensive Premium fuel, temperamental tuning, and reliability issues if you operate it on the turbo for extensive periods of time. A normally-aspirated Corvair engine with that kind of power output may demand extensive head modification, headers, special carburetors, etc. Do you plan on racing? If you are looking at autocross or slalom, road racing, or drag racing such a highly-tuned Corvair may begin to stress your tolerance as a daily driver, and may start to become more of a weekend fun machine. Some opt for the Corv-8 approach with a mid-engine V8.

Personally, I don't realistically expect to race, but I would like a little-more performance, better fuel efficiency and more reliability. For me, a well-built short block with solid, reconditioned 140 hp heads (with deep valve seats to eliminate the possibility of a dropped valve seat) coupled with a nice aftermarket dual exhaust system, Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI) and a Distributorless Ignition System (DIS) will provide me with the street performance, fuel efficiency and reliability I'm looking for in both a daily driver and a car my wife and I would like to take on lengthy multi-state excursions (something of a GT — Grand Touring Corvair). Such a car would pull well and handle well on scenic mountain roads and would provide the long-distsance reliability I want as we travel to various parts of the country in a classic Corvair convertible.

So I would recommend carefully reading the book you purchased so that you can develop a good understanding of the compromises involved in building a hot-rodded Corvair engine. You want to tune and build to match your usage plans instead of some exotic design that is impressive and looks great but may be hard to live with. Ask questions on the Corvair Forum to clarify any issues you might have, and to give yourself the opportunity to listen to experience-based opinions. There are decades of valuable knowledge and lessons-learned that many have benefitted from over the years, and you can benefit from that too. Then carefully decide just what kind of tuning and performance building you want to do, to build an engine that will meet your intended usage. The first high performance Corvair engine I built had a hot cam, center-mounted four barrel and headers. It was a fun engine, but it was like driving a car with an on-off switch instead of a controllable throttle. It tended to run rich and the headers did not seal all that well at the exhaust port tubes, so they were noisy and tended to fire flames out of the tail pipes from time to time. Fun, except when the police were around! Gasoline was less than 40¢ per gallon, so lots of use of Premium fuel didn't hurt so much. Besides, I was only 18 and practicality didn't really apply. But now...

[zeiss150]

I think you're absolutely right Brad. As a general statement I think it's safe to say,more power = more problems. 200 hp is pretty ambitious for a Vair engine. I'm not going to race or track or anything else besides look cool with my wife in the passenger seat. So maybe 140 heads is the way to go. Once I read that book I'll have a better idea of what kind of power/ money/pain in the butt ratio I want to deal with. I already have all the parts for DIS and I would like to go with TBI.

First things first though, I need to finish the body work. I'm gonna start that next week.

Stay tuned for more photos and videos

Matt-

[zeiss150]

Just updating, I ordered Por-15 today. I'm going to coat the floor pans with it. I'll have photos (before and after) once I get it all done.

I also did a little research on what I want to do for my engine. I think this is how I want to build my engine...

Stock pistons
new cylinders
new rings
140 heads (cleaned up with a nice valve job, guides, seats etc.)
Throttle body FI (haven't figured out which TB)
new push rod tubes (and seals)
Electronic ignition (ford EDIS)
fuel and spark control with mega squirt and spark
12 fin oil cooler
I'm not sure about the exhaust just yet, but dual with a crossover sounds like a good idea
aluminum finned oil pan and valve covers
A/C unit
Harmonic balancer

Did I leave anything out? Anything sound stupid? Any suggestions?
Thanks, Matt-