County98's Learn as I Go Thread

[County98]

Thx guys.

Dang, I didn't mean to write 30, I meant 10. I think the manual spec I saw was 7-13ft-lb.

Good catch man!

[County98]

Got a chance to work the carb issue this morning. Had some success and learned a bit more since this is the first time I've pulled the carb apart some. So always a win-win there.

I didn't want to re-disturb (Again) my newly sealed carb bases, so just left the bottom half mounted and pulled the top off.

In retrospect, it may have been easier to just pull the whole thing and work it on the bench, but I didn't. Disconnected fuel line, any linkage to cross shaft, and links between bottom and top. Putting one of those little links back on while in the car was a bit of a PITA, but got it sorted. Pulled the perimeter screws off (put a rag or something in the hole!) and popped the top.

2 screws to pull out the venturi cluster.

Carb was nice and clean, since they are rebuilds, but have been sitting for a LONG time. For the bottom half, I just made sure everything looked clean without crud and pulled the idle mixture screw/needle all the way out. Blew a small bit of carb cleaner though it and GENTLY blew some compressed air through the passages.

Carb top got a good look over, some carb cleaner and some more gentle air. Also pulled the stone air cleaner and gave it the carb cleaner/air treatment. Stones go back in with the flat side with hole inward toward carb, btw. Cone side catches as much surface area gas coming in as possible.

Venturi cluster LOOKED clean as can be, but I couldn't see any light through the tiny brass tower. Also didn't have anything in the shop small and long enough to feed through there, but remembered someone said they used a guitar string, and that worked like a champ.

Ran the guitar string through the brass tubes (could see a tiny bit of light though the narrow one after. Pretty much stuck the wire though any hole I could find to clean out junk, then hosed the venturi down with carb cleaner and let it sit for a bit. I didn't notice one lick of resistance, or gunk, or anything, but could see light through it so put it all back together and started re-tuning...Again.

This time, the bulk of issues seem to have been fixed (WHEW).

My tuning steps were:

Set idle mix screws by running them full in to a light stop, then backing both sides out 1 1/2 turns.

Set idle speed screws by (You need 3 hands for this...I only used the 2 I have and it was irritating) holding the butterfly full closed, while also holding a slim strip of paper between the screw and the stop, and ALSO tightening the speed screws until they just hold the paper, backing off a hair until paper releases, then turning them both in 1 1/2 turns.

Make sure everything is hooked up, get the car started and running. I had to turn both my speed screws in another 1/2 turn for the car to run on it's own and fully warm up.

After fully warmed and still running, I disconnected the choke rods and the driver carb from the cross shaft. My idle dropped a little, so I knew I had to adjust the link to the cross shaft as well.

Put the Uni-syn on the left carb by opening up the air flow dial, holding it tight and dialing down airflow until the red bobber was in the middle of the range. Without touching anything, moved it to right carb and adjusted idle speed screw a bit until the bobber popped up to the middle as well.

At this point, they were fairly synced but idling high. Turned out the idle speed screws the same amount on both sides, rinse and repeat.

Once I got the idle under 800, I disconnected and plugged the vacuum advance line to the distributor with a golf tee and set the timing.

**Caveat-I'm using Seth's Stinger distributor, so no points to set for me**

Set the base timing to 18 degrees BTDC (Corsa range is 16-20), and re-adjusted the idle a balance one more time.

Running much better now. My idle is at around 750 though. I have some massaging done all through the motor and heads, and ISKY 270 cam, so idle was bouncing around a bit. Manual call for 600-650, but that seemed like on the verge of dying, so left it alone. I may do some vacuum guage tuning to set the idle mixtures better, and if that smooths it out even more I can drop it down another hundo RPMs.

Hooked back up the chokes, no change, so all good there. I just left it run and slightly lengthened the heim joint link on the driver carb to attach to cross shaft without changed run speed. I also have the Roger Parent linkage, so YMMV on that.

[County98]

Also re-did my throttle linkage adjustments. Did it a little red-necky, but seemed to work out okay. Only 2 adjustment points, one at trans and one in engine compartment.

I did NOT put pedal all the way to the floor, I don't have any carpet or anything in there yet, so put a 1/2" spacer behind top of pedal and threw my trusty brick back on it.

Now pedal is at WOT-ish, so crawled under the car and adjusted the trans spinner link until it just slid into the hole while holding the pivot just up against the positive stop molded into the trans. Adjustment #1 done.

Loosened cross shaft /accelerator rod link on cross shaft and disconnected return spring and second spinny adjuster. Cross shaft to WOT (including secondaries) and slid cross shaft link to where the accelerator rod coming through firewall was centered in hole as much as possible. Just a small slide to the left, maybe 3/8". Adjusted spinner to meet the cross shaft link at about the factory angle, tightened link and put the washer and spring back on her.

[County98]

Okay so 2 steps forward wouldn't be any good without 1 step back, so had a couple issues surface now that she will run pretty well.

Issue #1-- was easily resolved and my own fault, of course. I had no Gen/Alt light with the key on. I had replaced all my dash lights with LEDs a while back, but never noticed the lack of that light. After researching, I found the magical nugget of truth posted years ago by 66Vairguy. You can use LEDS ALMOST everywhere, EXCEPT that one bulb. I did a quick swap with the old incandescent and viola'...Gen/Alt light came back to life. Easy fix that I probably would have spent most of the day chasing since I KNEW my new LED bulbs were all good...

Issue #2-- Pretty sure I have a bad thermistor. My gauge LOOKED dead, and would just lay under 200. I popped off the thermistor lead at the head and jumpered it to ground. Gauge instantly went to full deflection -600ish.

SO...bad thermistor? I don't want to spend $200 for a replacement if I can help it.

Issue #3-- I had a disconcerting metallic clinking sound coming from the driver side of the motor. After a near heart attack that it was something internal, I thought maybe the tailpipe was lightly banging on the body. After crawling around some, it was coming from the exhaust...inside the exhaust. Pulled the muffler back off and that stupid little "baffle" had come loose and was rattling around in the collector. Said screw it and pulled both sides, pulled out the baffles and put it back together in full "obnoxious mode" for now. IF I were to re-install them, I will probably drill a couple more little holes so not so restrictive and tack weld them in place.

Lastly-- while I'm very happy to have made good progress and will leave tuning alone for a bit, the driver side sounds slightly different at the exhaust. Very hard to explain, but note sounds "sharper", almost like little decel pops even though it's just idling. Any ideas? Mixture maybe? Something else I screwed up while having the carb apart?

Thanks guys, I couldn't have got this far without all your help.

[County98]

Found a nice graph on here posted by Brad, so decided to check out thermistor as much as possible before giving up on it.

So, top post would just spin and no reading at all on the gauge while it was installed. Pulled it out and if I lightly compressed the thermistor without the weight of the wiring hanging on it, I could get a reading. At room temp it was pretty high, in the 5k ohm range. But better than no reading.

Let the games begin...

ntc curve.JPG (39.03 KiB) Viewed 441 times

Wife wasn't terribly happy that I confiscated her air fryer for troubleshooting, but it heats up quick to 400 degrees and it's small, so hopefully fairly accurate.

Fresh out of the air fryer and I got 230 ohms, which isn't right on the money, but in the ballpark.

At this point, I'm hoping that keeping it compressed will keep it alive long enough to be usable until the money fairy drops off an extra $200 under my pillow.

LIGHTLY compressed in the vice, ran down the nut so there would be some surface area to cling to and put some high temp JB Weld on with a q-tip. Just left it alone to cure up in the vice for a day.

Put it back in the car and realized I needed another spark plug sized nut for the wiring. Went to ACE and after MUCH searching, finally found one!

Certainly not very elegant, but that's okay too. Not sure if it will hold or work under heat and vibration, but I'll give it a shot.

[County98]

Had some time to kill, so decided to start on something a little more fun and gratifying. Acquired a street yenko lid awhile back from someone on here, but don't remember who. I do remember that they were great to work with and had no issues!

Not cleaned up, repaired, or flapped, but wanted to do a test fit first to see what I was dealing with. The fit is actually very good, but haven't tried to put a latch on it yet. Still needs blasted and cleaning up.

Blasted and painted the support the other day, so gave it a whirl. Not sure how many different molds or styles exist, but this one is all fiberglass with factory-ish support areas. Very happy with it.

Rear fit and flushness is pretty good as well. Good enough for me.

I do have a 1/2" gap at the grill side that Mike Stillwell clarified. Since the fiberglass tends to be thicker that the metal at the joint, needs a little more space for clearance. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with that yet, but a strip of rubber weather stripping, may work there.

[County98]

Last thing for the day. When I got my resealed trans/diff from Bob Coffin, I also got a new backup switch that has been wrapped and carefully protected in a little jar all this time. I guess the little prongs are somewhat tender, so didn't want them broken off.

Didn't snap a pic of it on the bench, but the inserted side is just a plunger that gets depressed inside the trans when you hit reverse.

On a '66, it's on the drivers side toward the top of the trans. You can see the little prongs.

My switch connector had been hanging loose for decades probably, and was full of gunk and crap. Luckily not dry rotted though, so that coat of grimy oil did some good after all.

Cleaned it up with brake cleaner and q-tips. (I keep a box in the shop, btw. You'd be surprised how useful they are.)

Grabbed my dremel with the needle point that I use for cleaning up wiring sockets and...cleaned up the wiring sockets. You can see the fresh copper for making solid connections.

That's it. Little finicky getting the pins lined up, put then snapped the connector over the switch. edge fits over like an O-ring making it weather, oil, and garbage proof. In theory. I did my connector going up and wiring stowed out of the way. It's just a simple contact switch, so orientation shouldn't matter.

Again, I know this stuff isn't rocket science, but these are all things I think would be helpful to other newbies with some visuals.

[RexJohnson]

Do you have the ball bearing for the switch? There is a 3/8" ball bearing that goes in the hole before the switch.

[County98]

Ugh. Didn't know that, lol. Guess I need the manual open for everything!

Bob had shipped it to me with a dummy switch installed, and it was a little touchy getting the threads started like the plunger was trying to push off to the side. I'm going to assume that the ball bearing is already there, but I sure didn't know about it!

Thanks, and good looking out! Will it hurt anything if I'm wrong?

Plunger on dummy switch for posterity.

[RexJohnson]

If the ball bearing is not there then you won't have back up lights. So if they work you are good to go. If they don't work then do some trouble shooting before assuming that the ball bearing is the problem.

[County98]

Been fighting with the car for the last couple days. Tried to get clutch adjusted, shifter/shaft adjusted, and belly heater duct in. For some reason, none of them are going easy. Still in the fight though!

Did finally get the clutch sorted. I worked on it for a couple hours, reading the books, reading the threads, etc. For some reason I hung up on the importance of the 7/8" clearance, and for the life of me, couldn't get it to work.

It's because I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box. Once I put down the 1965 shop manual and picked up the '66 shop manual sup, it all came together. Followed the steps exactly, and have a decent clutch now. Funny how that works...

First thing I was doing wrong was trying to start with the clutch rod side, even though it works for others, Starting with the clutch cable worked better for me.

'66 calls for 3/8" clearance, NOT 7/8' that I had been trying to get for a couple hours. So the clearance bit was a little tough to judge since the reference of the crossmember is a couple inched above the plane of the pivot. Found out that a good old fashioned wooden clothespin is 3/8", so held that up for my reference and help the pivot there.

Next was putting 15lbs of pull pressure on the cable assembly from the pedal. Didn't have a pull gauge, but then remembered I kind of did. Went and dug through the tacklebox and pulled out the fish scale. Hooked it on the clevis and pulled 15lbs. Adjusted swivel, repeat, repeat, until I eyeballed it close enough to slide into the pivot hole.

Pinned it up. Even though the threaded rod wasn't QUITE touching the trans, it was super close. Decided to take a dremel and zap off 3/8" of threads to give me some room for adjustment later.

Took slack from clutch rod and adjusted that swivel until it lined up and done.

Seems to be functional, but after some cable stretch I'm sure I'll be doing it again anyway.

[County98]

Got to spend a stormy afternoon in the shop today. Working on getting the heater ducting all in, toe panel back on, and the seats in. Then I'll re-attack not being able to dial in reverse on the shifter again.

Didn't snap any pics of the tunnel duct, pretty self explanatory, even if it wasn't as easy as it should have been. It's been out SO long, and I've run new lines for almost everything. Took a lot of massaging to get everything to fit back up in there and play nice together. Only things I did to the tunnel duct besides pressure wash the whole thing out with lemon scented lysol, was use black duct tape to cover every joint and put a foam square where it pushes up against the rear seat little outlet elbow.

Even more painful was the defroster duct deflectors. Not 100% sure this was worth the effort, but they supposedly cut down on glare (both in and out), and stop some of the defrost air from bouncing off the windshield and back down through vents. Either way, I had them, so I put them on.

My deflectors were gone completely except for a bit of brittle cardboard and staples.

Scrubbed, painted, and stapled on new deflectors. I also put a strip of black duct tape to help the hold on the ducts, and block light through the gaps.

Getting it back up in there was a bit of a chore. Had to drop the heater controls and push one side in as far as possible, then flex the other side to get past the dash brace. Finally got it up there though.

Not pretty, but keeping with the sealing theme, black duct taped the joints to the lower duct.

Foam strip all the way around the rear tiny outlet before screwing it back in.

Re-foamed the defroster flap and foam around the control head before putting it back together.

Finally, toe panel back in place.

Didn't get a chance to fire it up and try it all out, but until I know otherwise, I'm calling the heater ducting done. I had rebuilt the heater box before in the thread, and installed all 3 new hoses from Clark's.

[County98]

The last quick-(ish) thing I knocked out was getting the dash pad on. Mine was completely toast. Cracked, dry rotted, and had one rusty side. I picked up a used one awhile back and blew the dust off it.

I re-applied heavy, thick coats of armor all for 3 days straight on the bench, and after it all soaked in, brought the pad back to life a bit and got rid of some dryness.

Passenger side was an easy install, as I have no glove compartment liner. The driver side was mildly irritating since my hands are too big to wrangle up in there very well, but I finally got it on.

6 little speed nuts go on from underneath, 3 on each side to the standoffs molded in to the bottom of the pad.

Turned out pretty good, and really helps out the look I'm working on for my 2 tone interior.

[County98]

I sold off my BMW seats a while back. Even though they were awesome for the fit, I wasn't ready to put them in and they were deteriorating in the shop. I ended up selling them to another Corvair guy who used them in an EM.

Took that cash and saved up a little more for a pair of Corbeau's. They are super comfortable and I really like the side bolsters.

Only faux pas I think I made with these are that they are a little tall. When I was measuring everything, I think I forgot to add in the height of the slider/adapters. They still work great, but come within a couple inches of where the headliner will be, so they look a little huge in scale the the 'vair. If I had a do over, I may have found some without the added headrest height, but they'll still work and I like them.

Tried to find a pattern that would at least be close to the '66 door panel style.

The adapters I got through Corbeau are close, but not exact. They're listed as for a Chevy II Nova, but sit flush on the rails and the rear bolt holes line up perfectly for the stock hardware.

The fronts though, while setting nicely, needed holes drilled in the floor. No big deal for the outboard bolts, but unfortunately the inboard bolts end up being right next to the tunnel. The tin of the tunnel needs a bit of inward massaging to get the hardware on. Also not the end of the world, but just a bit unfortunate.

Used Grade 8 front hardware with large washers to secure, and factory bolt/nut for the rear.

I'm not going to run a rear seat, but there is plenty of adjustment room fore and aft. Only other downside is there isn't a height adjustment on these like there was with the BMW seats.

[Project65]

Just getting caught up on your thread. I like how your interior is coming together. Nice touches. The seats look like they’ll be comfortably supportive. Your steering wheel and dash also look great together. I also like the dynamat covering everything. I’m likely going to follow your lead on mine. Keep the photos coming!