1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

Exhaust system reinstalled, back on the floor, and fired up fuel pump looking for leaks, and I found one after I started it up. The driver's side secondary was dumping fuel down the throat of the carb. Found the ball bearing "needle and seat" had a sticky spot in it like I've never seen before. Luckily I had another one. It's back together and I have halfway balanced the carbs on Roger's linkage kit.
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

Got the carbs balanced, and took it for a drive to warm it up fully. Still a tiny bit of a sticky spot in the accelerator linkage, I attribute it to not locking down one of the locknuts on the driver's side primary, taking all the wiggle out of the Heim joint and preventing the passenger side primary from closing fully. I readjusted to get the bit of wiggle back and properly locked it down, should be good to go now. Threw a bit of resin glaze cleaner/polisher on the roof and trunk. Still needs a paint job. :/
Was going to drive it to work today but will wait till the temps back in the 70s to keep the driver cool.
Still have to R&R the dash again to replace the quartz rebuilt clock again, the first one runs slow and the adjustment gear seems to be a bit stripped so can't adjust the clock correctly. Clark's sent me another one.
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GasDaddy140
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by GasDaddy140 »

You have a very sugary Corvair! It is sweet!
Alan Duquette
Rohnert Park, CA
"When in doubt...Hit the gas!" A.J. Foyt.

1965 Corvair Corsa (field find) Project
1971 Dodge Sportsman "shorty" 318 van
2015 Nissan Juke S
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

Balanced the carbs a bit more and replaced the bad quartz clock with another that keeps good time and I can adjust it.. No oil on the floor under the car so far, fingers crossed. Car show this Saturday.
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

Successfully made it to car show and back, still no oil on the floor. :) 5 nice Corvairs in Function 4 Junction this year, I couldn't just say I have the nicest Corvair at this car show, glossing over the fact that often I am the only Corvair at that car show.
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

Found that I had the + side coil condenser on the - side of the coil, a bit embarrassed about that; will have to see how it runs and if it affected the timing.
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

I replaced the 50 year old stock style coil (I had a bad aftermarket Bosch and swapped it with another old coil a few months back) with a Flamethrower 1 coil with stock internal resistance. Cleaned up and moved the noise suppression condenser to the + side of the coil like it should be. I also had noticed a bit of an inconsistent idle speed with my new Roger Parent linkage system, so thought I'd look into that a bit too, since I'll be driving it in a 4th of July parade next week. IF you put it together correctly, it works great! However, I had inadvertently installed the passenger side linkage to the wrong side of the bellcrank. It worked, but it had less side to side free play then the driver's side link did. So, I moved it to the other side, effectively lengthening it. I loosened the bellcrank and adjusted it up to compensate for the effective longer length. Now the side to side play is much better.
I drove it to work this morning and after the chokes opened up, instead of the 900-1000RPM I wanted, it dropped consistently to 500-550 which is a bit too low and so I feathered it at stop lights till I got to work, and I added 1/4 turn to both idle screws. I'll take it to have a slow leaker tire looked at and see if I need to tweak the idle up more or down a bit till I'm happy. Seems to be running MUCH better with the cap on the right side of the coil and the new coil, not sure if it was one, the other or both that made it better, don't really care, cause it's better.
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

Still been struggling with the "same old same old" part throttle driveability problem. I got to looking at the rotor and cap, and even though the rotor lines up perfectly with the #1 spark plug wire tower when the timing mark is set to 0, there seems to be an issue with where the rotor is in relationship to the tower when the spark actually fires.
Follow this and tell me if I have it right:
Rotor turns clockwise, and if the plug was to fire right at top dead center, the rotor should be centered in it's travel past the relevant electrode in the cap. Advancing the timing would make the plug fire sooner, and the rotor would be somewhere counter-clockwise in it's travel TO the relevant plug tower, looking at it from the top. Say 18 degrees, for example. this would make the left side of the rotor and the right side of the electrode in the distributor cap be the closest together for the spark to jump, correct?

Well, what I am seeing is the right side of the rotor and the left side of the electrode in the cap have the marks from the spark jumping the gap, like the rotor is already past the electrode in the cap when the coil fires.
Thoughts?

This is a converted 110 distributor with the correct weights and as far as I know the correct springs, but can't tell just by looking at them.
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by bbodie52 »

I think this illustration shows what you imagine is possibly happening inside your distributor. But in a mechanical distributor, the relationship between the rotor and cap are physically locked into alignment and are not adjustable.

Image

Let’s begin by looking at what happens underneath the distributor cap of a simple mechanical centrifugal and vacuum advance ignition system. With most typical mechanical advance distributors, the weights and springs are located on a plate that also mounts the rotor.
Centrifugal Advance Weights.jpg
Image

As rpm increases, centrifugal force pulls the weights against spring tension and moves the plate, which advances the rotor in relation to the spark plug wire terminals in the distributor cap. The plate that mounts the rotor is connected to the distributor shaft that also spins the distributor cam, with 6 lobes (for a 6 cylinder engine). When each cam lobe passes by the ignition points rubbing block, it opens the circuit that charges the ignition coil, which collapses the magnetic field in the coil and causes a high voltage discharge to initiate a spark from the coil through the rotor, across the gap to the distributor cap post and on its way to the spark plug. In a standard ignition points application, the distributor cam lobe opens the ignition points at exactly the same time that the tip of the rotor lines up with the intended terminal inside the distributor cap. These two (cap and rotor) are in a fixed relationship with each other. Mechanical advance moves not only the position of the distributor cam in relation to the ignition points, but also the rotor in relation to the distributor cap spark plug wire terminal.

Stock distributors align the rotor with the spark plug terminal on the distributor cap with the engine at the initial timing position, and since the distributor cam and rotor are fixed together, mechanical advance does not cause phasing issues because as the points trigger (cam) is advanced, so is the rotor.

Vacuum advance works in a similar fashion. When engine vacuum is applied to the canister, it pulls on the plate that mounts the ignition points. By moving the plate in the opposite direction of the rotating shaft, this also advances the timing.

The main problems caused by the rotor and cap are corrosion or carbon buildup that can cause misfiring, or cracks and carbon tracks in the cap that can also cause misfiring by misrouting a high voltage discharge to a place other than the desired spark plug.

Brad Bodie
Lake Chatuge, North Carolina
Image 1966 Corvair Corsa Convertible
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

This thing is driving me cray-cray... Last Friday I started it up, had a significant miss at idle, and my oil filter started leaking around the outer seal. :( I'll have to R&R the oil filter to see if something happened to the outer seal, and maybe I have either a plugged idle circuit or the idle mixture is set wrongly. Cap looks fine inside, can't see any carbon tracks or cracks. I do have another cap though and can give that a try.
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

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After our last club meeting, one of the fellow members hit me up with trying to see if my vacuum advance is giving me too much total advance. Along with base timing, mechanical advance and vacuum advance he was experiencing the same kind of bucking issue that I have at slower speeds like residential streets 25-30 MPH with part throttle but enough to give me full vacuum advance, determined he was getting as much as 60 degrees BTDC total advance. And mine needs a bit more base timing advance than a stock 140 as it is. Once I wrangle with the carbs a bit more I'll disconnect the vacuum advance and plug the port on the carb and take it around and see how it feels. But, I'm going to do the below first.
I'm also trying to figure out why one of my carbs (driver's side primary) had a fairly significant lower fuel level in it than the other 3 after running the electric fuel pump with the engine not running until I hear all the carbs fill up and the fuel flow to them shut down.
I had all the carb tops off to have them powder coated and all the parts have been switched around and even though the levels (float drop, float level) are all identical on all 4, maybe one of the metal "needle and seats" closes more quickly than the others. I did have one recently that wouldn't consistently shut (it had a sticky spot in it you could feel) in my driver's side secondary and I had purchased 5 of them originally, so I had a go-to replacement. But, I don't have another so what I'm going to do tonight is swap the driver's side primary and secondary fuel metering valves, drain all the fuel out of them both and refill them with the fuel pump engine off and only a couple of screws in them, then pop the tops back off and see if the low level moved with the inlet valve. If so, I'll order a couple more from Clark's and keep out of the secondaries until the new one arrives.
I haven't started the car since the oil leak at the filter a few weeks back. I have dropped the battery charger on it a couple of times over the last few weeks, but things at home have been so busy I had no time to mess with the car and it was hot as blazes in my garage. The temps are cooler and I am going to get busy on it tonight after work with the carb fuel inlet valve (my new term for the "needle and seat") swap from primary to secondary.
I want to get this ironed out for good and then I can really dial in my awesome Roger Parent linkage.
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

I filled the carbs again with the fuel pump and engine off, then removed the driver's side primary and secondary. I had a look and the fuel levels between the 2 were much closer than before. I looked a bit closer and I could see one of the 2 floats on the primary was a bit lower than the other, so I re-measured and re-set the existing. I think that took care of that issue. I also had a peek at the idle circuit on that primary and I believe the idle siphon tube had an obstruction in the venturi cluster. I checked the idle screw and blew WD-40 through that circuit just fine but I couldn't see through the small hole in the siphon tube and after hitting it with some more WD-40 all of a sudden the stream was good and so I blew it out with air and put everything back together and ran the fuel pump again to check for leaks. All good so far. I will start it in the morning with someone watching to make sure the oil filter leak is a thing of the past, then strive to balance the carbs on the Roger Parent linkage, I believe there's still a bit of a discrepancy but the binding I had might have been hiding the idle circuit issue so now if it will idle well again I can get back to balancing the carbs. Good progress tonight before I got waylaid by the family.
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

I have an idle now. It's nice. Carb balance was pretty much perfect once I was able to get it to idle. I needed to tweak the fast idle tangs on both primaries as there wasn't enough throttle opening to maintain an idle when cold. I'll see how they do next time I start it cold. It does seem to have a bit less of the kicking and bucking when the vacuum advance is disconnected. It's got a lot less now even with it connected. I still had a little leaking around the oil filter, but after I tightened the bolt a bit more it seems to have stopped. Looking pretty good now in the engine compartment.
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by terribleted »

Pretty!!
Corvair guy since 1982. I have personally restored at least 20 Vairs, many of them restored ground up.
Currently working full time repairing Corvairs and restoring old cars.
https://www.facebook.com/tedsautorestoration/

Located in Snellville, Georgia
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

And now it almost runs as good as it looks! I had so many different little things working against me I was kind of chasing my tail. I think I am now very close to making it purr. Now I need to win a lottery that I don't have to pay for so I can afford that paint job. :)
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Gregory_Miller
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Re: 1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

Post by Gregory_Miller »

Vacuumed it out and replaced the dome light with an LED style. Looks as bright and will run much cooler. Has to installed correctly or no light. I touched it to the terminals in both directions just to see if it had steering diodes to make it polarity indifferent.
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