1965 Corsa clone, but a sweeeeeet one

[Gregory_Miller]

Drove it to work Thursday. And, once I got home, I removed the glovebox "corsa" emblem that had cracked between the R and S.. and replaced it with one I got from Marco of LA.

[Gregory_Miller]

Took the missus and kids on her birthday to a local Sushi place on Sunday, then to the neighbor's grandson's birthday party. Great day for a drive.

[Gregory_Miller]

Added some more base timing, car is running SO much better...but I'm still going to lose the carbs for Ray's EZ-EFI adapters as soon as I can afford them. Done nothing but drive if for all of the rest of August...NW Art and Air festival car show, 2 place LM coupe, *yay* Drove it to work last week and today, but temp go back up into upper 90s tomorrow, I'll go with my air-conditioned car then.. went out to the Crow, Oregon high school car show Saturday, didn't enter but was another flimsy excuse to drive it, ran great all the way out there and back, then drove it some more Sunday, and like I said, to work today.. I'm going to change the oil soon and then enjoy for the rest of summer/fall before dropping powerpack for clutch and powdercoating of all engine tins, and getting my new plug wires for the DIS.

[Gregory_Miller]

Long time no post...
Other things had been on my plate including a fondness for Star Wars costuming, and the Corvair kind of took a back seat for a while. I still drove it, but not as much as I'd like. So, I took it to an expert Corvair mechanic and long-time CORSA member Rex Johnson, and we have been ripping it up. Found at the minimum a cam timing problem and possibly a big cam timing problem. Everything else inside looks good, so this weekend I hope we have it buttoned back up and running better. Along with the engine tear-down we degreed the cam, and found a 140 PG crank gear instead of the standard gear. The degreeing actually took place with a standard crank gear, pretty much verifying the specs that were on the Isky tag that came with the cam. It's also possible that this cam had the vague timing mark on it and that could have exacerbated (sp?) the cam timing problem. That will be verified against a known good cam gear's timing mark.
Along the way, added a dual master cylinder and 2 new wheel cylinders for the front.
Removed the shifter shaft, verified it's nice and straight, and cleaned out the 35 year old grease (since it's last restoration) and re-lubricated. It's like butter now. Having a little trouble finding reverse, but I think that will clear up once the transmission is back in. :P
Cleaned and lubricated all pulleys for clutch and E-brake. Re-wired a relay to run Facet fuel pump on it's own dedicated power supply.
Getting a pair of Corvair Underground's Urethane lower control arms, as the bushings in mine were shot. Had nylon, was going to use them on inners, but since all were gone went the other route.
Purchased 2 new transmission mounts, the original 50 year old ones look pretty bad.
Added the missing glove box switch and lamp, eliminating the taped-over exposed electrical connector.
New clutch pilot bushing, throwout bearing, input shaft seal (or seals), clutch disk even though the one coming out still has a lot of "meat" to it.
Probably get a set of driver-quality 66-69 wheel well trim from him.
Got the engine tins power-coated as well.
And, pics or it didn't happen...

Engine on it's way out. Rex cleaned and painted that nasty rusty fan bearing hub.

Degreeing time! Fat 280 cam, 140 PG crank gear, plus possible additional cam timing issues not a happy combination at low RPMs.

Looks pretty good in there. Crank was balanced, Cam gear was set screwed, rods shot peened, forged pistons, total seal rings.

The last picture is the first one taken, before we started. Should be back on all fours by end of day Monday at the latest. Hope to have it running on all 4 carbs as well, just using the primaries currently.

[cad-kid]

Nice update

[Gregory_Miller]

Oh, and I forgot to mention, we had it timed at 40 BTDC to get it to run "ok" before we started, (and little pinging) so hopefully it will be closer to the stock 18 BTDC when we are done. With the cam and ported heads, etc I expect we should be around 21-22 BTDC.

[thewolfe]

Good to see your corvair getting some love. It's going to be like driving a whole new car once you guys are done!

[Gregory_Miller]

Looking forward to finishing it this weekend! Loaded up my engine tins and new tranny mounts for an early take-off Saturday morning.

[Gregory_Miller]

Sunday night report...
We got it running on an engine stand today, still wasn't right. Thankfully, a good fellow had us check the coil output... D'oH! it was junk! Now with a replacement coil, it lopes along nicely at 650 RPM and when you blip the throttle, it's responsive, but we couldn't do too much while it was still on the stand. That's at 16 BTDC instead of 40.. That's pretty cool. We uncorked the secondaries and got them filled with fuel, all linkages adjusted, should be a kick in the pants to open them up!!
Engine and transaxle are back where they belong, still have to grease the new U-joints, install the exhaust, and probably R&R the shifter again, as it's a 65 and it has a 66 transaxle in it, and it's a couple of inches longer. So cut a bit off the end of the shifter tube and split it like it should be to clamp on correctly. Make sure the new dual-circuit brakes are all copacetic, maybe some more minor adjustments, and it should be good to go! Looking forward to it running like it should...

[cad-kid]

Good progress

[Gregory_Miller]

OK, it's home! It still has a bit of a vacuum leak I'm betting is on the driver's side carb area, it has a chirp that wasn't there before. We had checked for leaks before replacing the coil. So, I'll do that again. I still also need to do a minor clutch linkage adjustment, take up a little free play in the pedal, and the gas pedal seems closer to the floor than before, check the linkage at the differential, and we ended up not cutting anything off the shifter tube, it is so smooth and so much easier to shift now that it's cleaned and properly lubed. All the brake adjusters weren't working correctly, now they are, stops great with the new dual circuit master. Lubed all the new U-joints, they had some grease in them but needed topping off, along with the clutch pivot.

[Gregory_Miller]

Took out the Corsa balance tube and re-installed the original balance tube minus the vacuum gauge port (with a nice quick coat of silver paint so it looks good) so I can get the Corsa tube powder coated with silver. I also found a 12 plate oil cooler cover so I'll get it powder coated 70% gloss black like most of my other tins. Still have the outlet door tins to do, should have bit the bullet and did them with the others. Anyway, fixated on a potentially bad compression fitting as the source of my vacuum leak, turned out it was not so. After starting up, chirp was still there, so I came around the back and it was clearly coming from the passenger side primary. Pulled it off and to my dismay (and also joy cause it was an easy fix) I found part of a torn carb base gasket still stuck to the base of the carb!! Came off easy enough, and once I re-balanced the carbs as the driver's side was doing most of the work, nice, lopy idle at 700 RPM. I think I'll drive it to work tomorrow to see how it feels. Even better,I bet... It was close with a pretty good vacuum leak, I can't wait to try it tomorrow!

[Gregory_Miller]

I drove it to work today, and it's performing the best it has in the 4 years I've owned it. Still need to make sure I don't bake the "new" coil with excessive voltage and adjust the accelerator linkages so I get the nice consistent drop to 650-700 RPM with that nice lope. I'm SO pumped at the way it's running!

[Fast Eddie]

Super glue that Corsa glove box emblem. It will be good as new!

[Gregory_Miller]

Glove box emblem is ancient history, already replaced. :)

[cad-kid]

It's great you could drive it to work