I just recently brought a 1965 corvair that has been sitting up for 15 years the car is in good shape but I was told to.

[Michael]

[Michael]

Drain the gas before trying to start the car

[acarlson]

Drain the gas before trying to start the car

Much more then that !!

There are many topics on the forum regarding things you need to do before starting a car that has been sitting for a long time. Do a search and read up on that before you turn the key.

[bbodie52]

Welcome to the Corvair Forum!

Removing your car from storage/Reviving a Dead Corvair
Post by Scott H » Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:49 pm

Great article written by Larry Claypool

Removing Your Car from Storage
Larry Claypool
Chicagoland Corvair Enthusiasts

Storage of cars always presents problems. Aside from the cost of procuring a storage place, the most troublesome aspect of not using your car is fixing all of the deterioration that occurs from disuse. Having had plenty of experience in this field (“It’s been in the garage for three years now, do you think you can fix it?”), I offer these suggestions for putting your Vair back in service, whether it had been sitting for four months or four years. First off, plan on spending the day with your Vair to get reacquainted. After all, you can’t expect it to jump out of hibernation without a little coaxing.

Let’s start with the engine. If the car has been parked for a half year or less, there should not be any problems due to rust (unless the car had been parked in the swamp section of your yard or the engine lid left open).
If the car has been left untouched for longer periods, however, it is advisable to take the following precautionary steps.

Step 1
Put a wrench to the crank pulley to see that it is not locked up. If the engine won’t turn over, remove the spark plugs and squirt liberal quantities of penetrating oil into the cylinders and down the carbs (leave the plugs out). Let it sit a day, at least, then try to turn the crank again (do not use the starter). If the engine still does not turn, go directly to Step 2, repeat the penetrating oil transfusion, then try the starter. If the engine frees up, cease cranking immediately. Turn the crank bolt with the wrench at least four full turns to check for stuck valves. Should you find the engine won’t complete a full turn (goes 1/2 of the way around, for example), remove the valve covers and squirt the valve stems with penetrating oil. With the crank halfway between where it stops, tap all the rocker arms (at the valve end) with a light hammer to see that the valves all move. Sticking valve(s) will not snap back. Dose it liberally with penetrating oil, and if it is an intake valve, dump some down the carb on that side. Rock the crank lightly back and forth against the stoppage point, tapping the rocker arm at the halfway point each time. Continue to rotate the crankshaft until several turns can be made without binding. If the engine did not free up at all, might as well plan on a rebuild. Even though you might be able to free a badly seized motor, the end result is usually not worth the effort. Rusted cylinders and rings never recover, resulting in excessive blowby and oil consumption.


Step 2
Change the oil and filter if you didn’t change it before it was parked, or it you had to use penetrating oil to free the engine. Next, remove the distributor cap, note the position of the rotor and the distributor housing, then remove the distributor. Special tools are made for this step, but you can also use a long bladed screwdriver on the end of a drill. Engage the blade to the oil pump gears down at the very bottom of the distributor hole. With the drill in normal clockwise rotation, run the drill for 20 seconds or so to get oil through the filter, cooler, and bearings. This prevents damaging dry start conditions that will make its first start its last one. When re-installing the distributor, check the points to see that they have not corroded (as they will from sitting), and that they are gapped properly (about 0.016²). After the car is running, the points should be checked again, and reset if necessary with a dwell meter to give 32 to 34 degrees of dwell. Line up the rotor and distributor housing the same way they were when you removed the distributor, and re-install. It may be necessary to turn the oil pump gears a bit to let the distributor seat all the way down.


Step 3
Check the fuel system. Is there any gas in the tank? Or did it all evaporate or leak out a new rust hole or cracked hose? Gas leaking from tunnel covers underneath is a dead giveaway of rusted out gas lines in the tunnel. Check the gas pedal to see that it’s not sticking (your engine doesn’t need 6,000 rpm when it first starts!). If the pedal sticks, curable by removing, sanding, greasing, and re-assembling the gas pedal and support. By loosening the fuel pump retaining bolt and nut, the fuel pump can be pushed up and down by hand to fill the carbs without cranking the engine. After the carbs fill up, watch for gas coming out the carb vent holes. If it does, you have a stuck float—tap the carb top with a hammer to unstick it. Work the gas linkage to check for a nice, strong accelerator pump discharge in the air horn of the carb. If no accelerator pump action is seen, then plan on disassembling the carb to replace the pump plunger or, better yet, put in a whole carb repair kit. Occasionally, the pumps come back to life after being submerged in fuel a few hours, so you may want to delay the rebuild a day or so.


Step 4
Assuming you have gotten this far, pop in a nice, fresh battery, making sure the cable ends are clean and tight. With the carbs full of gas, it should start up with no problems, although the lifters will no doubt make quite a racket. If you’d oiled up the engine before shutting it off prior to storage, it will probably let out quite a puff of blue smoke, too. Just let the engine run awhile (don’t get rev-happy), and it’ll quiet down and clear out. After the engine is running, check the fluid level on the Powerglide and add as necessary (some fluid probably leaked out of the shifter cable during torque converter drain down). Manual shift cars should also be checked for fluid level in the transmission and differential, as some may have leaked from the transmission selector shaft seal. 1964 and ’65 have a dipstick to aid in the check, but you still have to get underneath to fill up the transaxle if it is low. Now that it is running like a million bucks, you’re ready to floor it off down the road, right? Not so fast. Another area of your Vair that takes a real beating while sitting is the brake system. Hop into the driver’s seat, grab the steering wheel, and stomp on the brake pedal. After you stomped on it real hard, try it again, even harder. This obviously is the hard-harder test. What we are looking for is rusty brake lines. Oh sure, they may seem OK driving around the block, but what if you had to really stand on the brakes, say if a ’66 Chevy veered out in front of you? I’d rather blow out lines in my driveway than wear Tony Barretta’s rear bumper! If your car has been sitting only a few months, the hard-harder test and check of the brake fluid should be all you need.
Vehicles in storage longer, though, should go deeper into the brake system. Pull off one drum at a time, and have someone push slowly on the brake pedal as you observe the wheel cylinders. Both pistons should move out. No action, or only one piston moving, signals time for a rebuild or replacement of the rusty culprit. Before reinstalling the drum and checking the next wheel, how is the drum? Rust on the braking surface tends to collect and glaze the brake material rather than wear off the rust.
When checking the rear brakes, have someone pull up on the parking brake, then release it. The brake shoes should do likewise—expand and then pull back. No movement or sticking would indicate a frozen rear parking brake cable. Surely little is more embarrassing than yanking up the parking brake the first time and not being able to drive away later.


Step 5
The final tip on getting the car running for the summer is to check the fuel filters in the carbs to see how they look after a few days of driving. If they are all full of rust and crud, chances are all that junk is .from the gas tank. The best method is to pull out the tank and have it flushed out, or if it really bad, install a new one. At this time, the strainer on the end of the gas tank sending unit should also be replaced. Although some people try to get away with just blowing out the lines and installing an in-line filter, the inconvenience of “gas-outs” and innumerable filter changes would seem to make doing it right the first time more attractive. Hope these tips lead to a fun, and faithful, summer of service
from your Vair!

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The Corvairs are vintage 1960s technology and design — easy to learn and easy to maintain. I would say that learning to work on a Corvair is analogous to an experienced home DIY "shade tree" car mechanic learning to work on a motorcycle. The concepts and procedures are very similar, but the details and the way it is put together is a little different. With the Corvair engine (like a motorcycle) you are dealing with a lot of aluminum. The metal is soft when compared to steel and cast iron, so the use of a torque wrench, anti-seize compound and carefully avoiding cross-threading becomes more important. Also, (like some motorcycles) you are dealing with multiple carburetors so tuning procedures are a little different. The use of Corvair shop manuals and supplements, other technical guides, and information sources like the Corvair Forum, and perhaps joining a CORSA (Corvair Society of America) club chapter can help you to quickly learn about Corvairs. Information resources, like good Corvair parts suppliers, are plentiful if you know where to look. Suppliers like Clark's Corvair Parts have been well-respected and extremely supportive since 1973, and suppliers like that make Corvair ownership more practical and much-more possible. I taught myself how to remove a Corvair powertrain, overhaul the engine, and rebuild the Powerglide transmission during my summer vacation in 1969, when I was sixteen years old. I was working alone (my father had been transferred by Lockheed from northern California to southern California, and we had not yet moved to join him). I had a shop manual and a garage full of tools. There was no Internet, no Corvair Forum, no CORSA club — I was pretty-much on my own. Yet I learned and was successful (in 1972 that engine carried me and my new bride on our wedding day and on our honeymoon).

So you should be able to master working on Corvairs without too much trouble — except watch out for rust and body rot! The Corvair is of unibody construction, so most body repair involves cutting and welding. The doors, trunk lid (in the front) , and engine compartment lid (in the back) and maybe the gas filler door are the only bolt-on body components. Everything else is cut and weld, and the body serves as the main chassis frame. So unless you are a master body repair technician, you need to select your Corvair carefully and avoid excessive hidden rust or a "Bondo bucket". The door frame areas, fenders, floor pan, the bottom of the trunk, lower windshield and battery area often rust and rot.

I would like to encourage you to expand on your post and tell us more about yourself, as well as about your Corvair. Your personal assessment of your mechanical skills and abilities would help a lot. Members of the Corvair Forum love to be helpful in assisting other Corvair owners with technical support and advice, but it helps if we have some understanding of your technical background and mechanical abilities, your Corvair-related knowledge, etc. Helping us to know more about you, your Corvair, and you plans for your Corvair will help us to write comments to you that are tailored to your needs and experience. Knowing where you live also helps, as your location may suggest some possibilities or solutions. Detailed photographs of your Corvair, including interior, trunk, and engine compartment would be great!

The link below will provide you with a list of useful websites that are Corvair-related. Some of the links will lead you to an extensive technical library that will allow you to download shop manuals and other technical references in Adobe Reader (.pdf) format at no cost. There is also a link that will help you to locate nearby CORSA (Corvair Society of America) club chapters. While the Corvair Forum can be very helpful as you work on your Corvair, having local friends and contacts in your region who are knowledgeable about the Corvair can also be very helpful. These family-friendly CORSA club chapters often offer picnics, group scenic drives, technical training and assistance, car shows, and competition events that can greatly enhance your enjoyment of Corvair ownership. You will also find a list of essential Corvair parts suppliers.

Common and Useful Corvair Websites

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I have attached some sections of the 1965 Corvair Chassis Shop Manual (to help if you don't already have a copy). When I doubt, please ask!