County98's Learn as I Go Thread

[County98]

So on to today's adventure!

Decided to just clean up some little things I haven't gotten around to yet, starting on the front of the car. First on the agenda (after coffee), was tightening up the stabalizer rod that I was waiting to do until she was back at ride height. Checked the manual and didn't see any torque spec, so I just tightened up all 6 bolt points to the "good & tight" torque spec. Little bit of a pain since I lowered the car and I can barely get the side of my big head under the pinch seam to see what I'm doing. No worries on this, easy peasy.

Next was lubing the front end. The manual doesn't list them all in the same place, but the Corvair Basics book shows you there are 8 lube points on the front. Upper and lower ball joints on both side are a given (so 4 there), and then there are 4 on the steering.

In this pic, you can see one side showing 2 of the remaining 4 spots. I left a little of the red grease there to pick them out easier.

Pretty easy there, just don't overdo it. 3-4 pumps in each fitting is probably good. I used Mobil 1 wheel bearing and chassis lube.

Next up was a quick lube of the 2 pulleys right next to the shifter. I used a small tube of White Lithium Grease and a Q-tip to get it deep into the grooves. Cleaned out the pulley's with a wet paper towel first to get the dirt and crap out of there.

Then I finally got around to taking Cad-Kid's advice and dropped the shifter for a clean and lube. This took a little longer since I kept getting a little deeper and deeper, so that's what I finished up the day with.

[County98]

This one was more interesting for me, since I've never taken apart a shifter before. While the tunnel is down and I'm slowly gettig ready to clean up the interior floor, I dropped the 4 nuts in the tunnel and the shifter lifts right out. I had THOUGHT that it wasn't bad at all, since it seemed to move easily enough in the car. Leverage works wonders I guess, because it was completely gummed up with dried out 48 year old "lube", rust, and dirt.

The floor had the shim underneath (teflon?), plate, and top plastic plate all intact, just filthy, gummed up and had ridges from rust and disuse.

Dis-assembly is simple enough, just turn the retainer inside the shifter cup until the tangs move to the open areas, and it all comes apart. It is spring loaded (not scary, but some), so I just put a rag over it and turned it until everything came free.

Now that it's apart, the fun part begins! I just very simply used a dremel with a sanding barrel on it and went over everything. Not trying to go for "pretty", just wanted everything SMOOOOOTH. I also took the opportunity to run a quick sanding on the outer cup.

The book calls for Lubriplate to assemble, but I just used White Lithium grease on every piece as I put it back together. Assembly is just the reverse of taking it apart, but the spring seemed bigger after taking it all apart. I put the shift lever in my vise and using a piece of pipe, I pressed the end down over the whole bubble and while compressed, slide the tangs back under the slots.

Purists wont like it, but my shift lever was really rusted and pitted, so with nothing to lose, I hit it with the sanding wheel as well to clean it up some.

All cleaned, lubed, and done!!

Next up working toward the back will be re-bushing the shifter rod, but not today...

[cad-kid]

Looks great! Nice job reading the manual.

[BobWitt]

Shayne - good read. We both will learn as we go, we both started in similar places, cleaning out the interior. I'm jealous of your weather, I will be challenged with the Michigan winter. Will keep an eye on your thread, I will also likely be doing the Master, brakes, lines (fuel and brake) shifter tube. Also plan to restore my Cluster over the winter. Best of luck and keep up the posting, I'll do the same.

Could you PM me your spring contacts? At this time I have 27 1/8" front and 26" rear with 205 70R 14's.

Thanks...

[County98]

Thanks for the good words guys. PM sent Bob!

[SyntheticBlnkerFluid]

You ever figure out what's going on with your brakes? When I received ownership of my '68, the brake pedal was on the floor. I pulled the master out just to check it, because why not, and found out there was nothing wrong with the master. So when I reinstalled it, I had a brake pedal up high where it was supposed to be.

I believe what happened is that the pin that is connected to the end of your pedal that goes into the master, may have slipped out and it's now resting on the lip of the plunger for the master, which is going to make your pedal sit almost on the floor.

[County98]

Hmmm, certainly something to look at. Thanks! Haven't messed with it since last post about it. Decided to move on to something else for awhile since I was getting frustrated. That would be easy enough to check though. Wouldn't even have to crack the lines, just leave the cover on and loosen up the 2 mounting bolts?

[SyntheticBlnkerFluid]

You maybe able to, but my '68 has a dual master cylinder, so there's an extra bracket for that, so I just pulled the whole thing out.

You can try not cracking the lines, but you may have to.

[Homebrew]

Just went thru this thread and remember when I purchased my first Corsa. Like you also retired AF did not agree with me so went back to work.

Some advice on the shifter rebuild... Before final assembly take the time to re-bush the shift tube. I use flange bushings from MSC and have had great success. They are brass which will last a long time as the originals were plastic and are long gone by now. After you install... take a small brake hone and just dust them followed with grease for a very smooth movement of the shifter tube. You will be glad you did this.

Could you also PM me your spring contacts? Maybe the Individual you talked to... I am in the process of another rebuild been working these cars for 30+ years just stuck on the east coast.

Steve

[County98]

PM Sent. If anyone else is interested, it's Coil Spring Specialties. http://www.coilsprings.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Ph 785-437-2025. I don't remember who I talked too, but they were very helpful and even interested in which factory spring tag code I had to improve their database for the next guys, etc. Good outfit and the springs measured out loaded almost exactly as ordered.

[BobWitt]

Shayne, where have you been? Don't give up on us?

[County98]

Hi guys! Thanks for bringing me back Bob, lol. I had sidelined my project so long, I forgot to even log in until the notification popped up in my email.

**(Skip if only interested in car stuff, lol)** Been out awhile, but I've had a lot of "life" going on. So, quick life update... Wife is now retired from Air Force also, and since my folks are both passed, but her whole family is still in Oklahoma, we put the master plan in play and moved to the midwest. Shut down working on the Corvair while we were packing up garage and house, took a couple months to actually get moved, and ended up here in Jan.

Couldn't be happier really. Vegas has lots of great food and entertainment, but we moved from suburbia to the country. Have 5 acres now, a little smaller house, and a 1200 sq ft shop. Not too fancy, but has some insulation, flow through garage doors, and a 4 car carport on the side. Love it.

Inside, still unpacking some and re-arranging as need be. Have good lighting and air set up inside and out, dedicated 100amp breaker box with plenty of outlets.

After getting Bob's wake up call, I decided to pull the girl out of the carport, uncovered her after a few months and pressure wash her for the first time in a LONG time.

I decided that I really want to mount the front seats in the car next. I want them off the floor of the shop, and will just be nice to not sit on 5 gallon bucket when I'm in there. Before I can do that though, need to get the floor scraped and coated with some Rust Bullet.

I got a lot of seam sealer out of there, but didn't dig in to the actual seams too much. Wanted to keep it sealed, but wanted to get a good look at the floor also. I also still plan on getting plenty of Rust Bullet leached into the seams and eventual dynamat. Pretty sucky job, but I'll feel better knowing what's up. Turns out I actually found another little rust spot that I hadn't seen the first time.

Hit it with a smack of white paint. Not to accomplish anything at all other than a marker so I know where it's at. Not fully done, still have the front area to do.

That's it for now. Glad to be back and I'll be catching up on everyone's threads. See you soon!

[BobWitt]

Shayne - Wow, a lot of life went on there... Welcome back!

It'll feel good to set some more progress on that project! Keep up the thread, I'm planning next winter's attack already. If you haven't spent your monthly budget from last November, you could catch up quick!

What a shop - you have some serious real estate to project within! Good luck.

[GriffinGuru]

I looks nice and solid. I'm new to the Corvair world and just purchased a 64 convert. Every time I walk into my garage in the morning the whole garage smells. In your early progress you mentioned removing stinky stuff possibly from mice? My interior looks great, but now I wonder if I need to look into some of my heater ducting for mice nests... Not cool..

[County98]

Hiya Griffin, My car was stored outside for many, many years, so the entire interior was history. All was rotted and falling apart. I would say pull up some carpet and check underneath first and maybe pull the rear seat and take a look. You might get by with new carpet and padding if it's really funky. All I can say is look around some, sniff around some. The mouse nests look like piles or wads of fluff. I had a couple in the car, some in the heater duct, and a couple in the engine compartment. But again, mine was pretty much abandoned outdoors for a couple decades.

Or you could Febreeze the crap out of it and see what happens...lol.

[County98]

Wife spent the day with her sister, so I spent the day in the shop. Got the interior pans coated. Not very sexy looking compared to some of the actual pro's I've seen around here, but NOTHING I coated today will be visible once I get the interior back together.

First the kick panels if anyone hasn't seen them. I know this is easy peasy, but I saw some stuff about coupe vs. convertible, etc. and I was starting to think it was a harder job than it actually was.

Pop the actual vent out, not held in with anything.

4 5/16" hex head screws hold the kick panel on. This was kind of irritating. After so many years, the plastic sort of sucked around the heads of the screws in a couple places, and half of them were coated in the grey goop sealer. Cleaned the edges and pulled 'em out.

Then just work the plastic and pull it out. Lots of the grey goop for sure.

No big deal. Scraped off all the sealer and vacuumed out the holes. Didn't find too much at all which was really surprising. Anything specific I should be looking for or doing in there?

I DO see that getting these resealed may be a challenge, but in 50 years I would think sealers have evolved. Maybe just some compressible rope caulk will do the trick?

I'm not sure which way I'm going to go on these, to tell the truth. I'm about 60% sure I'm going to say the hell with the vents and turn them into speaker holes for the woofer part of some nice components. Not sure yet...