Corvair Forum

That's what I'm talking about Beers. Excellent

Finished up the heater. After cleaning it up and putting it back together, just touched it up with gloss black and with undercoating spray over the factory undercoating areas. Also installed a new motor from Clark’s.

The heater box assembly turned out great. When you use heat/defrost you will be pleased as well. No more heater smell and great heat when needed.
What's your plan for the motor. Rebuild or refresh?
NORM

Thanks Norm.

For the motor, probably just a top end refresh. I’m going to get a set of 62/63 turbo heads rebuilt and put those on rather than repair the bad valve on the 80hp head. Short term goal is to just get it running well with the two carb setup. After paint/body work/interior/etc., I’ll reinstall the turbo system and get that back up and running.

I am debating whether to pull a jug or two right now to check the cylinder and piston condition and see how the ring gap looks, but afraid I’ll fall prey to the “while I’m there, I might as well..”.

It’s looking very very nice and yeah you probably will do the might as well as that happen to me I’m pretty sure no matter what you do it’s gonna turn out amazing

With the quality of work you are doing I understand your comment. I also have the same affliction, once I start into something I can't stop until I have rebuilt everything. My Monza originally was just going to be a mechanical refresh, but 6yrs later a full restoration was finished. I guess I'm a tad OCD.
NORM

Thanks guys! that’s the tough thing on these vairs, a repair turns into a refresh, then to a rebuild, and then a restoration... in the end it will all be worth it, just gotta get there

Got the heater installed, and also cleaned up the tunnel. The main harness was a bit spliced and cut up at both ends so replaced it, as well as the main fuel line and the rest of the brake lines.

Beers, looking great. Good call to replace the wiring harness and brake lines while your cleaning it all up. Good peace of mind knowing it's all sorted. Looks like rebuild/refresh is getting closer to a restoration. You might as well get that spyder motor rebuilt while your at it.
NORM

Thanks Norm. Maybe I’ll at least hone and re-ring the cylinders while the heads are off. Guess it depends on how things look when I tear in to it.

Also finished this weekend putting together the control arms and getting them and the crossmember installed. Will be good to get the rear suspension and brakes all finished up.

Very cool Beers. It looks great and it's going to handle great. Are going to install new springs or use the originals, and what type of dampers? I ask because a good set of dampers on the rear in particular makes a big difference in the handling and how the car feels.
The springs in my Monza where good so I blasted and repainted the springs when I rebuilt the suspension. I did opt for KONI classic adjustables. At rest I have just over 1 degree neg camber. It feels like it's on rails around a corner.
When in doubt make it shout.

I’m going with new springs and shocks from Clark’s. Traded several emails with them about spring rates and how their different springs compare to OEM (they have a comparison table in their catalog but the different parts books and GM docs have some conflicting info on what springs came on a convertible 63 Spyder). Trying to match the original rates. Ended up going with their recommendation of a matched set. This EM definitely came originally with two different springs so I’ll see how these settle out and go from there.

You can see in the photo the difference in height between the original driver side spring on the far left and the passenger spring, with the driver side needing to make up for slightly more weight on the left side.

The stock pass spring has the full blue stripe and partial white stripe which should be GM part # 6257159. The driver side spring has remnants of a full green stripe (dark or lime?) and possibly a partial white stripe (?).



“ When in doubt make it shout.”

Nice! A little negative camber makes a big difference from what I understand.

Finally got everything back in and buttoned up. A few photos.



Had to glue the Clark’s shifter tube grommet to the original metal backing plate, it comes as just the rubber piece. You can see the end of Roger Parent’s clutch cable (the original was frayed), it’s a quality part.


Put a pipe between the axles just to stabilize the rear end to roll it around without the power pack. Probably could be a longer piece.

I just want to say what a great job I think you are doing, especially since you have only had it since June. Keep up the good work and keep posting your progress, it's motivation for others. I also picked up another corvair in late spring. I will be posting a build thread soon but your build quality and pace will be hard to match.

Thanks sparrow! It’s been fun getting these parts back in shape, though hoping to start the body work soon so this project will probably slow way down...

Just a few more photos of the shifter, and the emergency brake and clutch cable and pulleys.

My shifter had a few “custom” bends so I picked up a replacement from Jeff at Corvair Ranch. The pins had flat spots worn in, so did an easy fix by just knocking them out with a drift and tapping them back in facing the other way so the fresh side is sticking out. Easy way to improve the tightness of the shifter. Relubed everything and reinstalled.




Cleaned up the area under the interior cover. The floor has surface rust but is real solid, no holes or even thin spots, and I’ll clean it up later but figured I’d cover the area under the cables, lines and harness now so I don’t have to mess with them when I redo the floor.




Some before and after photos of the front tunnel area