Corvair Forum

a little bit of back ground about my new project before I throw some of the photos up....

its a 1964 500 coupe, a Californian car that was brought over to the U.K in the mid 1990's. at this point it was a very tidy car, one patch welded in the drivers floor and had been painted.

the first U.K owner fitted a hydraulic suspension kit to the car and had the interior retrimmed, new seat covers and door cards etc - a new carpet was made using horrid household carpet - which was later to be a problem....

unfortunately, due to various circumstances the car was then left outside for nearly 20 years (was last taxed / mot'd 1997) and just quietly rusted away. the previous owner advertised the car on ebay start of this year and I saw it, as it was local to me, and I had always wanted a early Corvair coupe (but to be honest, needed another project like a hole in the head), but as this one was so near I decided it was worth a punt.








whilst manoeuvring it out onto the road it quickly became apparent that the seat had fallen through the floor (it actually pulled the gearbox into reverse, then the gear operating rod fell off the gear lever, which made it fun to push,,,

the pedal box was also jammed solid, so no brakes either.......

still, we got it on the trailer and dragged it back to base!

Congrats on the new project! Good post

right, so we dragged it back to base to see what I had bought.

first job was to get the interior out - it absolutely STANK, water had been leaking in and the seats where covered in green moss, but the worse part was the household carpet, it had just held water in like a sponge and just destroyed the floor.

it was like peeling a dead sheep dragging all the horrible carpet out

the front seat came out still attached to the remains of the seat riser and the floor - GULP!

one small bit of amusement was the repairs done to the rear floors, I'm sad enough to recognise the pressing of the aftermarket floors that had been poorly welded into place - yep, they were classic mini front floors, turned around and welded in back to front



once the dead skin carpet was out we could see what was what, it was at this point that I decided just to chop the whole mess out and start again, handily enough there was a Clarks catalogue included in the paperwork that came with the car, so I ordered the four pans and set to it.

the black pipes and the large control box are for the hydraulic suspension - more of which later on...





you can see that the inners of the rear quarters are a bit foxed as well, but I'm choosing to ignore that for now.





after a bit of plasma cutting and unpicking I had a large hole where the floor was originally. very handily, although the floor and the risers where utterly shagged the outer and inner sills where perfect



next job was to start unpicking and drawing the remains of the seat risers so I could start remaking parts

front floors

once I had got the clarks floors I decided to modify them and fit them so that the floor looked more original, this was ,mainly due to my inner sills been so good (so I didn't need the sides that are included in the clarks) and the seat risers been so bad (as the clarks are designed to overlap 'good' risers.)

I bent up a 3/4 x 1" 90 and welded it down each sill to replicate the original turned down portion of the floor, this then let me fit the clarks floors so that they looked fairly original.

I also had to remake the triangle bits that fill the tunnel pan in that does under the car.

once the front floors where in I remade both seat risers - these where very difficult, particularly the rear one as I had so little of the originals - I tried to make them at least 'look' factory, but dimensionally they are a little 'open to interpretation' - however, the front seat fits and you wont see them once the carpet is in!. in the photos the front one is done, the rear one is still very much a work in progress.



my other problem was that nothing really was left of the portion of the floor that goes between the replacement clarks pans, i.e the part that goes under the seat risers. this required a bit of skill and cunning - I knew I needed a repair section that was ribbed, and been a Yorkshireman (with reputations for tight wallets!) I started to look around for a 'cheap' floor I could cut up and use.

handily enough, one of my suppliers sold the following - a ford transit repair floor....and its was CHEAP



with a bit of measuring and modifying the transit floor filled the gaps perfect, the pressings in the floor even lined up with the leg parts of the seat risers.




I'm about six weeks into it at this stage

the sharp eyed amongst you may notice that the right hand floor has been marked with a 'L' for left

this was because I knew it was for the side that didn't have the steering wheel, so that MUST be for the left hand side of the car


idiot!

You have some good fabrication skills

cad-kid wrote:You have some good fabrication skills

thankyou

I'm 'hobby trained' so move pretty slowly and stuff doesn't always go as well as I thought, but with plenty of measuring and bits of card I can get by!

I'm really envious of people who have real panel skills and all the machines to help them out!


I managed to hurt myself last week hacking the mess that used to be the rear chassis legs out, my hat got hooked up on something and as I jerked my head back to free myself I slipped with the grinder and managed to get something in my eye (I know, I know, eye protectors should be worn...)

my eye looked like the terminators all week, and is so sore that any welding or grinding is off the cards until its better...

so...



with nothing better to do I hooked the engine out and got all the heat shields off and got it all steam cleaned.

its going to have to be stripped for inspection as it smokes like a red arrow display plane

Although it looks in pretty good shape (apart for the rust..), if you need any parts give me a shout, I have a shed full here at the moment - 07703298023

doing a grand job

old Chinese proverb

'to own one corvair in the uk is stupid, to buy another is madness...'




yep, ive bought another - for spares, its been rescued out of a scrapyard and is terminally rotten, but I hope to get the body cuts I need for mine, plus all the bits and bobs

the bonnet and doors are as bad as mine, so I'm slowly building a national collection of rusty panels!

it gets delivered next week, and hopefully I can get it chopped up and parted out pretty quick

will bang some photos up when it arrives!

Is it the white with blue stripe one that sold on eBay the other day?

My mate rang me as he thought I might be interested for spares, as I have a late model and all that appeared to be left was bodywork, it wasn't a lot of use!

no, it was a yellow one that had a smashed windscreen and the bonnet had been jumped up and down on, its come out of a scrappers

I never saw the white and blue one, good job, as I might have been the owner of three of them!

Hi where are you? I might need some bits from your spares car when you have taken what you need. I am in Bedfordshire, give me a bell if you are interested in selling some bits 07899 925069. Thanks Andrew

Andrew


the spares car was a bust, its was terrible. I only owned it for 26 hours before the remains went to the junk yard.

I got the front and rear frames and all the bits, the steering, a boot lid, a rear screen, I hacked the front wings off just in case they are any use, two cardboard boxes of little bits. didn't get a single body cut out of it.

its a real shame as it was a fairly high spec Monza

oh, and I got 7 cents, 10 biro pens, two sets of gm keys and half the original south Carolina v5 - all from down the top of the dash

it wasn't a good buy - a waste of 700 quid :(

will put some photos up when I found my phone lead

Shame I need loads of stupid little bits, not easy to get parts over here.

You're working wonders with a car that many would scrap! It'll be a real joy when you take that first drive!