random thoughts

• the horn kicks ass on this car! :P
• the radio works! The AM radio. It only plays talk radio, Mexican tunes, and Brittany Spears.
• Olivia wants to call her Christine. that way if we push her backwards, she'll fix herself.
• so far, names for the car range from Maybel and Ethel to Faith, Grace, and maybe Gertrude. 
• I'm leaning towards Faith...as in needing a lot of it when driving it... :)

"clear the driveway!"

"...I'm not sure how this is going to go."

Those are the words Jim used on Sunday when we decided today would be the day the Corvair would roll under its own power.

I spent the earlier part of the afternoon reconditioning the vinyl dash in the shade of a large patio umbrella we placed next to the car. Jim adjusted the throttle and the carb and deemed it ready for a try.

With Jim driving and Gixxer and I in the passenger seat, we giggled like mad as he fired up the engine and moved the lever on the dash to "D". With a slight hesitation, the car bumped into gear and almost died. Jim put his foot into it, and the car lurched forward! It was a herkey-jerky drive, but we got to the end of the block before Jim stopped and asked if I wanted to drive. He only had to ask once. :) We Chinese-fire-drilled it and I drove the car around the block using the same technique as Jim: steady gas until it about dies, then pump it to get it into gear.

The steering wheel is HUGE! Jim's comment was "how many cranks does it take to make a 90degree turn?". The answer is like asking how many licks to the middle of a tootsie roll. And there is a sweet spot :)

We pulled back into the driveway and toasted to our success. Jim went in to prep food for BBQ and I continued to clean. Its amazing what clean windows do for a car!

Later, our friends came over for dinner and I took them each for a spin individually (no back seat yet) taking slightly different routes each time. The last loop took my friend and I passed a group of younger guys standing outside their house, near an old Lincoln with suicide doors. They saw us crawl by along the narrow street between the cars. They stopped, turned, smiled large and gave us big thumbs up! We waved and laughed all the way back home to our smiling boys, margaritas and great BBQ.

It was a wonderful way to spend Mother's Day!

soft parts on order

Retail therapy is a good thing! Today, I ordered the carpet kit from www.auto-interior.com and the convertible top from Clark's. (Jengel did say I should just hand them my credit card afterall :) )

Next up is yet more cleaning and the application of rust killer to the floor pan. MMMMMmmmm....fumes.....

For future reference: this is a '63 Monza convertible with a '61 2.4L engine. Clark's wanted to know, so I thought I'd better log it so I could refer to it later. ;)

milestone!

Last week, I was looking through a tumblr feed and found an image of a beautiful pristine built Corvair engine. As I looked at it, I realized that the plug wires were not routed the same way we were routing ours. They didn't use the guides that were built into the block, but routed them under the belts. When I showed Jim, he said that we'd use that method until we found the right length of wires. So, the next break in the weather we had, we routed the wires so they would reach, set the points, reinstalled the distributor, and set the timing as best we could without it running.

Today, after a long great weekend, we decided to tinker with the car while the weather and the light were on our side. Jim got the starter fluid out and I turned the key. She wanted to fire! After pouring gasoline into the carb, she fired and stayed running! Woot! Jim added gas to tank and hooked up the lines and started her up. (yes, she's a girl) Jim set the timing while I continued to vacuum out the interior - with that mask I was waiting for!

After that, we tried to roll her up onto the ramps so Jim could change the oil. but the ramps just kept pushing back as we attempted to push the car up on them. So the car went up on jack stands while Jim crawled underneath to check things out. He seemed satisfied with what he saw, so he tried running her through the gears while she was still in the air. For some reason she quits running once she's in gear. Hmmmmm.

I finished vacuuming the car and shut the door. Only this time, instead of the usual solid "thunk" we usually hear when the door closes, it was a twang as the door didn't fit well. I tried again and got it closed with effort. But then I saw the large gap between the door and the quarter panel. It seems that the jack stands caused the frame to flex enough that the doors didn't close well. That was a bit of a surprise.

We took her down off the stands and buttoned her up for the night, knowing that she runs! We still have a list of things to do, but we've hit our first milestone!