We went to Albany where a man who inherited his father's Corvair parts business had almost every piece we needed. We left with a rear seat in better condition than mine, wiper blade arms, badges (yes, I need the stinkin' badges), interior door and window handles (the chrome in much better shape than mine), and sun visors! Woot!
We got home and started directly in to cleaning up the floor pans. It took an afternoon to scrape and wire brush the rust out and clean up the pans. They looked great! While I painted the floor vent grates, Jim applied rust neutralizer to the entire floor.
Later, he installed sound deaden-er to the rear seat area and then we went to work installing carpet! She looks so much better now! We bolted in the seats, the sun visors and the wiper arm, and everyone hopped in for a spin around the block.
I applied the brakes before I started the engine...nothing. The pedal went immediately to the floor with out any resistance. Jim set to bleeding the brakes. After much pumping and holding and pumping and holding and, well, you get the idea...it turns out that we blew a rear slave cylinder. Fluid was all over the parking pad.
No joy rides that night.
Another weekend passes and we had the brakes rebuilt and the new shocks that Jim gave me for my birthday installed. Now we could take her for a ride! And it was sunny! So I took her down to the DMV for tabs and title.
She didn't run well. Coughed a lot. Had to pump the throttle to get her to really go somewhere and not just chug along. But I was driving her! And she made it :) With a new paper license plate in the glove box, I headed to school to pick up Olivia. This was the first drive I took with her on the freeway and then up Newberry road and Skyline. I thought that maybe she needed an Italian tune up.
She did ok on I-84. Kept a good pace with traffic and didn't need a lot of coercing. Steering was scary. Brakes were more so. I learned to pump them up before needing to use them. Uphill to Skyline was an event. She didn't want to downshift, so going was slow. Luckily, the speed limit is around 10mph any ways.
We ended up at a VW bus group meet at the Lucky Lab. I could attend because the Corvair is not only air-cooled and has a rear engine, but she's cool :) They all came out to oggle and to look at the engine to compare to the VW - LOTS of similarities. Jim met up with us there and took questions. I took him for a spin around the block to show him how she was acting. He said we had a vacuum leak and he knew how to fix it.
Olivia and I drove home in the evening air, waving to our friends on the way home. Jim was our escort in the truck just in case something went side ways. That loose steering still creeped me out on the rut-filled interstate. But we made it home and toasted the day.
Later, Jim and Olivia worked on the vacuum leak and rebled the brakes. Now the brakes are awesome but the carburetor that came with the car is too big and so it still runs poorly. I took the Corvair to meet a friend for after work beers, and she barely made it to our destination. Once again, Jim escorted us home with the truck and a tow strap at the ready. It was literally stop and go on the way home - more like die and go. Jim's photos on Facebook tell the tale.
The carb kit for the new carb came in the mail over the weekend. Carb surgery is next on the list.
