.JPG)
Turbo Odyssey Part 9 -- Last Details
December 5, 2004
It's getting close to the end of the year. Time for all those last minute transactions, Christmas shopping, holiday newsletters, all those details that signal the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. For those of us in Michigan who do not have heated facilities for working on cars, it's also the end of the season for major outdoor projects.
I do have a salamander heater for my barn (last time I said that on Virtual Vairs I got a slew of comments regarding kerosene-fired reptiles) but it makes a lot of noise and fumes, and it never really gets that warm in my uninsinuated barn, so once the weather turns bad, Corvair projects are limited to those I can do in the house.
In order to have my convertible ready to drive by summer, I have to get it painted over the winter. The entire car needs to be media blasted first, and I have been disassembling it in preparation for taking it to be stripped. Today was the first time since Thanksgiving that I have had any time to work on the Vair, and I took advantage of the opportunity.
The first step was to return the barn to some semblance of order. After pulling the motor, there was a fair amount of chaos; tools left out, parts scattered around. I straightened and cleaned the place up, running a few parts through the buffer as I went.
Next I removed the voltage regulator, the shroud seal and the spare tire mount. The engine lid insulation came out, and so did the lid support. I have a suitable piece of conduit that was able to take its place. This was the last of the disassembly required for the engine compartment.
The kick panels were next removed from the car, as was the air dam in the front.
When this was done, I went in the house and recruited Jake, my oldest spawn, to come help me. We removed the aftermarket rear seatbelts, and then carefully placed them in the trash.
The next task was installing the dummy powertrain loaned to me by Dan Konkle, who is rebuilding the motor for me. It has been hanging from the hoist in the barn ever since the night I dropped the powertrain off at Dan's house several weeks ago (he has completely disassembled the transaxle and engine already). Remarkably, it balances perfectly hanging from the eye on the bell housing:
Before Jake came outside, I had attached my handy Clark's dolly to the transaxle and I supported the transaxle with a smaller jack. The need for the little jack has always been a hassle, and it would prove to be even more so later on.
Jake and I got the powertrain positioned under the car, we started raising it into place. The small jack I used doesn't have enough travel upward to push the transaxle all the way up, so I decided to lift the transaxle up and slide a 4x4 block between the jack and the transaxle.
Mistake.
When I lifted the motor the whole contraption tipped on its side. I didn't impale Jake with the head studs, but it was closer than we would have liked. Next, we tried using the hoist to lift the motor into place, since there was no shroud in the way, but this didn't work either; the geometry just wasn't right. We let the whole thing down, and then I raised the rear of the motor high enough to get the bolts started on the rear motor mount. Then I got a two-inch ratchet strap, attached the hooks to the engine lid hinges, and lifted the rear of the powertrain up high enough to get a jack under it. At this point, Jake suggested that I should take a picture, but I told him that if he thought I would be showing off this catastrophe, he had another thing coming.
We finally got everything bolted in place. I only put the two bottom bolts in for the strut rod brackets because I figure for the top two aren't critical for just rolling the car around the shop. I had to drill out the U-joint straps because evidently this differential is from a '66 or later car; it did not have the smaller bolts used in '65.
With the motor in, we dropped the car back down. She sits a bit higher with so many parts removed.
Here are a couple of pictures of the dummy powertrain in place:
All that is left now before the car goes for media blasting is to pull the windshield out of the car.