MONZORA: a 1965 Corvair / 1994 Corvette mash-up for the 2019 Challenge

In reply to poopshovel again :

I like crayons . They make good touch up paint .

And smell good 

Make sure you bring something entertaining to watch as my miata dominates ....

Made a ton of progress today, but still have to make another ton before I’m done.  Everything down the right side wall is getting consolidated.  Some gets sold, some gets scrapped, some gets relocated to the shed.  Still have plenty of room out there.  Looks kinda full in the following pic, but I still have some shelf space and some floor space, plus a couple of the bins are empty.

Not very Challenge-related, but here’s a pic of a 2-car garage with 2 cars in it:

Never would have thought that could happen!! Very nice!

AngryCorvair said:

Not very Challenge-related, but here’s a pic of a 2-car garage with 2 cars in it:

I think you may be the only guy on the forum who has a 2 car garage that actually FITS two cars at once.

Nice!

Congratulations.  As the owner of a small house, I know it's tough to put 5 pounds of E36M3 into a 2 pound bag.  Well done with the shed.  

Now I just gotta get ‘em good and drunk!

Corvair is a hot GMILF?

In reply to AngryCorvair :

Copycat

In reply to wawazat :

Perhaps.  I was thinking along the lines of South Park’s pot-bellied elephants.  How do you get an elephant to mate with a pig?

Patrick said:

In reply to AngryCorvair :

 

Copycat

He is fully committed to being like you.  He even traveled to Jacksonville to buy a janky Corvette from me...

In reply to Patrick :

pimpm3 said:

Patrick said:

In reply to AngryCorvair :

 

Copycat

He is fully committed to being like you.  He even traveled to Jacksonville to buy a janky Corvette from me...

Only I manned the berkeley up and *drove* mine home.

At the end of December.

With no heat.

On summer tires.

AngryCorvair said:

pimpm3 said:

Patrick said:

In reply to AngryCorvair :

 

Copycat

He is fully committed to being like you.  He even traveled to Jacksonville to buy a janky Corvette from me...

Only I manned the berkeley up and *drove* mine home.

At the end of December.

With no heat.

On summer tires.

Good points!  He did weld an extension onto a trailer so he could transport his corvette on its brakes under a s10, but that is arguably less hardcore. 

AngryCorvair said:

pimpm3 said:

Patrick said:

In reply to AngryCorvair :

 

Copycat

He is fully committed to being like you.  He even traveled to Jacksonville to buy a janky Corvette from me...

Only I manned the berkeley up and *drove* mine home.

At the end of December.

With no heat.

On summer tires.

Oh yeah take the easy way out and start with a running corvette...

I want to drive the C4 a bit before the heavy lifting begins, but there are a few things that need to be addressed so that can happen.  First, the driver’s side headlight only flips halfway, then just flops like a spaz.  Interweb says plastic rollers in motor/gear assembly turn to dust.  Amazon has replacement gear and rollers for pretty cheap, so I ordered enough to do just the one.

New parts fit good.  I didn’t take any pix of reassembly.  I broke a screw off in the headlight bracket.  Fortunately it was in a thru-hole and I had access to the back, so I was able to Center-punch and drill through with successively larger bits until the screw’s remains came out. 

It’s all back together and the headlight flips all the way now.

next issue is replacing the FL battery with a MI battery.  Yes, I’m  joking about the geographical influence.  The old battery is a bottom-shelf POS with a 2016 mfg date, so it’s donezors.  Picked up a new Everstart Maxx with 5-year warranty for $88 at Walmart, removed the access panel, hold-down, and cables, and slid the new battery into place.  She fires right up now.

Next on the list is to fix the heat.  I’ve read that the HVAC control panel is susceptible to faults due to crudded-up contacts, and I’ve watched a couple of repair videos on YouTube.  First, I figured I’d just take a peek at the heater hoses.  And guess what?  The heater core has been bypassed!

Rockauto has Heater cores from $22 to $36, but YT says it’s a mofo to replace.  It’s gonna be warm tomorrow so I might rip into it before Super Bowl.

That’s all for now.

We had a really warm day today and I wanted to take the C4 for a drive, but she wouldn’t start.  Cranked for a couple seconds, then kicked against the starter hard enough that I released the key.  After that, it acted flooded and just wouldn’t light off.  berkeley it, I’ll pull the easiest plug and see what it looks like.

Black and wet, with a huge gap.  Great for some things, not great for spark plugs.  The other 7 looked similar.

And the number 3 boot is missing a big chunk:

I’m probably just going to replace that one boot, partly because Challenge car and partly because I don’t look forward to trying to seat the Opti ends of new wires.

Since I was faced with a no-start situation, I jumped right in to the diagnosis by putting the top down.  :-)

So, here’s a fresh plug after about 60 seconds of idling:

It did the same thing as yesterday, acted flooded and wouldn’t restart.  No CEL.  Fouled plugs are symptom, not cause.  Any suggestions?   I ordered FSM today, it’ll be here in a few days.  

Fuel pressure is way too high, or system thinks its dead lean and adding fuel.

Possible vaccum leaks

Fuel pressure was rock steady at 40 psi, and 10 minutes after key off it was still at 34, so FPR is OK.

my buddy said “unplug MAF and see what it does.”  Tonight when I got home from work I did that, and it cold-started better than ever.  So I’m gonna try a can of MAF cleaner and see what that does.  Certainly cheaper than a new MAF sensor.

TL;DR - cleaned MAF sensor, car now starts and runs great!

longer version:  here’s what the MAF looked like before cleaning

I used some small pliers to bend and loosen the crimp-style clamps securing the rubber boots to the MAF:

and I removed the 4 torx screws and separated the aluminum housings from the sensor, so I could give them all a thorough cleaning.  Not quite Cousin_Eddie levels of clean, but not too shabby either.  I started with Simple Green and a toothbrush, then hit the housings with some 00 steel wool and a bit more SG.  Didn’t take pix of that.

then I shot the sensor bits with CRC MAF Sensor Cleaner to get rid of any remaining schmang.  Here is the end result:

So I’m pretty happy with the result.  Now I can move on replacing the heater core, so the car can actually be used a bit when there’s not too much salt on the roads.

Nice progress, brohammer!

Looking at this kinda makes me miss my C4.  It was a fun car.  Attached a link for the heater core. Hope it gives some insight.

https://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/forums/c4-technical-and-performance/108783-heater-core.html

Angry-post some times up when we can all come over, drink beer in your driveway, and critique your work in real time!