Remembering the Corvair 1960-1969

Kreb said:

I drove a '65 Corsa (non-turbo) around for a while and was pretty taken by it. It had the best combination of ride and handling of any stock 60s car I'd been in. Power was decent, but in no way special, and the brakes worked surprisingly well for drums. I'd throw a quick steering kit on it, better seats, and perhaps a disc brake upgrade, but otherwise leave the thing alone and have a really nice daily (At least till I got bored and threw the Subaru motor in). 

They used the same brakes as the chevelle which were designed for a heavier car obviously.

Did I mention, good AutoX cars?!!!!:

Yep, pretty sure there’s still one hidden somewhere 

volvoclearinghouse said:

In the 11 years I've owned my EM, I have yet to have a fan belt toss.  Well, except one time when the fan bearing packed it in, but by that point the belt was simply collateral damage...

Yet I still always carry a spare fan belt with me.

You know the rules.

As soon as you take that spare belt out and leave it in the garage, the car will toss a belt as far away from home as possible.

Here's a few of my dad's Corvairs.  The LMs we're rusty and now gone to scrap.  The FC runs and drives, but needs a lot of body work.  The 64 Spyder has only 44k miles and is rust-free, but the engine is missing.  He has tons of parts in storage.  I'd like to sell everything except the Spyder and restore that.  

Since I was born, I have been around Corvairs. I learned to work on them, I learned to drive on them, and I’ve been all around the country in them. 

My dad always had his ‘68 Monza racecar just sitting around somewhere because he didn’t want to fix a simple problem on it. 32 years later I took possession of it and I’m slowly getting it back to driveable condition. 

My dad still however has his ‘66 Corsa 140 convertible that he’s had since I was little, my brother bought him a ‘64 Monza 110 Convertible and my dad restored a ‘69 Monza 140 PG Convertible for my step mom. 

Corvairs have always been a part of my life and always will be. 

pimpm3 said:

I think the late model corvair is one of the most beautiful 60's cars GM produced.

...but I am kinda biased 

And now your sweet Corvair graces Page 43 of the August "Hemmings Classic Car".

I saw that on the corvair owners group.  I am going to try to pick up a copy this weekend.  Pretty cool!

In reply to pimpm3 :

Agreed. An affordable, decent-condition late-model convertible is something I'm always looking out for since it's something I think would work well for the 'convertible' slot in our vehicular stable. Sadly around here they're hard to come by...

My wife's best friend inherited a '66 Corvair from her dad.

The car is in fantastic shape body wise but it needs a steering box and probably various steering linkage parts.  

 It takes almost 1/2 a turn back and forth to keep it going straight, un-nerving to say the least.

Are those  steering boxes hard to change? 

I found a place on line that sells new, quicker ratio steering boxes for the Corvair, and also rebuilt original ones .  Which should we get?

I offered to fix it for her and need to know what I got myself into...  I'm pretty good with wrenching but extra time is not my friend.

In reply to jharry3 :

I would definitely go with the faster box.  My car has a fast box and quickening arms so it has the quickest ratio possible.  It is still 2.9 turns lock to lock which feels pretty modern.  I have never driven one with a slow box but I imagine it would feel agricultural at best 

Go with the Flaming River fast box.  I don’t think there are parts to truly rebuild a stock box.  I have one in my car (with the fast arms also, stock wheel).  You will need the extender / adapter to mate to the top of the current shaft.  I had a minor clearance issue with the frame rail and the u-joint.  Get one of the nylon bushings for the steering box arm.

Stock steering is what might be called, leisurely.  The best way to describe it is it was meant to be similar to the power steering of the day, which was super light.  Fine for daily driving, but for AutoX... as someone described it “like someone winding a watch”, very busy.

In reply to Danny Shields :

I had a 1966 corsa coupe, 4 speed manual transmission. Only mid I did was 4 wheel vented disk brakes with camaro 15 inch rims..i got stupid and sold it.

In reply to aircooled :

You added a 5 speed tranny, how?

Well...   it's been a long journey, but I originally bought the T5 conversion from Clarks many years ago when i it was first released.  The changes to the T5 are primarily an adapter to the rear (formally front) to adapt to the diff a cover for the front (formally the rear) to support the main shaft.  The main shaft was also gun drilled to make it hollow and allow the (now a bit longer) input shaft from the engine.  Installation requires cutting a hole in the rear seat area since the drivetrain is about 6 inches longer now.

It was realized the guy that did the conversion was less then careful or wise in some aspects (e.g. main shaft had a rather poorly executed extension welded to it for the front bearing).  I actually had my input shaft machine itself through the front cover, and did have my main shaft break at the weld.  A variety of other issues (more installation issues) had to be solved.  Eventually some of the owners of the 15 transmissions that where made got new main shafts made, which solved the primary issues.

Currently it works fine.  I am dealing with a noisy front tapered roller bearing now, but it's not a huge deal, pretty easy to replace, and is likely the result of all the drama my trans has been through.

If you want one and want to know how to get one?  Well, as I noted, only 15 made. There have only been a few in the wild and not installed, I know of maybe two that have been sold.  Not cheap, very hard to find.  There may be another 5 speed conversion being done in the future, but as with this one, the market is very small, so who knows.

Here is a pic of my drivetrain with the trans attached (note new front and rear adapters and new mount):

Here is a pic of the tip of the main shaft that broke.  As you can see, not the best welding job and it clearly wasn't grabbing all of the front bearing:

Here is a link to my album with a number of other related pictures (I think you should be able to see them, let me know if you don't):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/158276939@N03/albums/72157687199285450/with/37606195602/