New block, view 1

New block view 2

New block, view 3

I got my engine parts back from Lionel (and A&D Auto Parts and Machine Shop). They all look magnificent. I’ll add pictures of the other parts when I get the chance, but this is a “teaser.” My block was so badly encrusted with caked on grease, that Lionel suggested using this already-cleaned block which came from another late model Corvair with a Powerglide. As you can see, this block is immaculate. He had my other parts cleaned, doing some of the work himself. Some of the housings were so filthy, they had to be “tanked” 10 times. He sandblasted the cooling fan and checked out my crankshaft, camshaft and blower bearing (all A-ok). More pictures to come.

Jim B's 66 Monza Vert's dash

I have a couple of pictures I took of Jim’s car during the Volks Vair fest in August 2010, one from which the dash shot was clipped, as well as an exterior shot and one of the engine:

jim B's 1966 Monza Convertible

Jim B's 1966 Monza interior photo

Jim B's 110 engine

What I learned this week was that Jim’s car was the car featured on Bill Cotrofeld Automotive’s web site, which included a bunch of “before” photos which can be seen below. Apparently, Cotrofeld Automotive did the restoration sometime around 2001 (and has held up beautifully).

Cotrofeld Automotive in Arlington, Vermont is the oldest Corvair shop in the US, now in its third generation. They did a gorgeous job on this car which, as one can see in the before photos below, was in pretty rough shape when they started. These kinds of “junker-to-jewel” restorations are inspirational to me. It is also cool since Jim’s car is the same year, model and engine/transmission configuration as mine… essentially the same car, but different color. I do love the red upholstery. Jim recently received copies of the entire set of before, during and after photos from Cotrofeld’s, but these are just a sampling of before pictures to illustrate the magnitude of the transformation.

The photos below are used with gratitude to and permission from Bill Cotrofeld Automotive

Powerglide transmission with differential

In the photo above, one can see the unique design of the Corvair transaxle. The engine attaches to the differential, which is to the left of the assembly above (the teeth of the ring gear on the torque converter are visible at the far left). The left of this photo would be toward the rear of the car if this were installed inside the car. Thus the differential is next to the engine rather than the transmission as one might expect.

Power is transmitted from the torque converter (or flywheel/clutch in a manual transmission car) through a hollow shaft in the differential on its way to the transmission which sits in front of the differential (at the far right in the photo above).  The transmission transmits its output back to the differential which then drives the rear wheels.

The base model transmission for all Corvair cars was a three-speed manual transmission. Optional transmissions included an automatic or a four-speed manual (Four on the floor became an option starting during the 1961 model year).

Though I don’t have hard data, based on a casual observation, I suspect that the majority of the Corvair cars were purchased with an automatic, though the four-speed manual is more highly sought after today.

The Corvair’s automatic transmission was a specially designed variant of the “Powerglide” transmission offered in other Chevy cars and trucks of the time. It was a tw0-speed automatic with low gear having a 1.82:1 ratio and high 1:1.

With today’s cars featuring automatics of 6 speeds (or occasionally even more!) the idea of a two-speed automatic seems quaint, yet the performance of the Powerglide wasn’t all as bad as people might assume. The theory behind the two-speed automatic was that you had two mechanical gears provided by the planetary gears and clutches of the transmission and you had a theoretically infinite number of gears provided by the torque converter. The maximum gear reduction on the torque converter is 2.6:1 which would be multiplied by the mechanical gear reduction. For example, in low gear with the torque converter at maximum load would be 2.6X1.82 or about 4.7:1. Zero-to-sixty times for Powerglide equipped Corvairs was actually slightly faster than that of three-speed manual cars, though not as fast as equivalent cars with a four speed stick. Corvairs compete very well in autocross racing due to the superior handling abilities of the car (contrary to popular belief) and Powerglides are preferred by many drivers for autocrossing because of their responsiveness in the speed range typically driven in autocrossing (and with only two mechanical gears, the transmission doesn’t waste a lot of time going between gears). Drivers would typically drive with one foot on the brake and one on the gas.

The Corvair Powerglide transmission has a reputation of being extremely rugged and reliable to the point of being virtually bulletproof and there are quite a lot of them in regular use today that have never been taken apart. This leads to a bit of a conundrum I have with mine.

On the one hand, I am doing a ground-up restoration of the car, and the transaxle (transmission and differential assembly) is out of the car (and sitting on my workbench at the moment as one can see in the photo above). It might seem prudent to take the thing apart, clean out everything inside, replace all the gaskets, seals and clutches etc and put it back together). However, a great many Corvair experts are of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset especially when it comes to Powerglide transmissions. At the very least, I will take off the pan on the bottom and see what has settled to the pan to see if there are any metal parts or shrapnel  sitting in there. The automatic transmission fluid that has leaked out through the shifter cable hole so far has looked pristine as if it were poured in to the transmission yesterday. I’m not sure really whether I plan to take it apart or not, but will at least wait until I see whether there’s anything distressing in the oil pan.

One Corvair veteran advocates strongly for rebuilding the differential due to the propensity of inner pinion seals to fail. I will look into this. At the least, one can see that I have begun to clean off the outside of the assembly. The transmission is encased in an aluminum case, hence the nice shiny silver appearance to the parts of it. The differential is in a cast iron housing and hence the surface rust over the whole thing.

http://rides.webshots.com/album/233356382dqYpqr

This group of photos captures the magnitude of what he’s done:

Corvair Greenbrier Sportwagon

So, after much hemming and hawing, I think I’ve convinced my wife Cherisse that our next vehicle will be a Corvair Greenbrier van (whenever we are to replace our 2001 Saturn LW300 wagon). Cherisse has wanted a minivan since before our youngest daughter was born. No fan of minivans, I considered a restored Greenbrier just because it would be way cooler than any modern minivan and something I could see myself driving. I abandoned the idea for a while considering the hurdles to making one our daily driver van.

I have since come back around to the idea since the current marketplace does not actually include a van that’s useful and affordable. In that cynical way that automakers seek to maximize profits, the modern minivan is targeted at the suburban soccer mom with large amounts of disposable income. Even the Kia can’t be purchased for much under $30,000. The Honda Odyssey at is most basic is just under 30 grand. The only two players the van marketplace with less expensive vans are the Mazda5 and the Ford Transit Connect. The two problems with the Ford are, no third seat row available as yet making it no better than our mid-size wagon in terms of seating capacity. Also, the price is a little high in my opinion for what it is. The TC has been hugely popular in the niche it was meant to fill which is a small, economical cargo van for small businesses. But it starts at $22,000, which means that if it’s ever offered with a third row of seats (which will no doubt necessitate making it longer), the price will start to encroach that of conventional minivans.

The Mazda5 is friendly-priced, starting at around 18K, but it is small. It seats six with two rows of bucket seats and a narrow bench seat in the third row between the rear wheel wells. With the rear seat folded up, there is next to no cargo room.

All of this brought me back to the idea of the Greenbrier. In the early 1960s, all the big three offered compact vans based on the platform of their economy cars of the time: The Chevrolet Corvair Greenbrier on, of course, the Corvair platform, the Ford Econoline van, based on the Falcon platform, and Dodge A-series offered one based on the Valiant/Dart platform.

All of these vans came in cargo van versions (with no side windows…. a basic box with front seats for the driver and maybe front passenger) and a passenger van as well as a cab-forward pickup truck. In the case of the Greenbrier, since the engine was in the back, it had a bench seat in the front, giving it a passenger capacity of 9. With all seats installed, there was still a huge amount of cargo space behind the third seat. The Ford and Dodge vans had buckets seats in the front because the engine sat between the driver and passenger.

All of these vans and trucks got very respectable gas mileage for their day (and even reasonable by today’s standards for minivans) and were inexpensive at their most basic, though could be ordered with all the bells and whistles if buyers wanted. However, in the 1970s, these vans all grew to the behemoths that they still are today. In 1984, in a stroke of genius, Chrysler reintroduced the idea of a van based on their economy car (the K car) platform and it was dubbed the minivan. It too was offered in a cargo van variant (though not the first year, IIRC). Eventually these vans evolved into the sophisticated, luxury vehicles that they are today, with price tags nearly $10,o00 higher than that of regular passenger cars.

The first car I purchased brand new was a 1989 Mazda B2200 pickup truck. It was the base model, two wheel drive truck. It had no rear bumper, radio or right hand mirror (all of which I purchased and installed later on my own). I paid $6786 for it brand new, which was dirt cheap even in 1989 (I remember the Honda Accord LXi going for 17-18 grand at the time). One can’t buy compact pickup trucks anymore, and one can’t buy a compact basic van either.

Automakers have learned that luxury cars and trucks don’t cost much more to make than basic cars and trucks, and thus the higher-end cars yield much greater profits. So it is nearly impossible to find simple, basic vehicles in all but the subcompact car class, since they are not profitable for automakers.

So, I’ve decided to meet our family transportation needs with an antique van. Any of those 60s compact vans would be appealing to me, but as a Corvair guy, I know where to get parts for the Greenbrier van, I am becoming an expert on the repair of the engine and drivetrain, and I am plugged into a nationwide network of people who know a whole lot about them. Also, due to the Corvair “stigma” created by over 40 years of misinformation, the price of the Greenbrier would be lower.

For about $10,000 I could buy a Greenbrier that looks nearly as nice as the one pictured above with a newly rebuilt engine. It won’t have many of the luxury features minivan buyers today expect,  including such basic things as air conditioning (though some people have retrofitted A/C to their ‘briers). It will also be much slower in its acceleration than today’s minivan. But it will be infinitely cooler and way cheaper. Plus, it appears as though I can fit my whole family in the van and still have room for both basses, all my amps and speakers and gear to take to a gig as is evidenced by the photo below showing the amount of cargo space behind the rearmost seat:

Greenbrier cargo space

Anyway, back to the Corvair project: I brought my engine parts to Jack Lundin’s machine shop in Burlington for assessment and refurbishment — see the post Corvair Limbo yet again (with some plans).

The end result is that Jack is going to recondition my heads, hone and clean the cylinders, and clean and refurbish the pistons. He seems to think that I should be able to use a Clark’s oversized head stud to replace the pulled stud on the #2 cylinder. He suggested I clean the block myself… I may use some simple green. He also suggested I don’t split the block — to leave the crank and camshaft in it as is, as he thinks they are fine. I am going to follow his recommendations for now. Which brings me to another observation….

In my discussions with experienced Corvair guys, there are two distinct schools of thought:
A) There is no need to take apart and replace anything that’s not broken, Corvair engines will run forever with little intervention. Just clean and reseal it.
B) never replace old pistons or camshafts/lifters in an engine during an overhaul, the heads will come off the pistons and the lobes will break on the camshaft. If you’re going to take it apart, replace everything.

These two extreme positions come from people with a lot of experience in the Corvair hobby and there are people I very much respect in both camps. This has made it difficult at times to choose a course of action.

Jack is definitely in the (A) camp above, and I am inclined to follow his advice at this time given that 1) I have little money to spend on it at this time and 2) Jack is an experienced machinist and longtime Corvair guy who will be evaluating my pistons and cylinders while refurbishing them and he really seems to know his stuff. So, fingers crossed that the plan works.

In other news, I have accepted an appointment to the board of directors for CORSA (the Corvair Society of America). There was a vacancy among the Eastern Division directors, and I felt compelled to step up and help the national association. It’s a challenging time for the Corvair hobby and its association — many of the original fans of the car are getting older and some are dying; not to mention the fact that no new Corvairs have been made in over 40 years, so each year there are fewer Corvairs left –  to try to keep the hobby vibrant and try to keep preserving the remaining Corvairs and attract some younger people to the hobby. While I can’t single-handedly do this, I felt compelled to do my part to contribute in this mission. Wish me luck!

Next on the list is the rotisserie and the canopy once I can secure the funds for these things. I hope to have them both in hand before the winter, which will be here sooner than you know.

When have you ever heard anyone reminisce about his or her  old Chevy Citation? When is the last time you even saw a Chevy Citation? Nearly three decades have gone by since any carmaker really made anything that anyone cared about. Sure, there were Corvettes, Porsches, and the like that were built, but even they pale in comparison to the same cars built before 1972. Sure, today’s cars are safer, more efficient, more reliable and last longer, but somehow it doesn’t matter.

The other day on travel for work I rented a new Camaro. Was it cool? Yes. Did I like the car? Yes. It was nice, but still something was missing. It was fast and it very smoothly went from 0-60 mph; much faster than my Corvair. However, it all seemed antiseptic. The ride was smooth, there was no roar from the exhaust, the engine made little noise, and the speed was barely detectable. It is progress, but it came at the cost of the romance.

I ponder this idea as I consider preserving at least one of my two Saturns. I have a 1993 SW2 wagon, which is of the first generation of Saturn S-Series cars (it is actually the first year of Saturn wagons). The lines of the car are still cool to me

1993 Saturn SW2

My SW2 happens also to be an art car (I mention this in an earlier post). While I don’t have quite the affection for this car as I do for my Corvair, I still think it’s a pretty cool little car. It has a timeless style to it. It’s quick, handles great and has been ultra-reliable, needing very little service other than maintenance and replacement of wear items. It is also going on 19 years old, the past 11 of them in New England, including the winters, and before that spent part of its life in New Jersey and Virginia. The body panels are all plastic, so they don’t rust; s0me components do (see earlier post about the subframe), but are relatively easily replaceable.

Unlike some newer cars that Dave mentions, it does make a fair amount of noise (and was criticized for that in the automotive press) and is actually quite fun to drive.

Furthermore, the Saturn car company represented something in the American car marketplace that was worth remembering and preserving. At the time of Saturn’s introduction in the 1991 model year, the reputation of American small cars was at its nadir. Ever since the Chevy Vega and the Ford Pinto, there were nearly two decades of poor quality, poor design, unreliable and generally miserable little cars that had all but given the small car market entirely to the imports, especially those from Japan.

GM decided to imitate the Japanese model of car companies. Upper management wore the same coveralls that the workers on the assembly line wore. Furthermore, the United Auto Workers union (UAW) was actually a partner in the ownership of the new Saturn Corporation (a subsidiary of GM). In fact, brochures from the early years of Saturn (up to about 1999) featured the UAW logo next to the Saturn logo. Rather than the usual hierarchical approach employed by GM, the focus in the new company was teamwork and accountability.

Safety, reliability, economy, environmental-mindedness, ease of maintenance were all high priorities in the initial design. Also, an aesthetic that would appeal to buyers of imports was also part of the plan so that buyers who would never think of buying a GM (or other American) car would be enticed by the new compact. The owners of the Saturn S-series cars were so passionate about their cars and the Saturn company that many people drove their Saturns great distances to two “Homecomings” to the Saturn manufacturing plant in Spring Hill Tennessee (the last one being in 1999, which I was, regrettably unable to attend). There are a lot of other things I could say about the Saturn story, but this post is meant to be more generic than about Saturn in particular. However, a nice piece about the history and demise of Saturn was written by Charlie, the administrator of the website www.saturnfans.com in this article: Goodbye Saturn, Thanks for the Ride 1985-2010.

The point here is that Saturn, the car and the company, represent something significant in automotive history worth remembering and preserving.

When the Corvair was discontinued in 1969, there were people already collecting the cars, seemingly immediately after their production was ceased. The Corvair Society of America (CORSA) was founded in 1969 according to CORSA’s website. Parts are still readily available for Saturns, though for how long, we don’t know. As yet, there is no “Cal Clark” of the Saturn world. Online conversations with forum members of Saturnfans.com yielded such comments as

“There were never any Saturns that were destined for collectible status – no convertibles, no muscle cars, no wicked turbos except for the Sky.”

and

“Please, I wish that Saturn community will move on,I have a wonderful saturn that I need to get rid of, Move on folks, move on, thanks”

[UPDATE: I'll make a comment on the above comments and note that on the S-series forum of Saturnfans.com and have noticed a heartwarming number of people fixing up old S-series Saturns and keeping the ones they have going. Saturn people are in many ways like many Corvair people in that they are frugal and practical and find the cars easy to maintain and repair and reliable and economical to operate. I have been heartened by a small but dedicated group of do-it-yourselfers who keep their cars going. ]

All of this brings me to the point I’m trying to make, which is a bit of a counter point to Dave Silvia’s article: It’s not just the cars, but the people.

The keepers of the flame of the cars of the past 30 years are the young people today who grew up with the cars, or who grew up with cars that were a little newer and thus found the cars that were a little older than the cars they grew up with to be exotic. Or perhaps the first car they learned to drive in was a hand-me-down or used car from that era. Dave is right that there are many cars over that period that were not worthy of affection, but some were and still are. Even using the maligned Citation he mentions…. I had two Buick Skylarks that were the Buick clones of the Chevy Citation, one from 1980 and the other 1981. I liked those cars, especially the 1980, which was a coupe, “Limited” trim with the 2.8 liter V6 and a 4-speed stick, with the wire spoked hubcaps, much like the one in this photo:

1980 Buick Skylark Limited Coupe

I put 134,000 miles on it before it needed a new clutch, windshield and battery. It still ran great and the body was still solid, though, sadly, it had no value in the marketplace so I couldn’t even give it away, given the cost of the necessary repairs, so I ended up junking it at 10 years old. The 1980s Buick Regal coupes are also cars very worthy of collecting and restoring today, IMHO.

When I was growing up, I just loved old cars. I thought they were cool just because they were old and different than the cars of the day. Even the most ordinary (for their day) old cars. Most younger car enthusiasts of today seem to be only interested in specialty cars… high-end sports cars or other cars that are fast. Any other old car (including any before 1972) doesn’t hold their interest (gross generalization, but mostly true).

To put it another way, in the 1970s, when Corvairs were recently discontinued, I am certain that there were a lot of older “car guys” who would have scoffed at the notion of collecting a car like the Corvair when it seemed pedestrian to them when they were far more interested in the cars of their youth, from say the 1930s or 1940s. Likewise, today it makes sense that cars from the 1980s or 1990s seem too contemporary (and thus ordinary) to the car guys (and women) in their 50s-60s or beyond. But to young adults who grew up with their parents having cars from that era, the cars from the 1980s and 1990s should be the beloved old cars of their youth.

It just seems to me that the whole notion of collecting/restoring everyday cars is an alien concept to people born after 1980. There is a lack of reverence for old cars just for their being old (and thus unique) as well as bringing back memories of their childhood. I think that some of it has to do with the pace of technological improvement over the past 30 years making the older cars seem (and be) inferior to the newer ones… collecting old cars seems about as cool to younger people today as collecting old computers. Who would want to use a computer from the 1980s today? I think that mentality is at play for many younger people today and is more likely to blame for the lack of cars from this era being collected and restored than are the cars themselves.

1. Evaluate whether to repair the pulled stud in the crankcase.
2. Evaluate whether anything needs to be done with the heads and valve train (these parts look good to me, but I will defer to Jack’s expertise).
3. Evaluate the condition of the cylinders as to whether they can (or should) be reused vs buying pistons/cylinders in a matched set.

I don’t know whether Jack has the facility to clean the various castings, but I imagine he would know who does.

Once this is done, then it’s a matter of ordering all the parts and putting things back together.

Now that June is nearly half over, once I have access to the funds, I will turn my attentions to the bodywork on the car. Specifically, I have several purchases I need to make to begin the arduous process of restoring the body… which, once begun, will be more of a labor-intensive process, requiring less outlay in funds. But I will need to lay out some funds for the following:

1. A rotisserie. For the non-car people who read this, the pictures on this web page give you the idea (you have to scroll down the page to see the photos). It’s really the only way to do extensive body work when one needs to spend a lot of time working on the bottom of the car. A fellow Bay State Corvairs member has one he is willing to sell me at a reasonable price.
2. A canopy. I don’t have a garage here at Chez Hawk and I need to not only protect the car while I have it stripped down to the bone, but it will provide shelter for the work when the weather is less than ideal, which has been happening a lot around here lately. Also, given the pace of this project, I will need to keep the car under cover since it will likely take me at least a couple of years to finish. Here is a picture of a canopy I’ve used elsewhere in this blog:
   
3. A mig/flux welder. There are some lower-cost options available from harbor freight I’m looking into. The less expensive flux welders may produce more splatter requiring more grinding, but I don’t have access to unlimited funds.
4. An air compressor. Many of the body work tools necessitate a decent capacity air compressor, plus I can use it for sandblasting when that’s called for.

There are of course smaller tools and equipment I’ll need to pick up, but those are the main biggies I need to get started.