My first car that I got on the road was a ‘62 Corvair coupe. Twin carb 6 cylinder 80 HP pancake engine that my best friends father bought for me for $85 in exchange for grafting a ‘65 VW convertibles front sheet metal (unibody) on and painting it so he could flip it. One carb float valve stuck in the closed position and at idle it sounded perfect but as soon as you pressed on the gas it wouldn’t go anywhere. That baffled me for awhile because it wasn’t shaking and ran as smooth as silk (it was only running on one bank of three cylinders). I eventually figured it out when I put my hand over one carb and it didn’t make any difference in how it sounded. It would smoke out the interior when you ran the heat. There were o-rings that sealed tubes that the push rods would run thru. They would dry out, leak on the finned heat/cooling fins (for those that don’t know, it was an air cooled engine). The whole rear pan was rusted out and it was only an 8 year old car. That would be the equivalent of a 2012 car today. I think that they have advanced a bit on the engineering of cars today.
I did a cob job on the rust, painted it light blue with black racing stripes and equipped it with some Thrush mufflers. It was loud in both the paint and sound but it didn’t go.
Now, in defense of the Corvair, it was a fun car to drive. Up until the point that the rear axle would tuck under (I experienced that fright a few times in corners that I took way too fast), it handled like a dream. It would out corner most cars on the road at that time. The turbo charged 150 HP Spider must have been a blast to drive.
Unfortunately, the front shock mount broke due to rust. I didn’t want to fix it so I sold it at a loss. As to an education? PRICELESS!
Last edited by Phak1; 06/15/2020 12:46 PM.
