<VV> A Corvair adventure (part 4)

[Tony Underwood]

At 08:48 hours 08/06/2004 -0400, Sadek Charles H DLVA wrote:
>And who is afraid to drive their Corvairs?  
>
>Fantastic report, Daniel!  Sorry you had the head problem.  From those who
>have driven their Corvairs a long way, I think the only really tough
>on-the-road problem that might come up on a reasonably maintained Corvair is
>the rear wheel bearings.  If they are greased, generally it seems the
>engine, trans and diff are strong enough to seldom fail.  Yes, I know we
>have instances on our 40 yr old cars, but if you keep them full of oil, they
>are like the Bunny, right Mr Smitty!?!?!?
>
>I think Smitty is going to start an honorary "over the hump" club, where you
>have to have a trip longer than some arbitrary figure to join....
><GG>
>
>Chuck "longest trip in '68 Cpe was 1065 mi" S
>BBRT
>




I'm not living right, or something.   The longest distance I went in a
Corvair at one time was only about 1000 miles.    That was in the black '63
Spyder.     The '60 4-door daily driver keeps racking up miles but only in
30 miles/day chunks to and from work.   It's adding up, getting close to
200,000 miles and the car is still on its original engine/transmission.     

It's starting to use some oil...  and it has a little blowby that's
noticeable out the draught tube.   Bummer.   I'm really gonna hate it when
the engine finally really needs to  come out of the car for an overhaul or
replacement.    It's also making a little bit of noise from the left rear
wheel bearing, been doing it for over two years, not bad and hasn't gotten
worse, been greased and checked closely, shows a little dullness to the
rollers and the races but nothing bad.   Yet.   I'm gonna replace it soon,
sooner if it gets noisy.    Actually any noise at all is cause for
replacement.   I think I'd be as well off to look into replacing the
backing plates and associated hardware etc with 63-64 versions and use the
later bearings since I have several good axles/bearings on hand but no more
60-62 axles.  Thought I did but I was mistaken, out of a half-dozen axles
there weren't any early-early ones left.   Maybe I'll look around and pick
up a good early-early axle at the NC Fall show... or raid Richard Durhams
Corvair parts yard in Forest VA.   One way or another.   

I'm gonna have a little celebration when the '60 4-door rolls the speedo
over again, maybe feed it some high test... ;)     


tony..