<VV> Maintainability, was Blower Bearing

[N. Joseph Potts]

VERY recently, John Kepler of this list pronounced (relying on years of
inside experience) that maintainability (or repairability) has approximately
ZERO priority in or influence on, the design of automotive mechanisms. This
would appear to be a case in support of his position.
     The requirement (although some have partially worked around it) to
remove the entire power train of a Corvair in order to replace, for example,
the input-shaft seal would seem to be another rather prominent one. And
particularly in the early designs, those input-shaft seals DID go bad. Mine
did.

Joe Potts
used to own 1961 Monza coupe 98hp 4-speed
Miami, Florida USA

-----Original Message-----
From: virtualvairs-admin@corvair.org
[mailto:virtualvairs-admin@corvair.org]On Behalf Of airvair
Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2004 4:24 PM
To: Sadek Charles H DLVA
Cc: virtualvairs@corvair.org; 'corvairs'
Subject: Re: <VV> Blower Bearing


When I said "deficient" I didn't meant that it wasn't very durable, but
rather that it was NOT designed to be easily or quickly replaced. The
factory design reminds me of my brother's Fiat that required half the
front suspension be removed in order to replace a 25 cent seal. I can
only guess that neither of you have ever had a blower bearing go bad on
you without warning "in the middle of nowhere" and had to spend a whole
day gutting the engine top end, finding a bearing, and then searching
around for a press just to get it replaced. Been there, done that, don't
ever want to do it again. They're too much of a royal pain.

So what if the alternater bearing isn't QUITE as durable? At least when
they DO go bad, I won't have to spent the whole day gutting the entire
engine top end.

-Mark