<VV> A long time coming

[Mike Stillwell]

 Too bad it was an early...
  I rescued this one.... it sat in my garage for about
6 months. The original 102 was locked up, but it did
have a distributor weight kit and cal-custom air
cleaners on it, as well as the other goodies. Don't
forget to mention the headrests also, Tony. The car
was like a '60's time capsule of almost all the really
cool aftermarket stuff you could get for an early
vair. It was one of my better finds to date, but with
a stable full of lates, I was just after the 2 140's
and NOS parts that came along with it.

 Mike
 YS-117

 

--- Tony Underwood <tonyu@roava.net> wrote:

> Just thought I'd mention:   
> 
> 
> A couple years or so ago, a '62 ragtop came to roost
> among the fleet here.
>   This car was an oddity in that it was rust free,
> arrow straight, floors
> fine, original black upholstery fine, dash pad
> excellent, tacky leyland
> green over the original ermine white.    It had no
> engine installed,
> although the 4-sp transaxle was still there.   The
> trunk contained a
> variety of odds and ends, such as a NOS "trombone"
> dual exhaust, a variety
> of spares such as new tail light lenses etc and
> engine bay sheet metal and
> some engine mechanical parts.   The car itself was
> the interesting point in
> that it had nary a door ding or dent anywhere and it
> had the owners booklet
> in the glove box along with the last VA state
> inspection receipt which was
> dated 1969,  still bearing a faded inspection
> sticker on the windshield
> that expired Sept 1970, same month I went into the
> Army.  After talking to
> the fellow who had owned the car briefly I learned
> that the car had been
> stored away in 1969 and left sitting in a large
> garage until he purchased
> it, then resold it to someone who in turn sold it to
> us.   It got towed
> around a time or two to a couple of places, finally
> to rest under a large
> tarp in  the Garden City area of Roanoke where it
> waited for two years
> while things like a new top, some trim, a few odds
> and ends, and of course
> another engine were acquired so as to see if maybe
> the car could be
> resurrected.     Well, the procrastination finally
> came to a halt this
> summer...       ...and yes it still takes about 9
> man-hours to install a
> new top if you take your time.     
> 
> It seemed only fitting that since the car hadn't 
> moved under its own power
> since 1969 it should get an engine that also  hadn't
> run in a while...
> turned up an engine that originally (I think I
> talked about this engine
> before) been in a dune buggy that my old buddy Don
> Keesey had picked up
> somewhere in 1971 from somebody who got it from
> somebody else and hadn't
> been able to get around to doing anything with it.  
> Don also didn't do
> anything with the buggy either, storing it away at a
> mutual Mopar racer's
> shop storage lot...  for over 25 years.   The old
> dune buggy  was pretty
> far gone by then, moldering away in Linwood Crafts'
> storage lot covered in
> honeysuckle so thick for so long I never knew it was
> there.   Then one day
> Don called me and said "Remember that dune buggy
> with the Corvair engine?
> Linwood wants it moved.  You want it?   You can have
> it, just go get it out
> of his lot."   Hell, I never knew it was there,
> thought Don had long since
> gotten rid of the buggy.   So, a buddy and I went to
> Linwoods shop and he
> pointed to a large mound of honeysuckle and said
> "There it is, have fun!"
>  Not only was it buried in  honeysuckle, it was also
> infiltrated with ants
> and poison ivy, and there was a huge bumble bee nest
> under what had once
> passed as the front seat.    Once the honeysuckle
> was finally pulled off
> the buggy, the bumble bees roared out like alien
> fighters from the mother
> ship in "Independence Day".    They immediately went
> after anything that
> moved...  spent the next 5 minutes shooting them
> with carb cleaner (they
> hate carb cleaner) and swatting them off my arms,
> still got stung a half
> dozen times.    Bumble bee stings hurt.    We
> finally got the buggy loose
> from the vines and weeds and discovered that it
> actually did still roll,
> pulled it out of the lot and with a tow strap got it
> up the access road and
> onto a trailer where it was transported to Salem for
> closer investigation
> and a shot with a high pressure hose to rid it of
> the rest of the bumble
> bees and the ant colony.    It was after the hose
> treatment that the buggy
> chassis/floor pan broke in half and the rearward
> section with the driveline
> just drooped back onto the ground.    The buggy
> obviously got parted out...
>  the engine amazingly still turned; I never thought
> that after three
> decades and sitting in the bushes outside that it
> would have managed to
> stay unstuck, but living under the bed of the dune
> buggy evidently kept
> enough of the weather out to let it stay dry, sorta.
>    
> 
> Eventually the engine found its way to Bill
> Burleson's garage where it was
> partially dismantled and inspected, new gaskets,
> seals, a couple of pushrod
> tubes to replace the rusted ones which were very
> nearly rusted through,
> also replaced two exhaust tubes, and removed the
> pilot bushing and bolted
> up a converter to the crank and then hung it in the
> engine bay of a black
> '65  Monza project car that someone was going to
> finish up and make
> roadworthy...  which never happened.    The car sat,
> engine never even
> getting a starter bolted onto it.    Then the car
> found itself in need of
> being moved, Bill Burleson had been taken ill with
> cancer and the cars a
> friend had stored in  his back yard had to be
> moved... so the black '65
> Monza was acquired in a package deal along with some
> other parts and
> pieces... and stored in the same Garden City
> property as the previously
> mentioned '62 convertible.    There it sat for two
> years.          
> 
> Then Rick Stansbury had the mis-hap with his #5 car
> and needed a
> replacement body.    So, out came the engine that
> had sat in the black
> Monza, and Rick carried the black Monza (which was
> still a respectable
> project with potential) away to turn it into his new
> race car.   The engine
> went into the '62 ragtop, and it still hadn't been
> started since ~1970.
> After a BUNCH of nonsense, flywheel swaps and broken
> starter noses and my
> LAST bolted flywheel and a lot of cussing, the
> engine was finally in the
> car and able to crank without anything bad
> happening.   It still didn't
> start, had a bit of a problem getting fuel from the
> tank to the engine...
> FINALLY everything was in place and once the carbs
> were primed and the
> timing rough-set, it started right up with no
> fanfare like it was everyday
> stuff.    After all that time, it was anticlimactic.
>    By the way, the
> engine ran fine, sounded good, idled smooth, and the
> valves were adjusted
> HOT and RUNNING.     
> 
> This evening, after hanging the exhaust on the '62
> ragtop, it left the
> confines of the driveway under its own power and hit
> the streets.    
> 
> ...After 35 years, it's running the roads again.    
> 
> 
> This car has metallic brakes.   It has an EMPI rear
> camber compensator.
> It evidently has quick steer arms because the
> steering is sharp.   It has a
> quick shift kit in the shifter.   It's solid and it
> runs straight and feels
> right.    At some time in its life long ago, someone
> loved it enough to
> outfit it with some rather obscure and relatively
> rare aftermarket
> performance options not usually seen on an early
> Vair.     Did I mention
> the Grant steering wheel...?    
> 
> 
> 
> There is satisfaction in resurrecting an old car
> after many years.      
> 
> 
> 
> Does anyone in here have any stories about returning
> a 
=== message truncated ===



	
		
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