<VV> OK is it true or not ?
Tony Underwood
tonyu at roava.net
Thu Aug 23 19:41:04 EDT 2007
At 01:37 PM 8/22/2007, kcvair at netscape.com wrote:
>Frank-I've heard that also. I've been driving Corvairs since 1962
>and never had the problems people keep bring up when they see a
>Corvair. The only thing about the engine falling out is the
>possibility of the rear motor mount coming loose and allowing the
>rear of the engine dropping down a few inches or maybe hitting the ground.
The engine won't ever hit the ground unless the bellhousing
breaks. The early cars' axles will stop it before it gets that close
to the pavement.
IN late model 'Vairs, there's no swing-axle shafts to hang on the
rear swingarms, so if a late motor mount fails the engine could
likely drop down far enough for the skid plate to make
sparks. However... on my '65 ragtop I deliberately did drop the
engine down after removing the motor mount, just to see how far a
late drivetrain might dip, and it did NOT hit the ground. The axles
and lower strut rods combined to "bind up" enough to not allow the
engine to droop down far enough to touch the ground, even with me
pushing down on it from above... not real hard, didn't wanna crack
the bellhousing which was all that was supporting the engine.
OK, I'll 'fess up, I'd been trying to replace the harmonic balancer
and I thought I'd just drop everything down and make quick work of it
with an impact wrench on the puller. ;)
On earlies, dropping the engine is more likely to happen simply
because of the way the motor mount works.
This has happened to me twice, in two different early model 'Vairs,
one belonging to a friend, the other my mom's '61 700. In mom's
car, the mount was still attached to the engine but the bolts that
secured the mount to the box member had *both* broken. They snapped
off flush with the cage nuts in the box member, evidently because
they had been slightly loose or whatever and the rattling and flexing
eventually did them in... in any event, they were the original bolts
and of the correct grade.
Check those 'motor mount to box member' bolts on those earlies, don't
let them get loose.
Mom's car had its "event" occur as she was backing out of her parking
spot, preparing to leave the ITT Nightvision facility (which caused
some problems when I showed up to rescue her what with the guards and
other security people and all being an issue at ITT), so she called
me and off I went with a castle nut and cotter pin... to find all
that stuff still on the engine. I managed to unscrew one of the
broken bolt shanks out of the cage nut, stole one bolt out of my
Spyder and hooked her back up and we both got back to my place where
I replaced the missing bolts in both cars, no more problems.
The friend's 'Vair unscrewed its castle nut because there wasn't a
pin in it (he didn't think it was really needed), shredded the (63)
air grill etc. Mom's air grill fared better, bent it up but it
straightened out OK.
I've not ever had a late model mount fail and drop the engine.
tony..
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