<VV> re- 1969 quality\1968 quality

[Tony Underwood]

At 05:48 AM 9/21/2007, Bill Elliott wrote:
>It's not so much the era as the way Corvairs were assembled in 
>'68/'69. 1967 was likely the high point of Corvair assembly quality 
>with 1968 being second worst (1969 being by far the worst). That's 
>too radical a change to blame on the era in general.
>
>I have worked on and with a lot of Corvairs and I have yet to work 
>on a '67 that was assembled poorly or a '68/'69 that was assembled 
>well. Simple stuff like a nice straight line of seam sealer... 
>applied carefully about 1 inch from the actual seam!



Well:


The sloppiest seam sealer I ever saw on a Corvair was on my '60 
4-door.   It's not that the sealer "missed" the seam, it's just that 
they used about three times as much as needed, gobbed it all over 
everything.   There were even a few globs of sealer that "dripped" 
onto the sheet metal inside and in the engine bay which didn't do any 
sealing of anything; they just stuck there.   Maybe the guy with the 
caulk gun was having a bad hair day or something... I took 'em out 
when I re-did the floors in the '60... the globs in the engine bay 
are still there, mostly... what ones I didn't pick off with a 
screwdriver leaving bare metal underneath, made me decide to leave 
the other globs in place.   Ironically, the trunk seams were skimped, 
almost no sealer on them, just a thin "smear of toothpaste" which is 
why the next thing to do is hammer out a fresh bottom skin to re-do 
the trunk of the '60 4-door where water has leaked through the rather 
fragile joint seams and yes the trunk gasket was replaced long ago 
and is fine.

The trunk of the '60 Monza looks fine...  it also has more seam 
sealer on it.   I was even brave enough to put its original rubber 
mat back in place.


The '69s here (including the seriously rusted dusk blue basket case 
that came from the Florida beaches to be parted out here) had no 
evident workmanship flaws and was assembled pretty well; I have first 
hand experience in how it went together because I helped take it back apart.

Now, there's always gonna be the errant example to come along, with 
goofs and blunders etc but I've not personally seen any of them in 
the '69s in this camp, and there are currently three, not including 
the one cut up, along with a 4th stored for the local chapter prez 
(it's for sale).  I've been into a few other '69s as well, never 
noticed anything that I'd regard as a workmanship flaw that was 
anywhere even close to the trend to regard '69 quality as "the worst 
of the lot" because it just ain't so.

I HAVE seen spot welds on a '66 coupe that missed their marks... 
along with the maroon '66 ragtop my buddy Dallas Mangus had which had 
a rather noticeable misalignment of the rear cove panel to fender 
joint, caused a nonlinear gap in the decklid to fender... and sloppy 
seam sealer on a '65 4-door we parted out.   Likewise mislocated body 
panels that didn't line up correctly on a couple of '65 
'Vairs.   Only had one '67 and I agree that it has good build 
quality, straight and proper... but so is the '60 Monza coupe here 
which is as closely aligned and assembled as any car I ever saw, took 
notice after painting it and wet sanding, taking note that nowhere 
did the paper cut high on any joints or seams anywhere.   Somebody 
was watching on this car.

Now:  My '65 ragtop has a joint or two that don't line up quite 
right.   Nothing worthy of notice but I found them when it got 
painted in the '80s (needs paint again, currently in primer).

The blue "replacement" '69 Monza here is a very straight and tight 
car, and it has HD suspension which would be a bit rougher on the 
unibody... but it's still tight and solid and straight.  In fact, 
it's as tight and straight as any Vair here or elsewhere.

A chapter member had a '68 Convertible I did some body work on 
(previous owner's fenderbender fix that wasn't done right) and it did 
show some mis-aligned fender spot welds that caused high spots at 
seams, but not what I'd call bad... just noticeable if you looked 
closer.   It was evident on the rear driver side fender which sat a 
little too high to line up right with the other sheet metal, from the 
deck lid and air inlet grill up to the door jamb etc. and I ended up 
shimming the deck lid and air grill with some washers to get it to 
line up... left the door as-is.   Hey, it's a ragtop and people 
expect them to warp a tad... ;)


As a rule, I've seen *very* few assembly errors on earlies, and not 
much on '69s or '68s... in fact, one of the '69s here was built on 
Friday Oct 28, 1968, which was the last day of production on the 
Corvair line.   One would expect such an example to have had sloppy 
assembly, but it does not.

Another was built on the "ad-hoc" line, has a VIN in the 50XX range 
and it's OK as well.

I'll not step up and claim that all '69s are perfect... it's just 
that I continue to hear stories about how "...the '69 Corvairs had 
poor build quality", worded as a blanket statement and that's just not true.




tony..