<VV> A fine mess of a 110

[Bryan Blackwell]

Hi all,

Last weekend we went and picked up the running gear that had been  
pulled out of a rusty '64 Monza - parted out by a non-Corvair guy.  I  
got the bits for not too much, to spread out between a couple of our  
projects and another club member.  The 110 was interesting, it had an  
Otto pulley and an alternator conversion (good in my view) but VW  
plug wires (bad).  The engine turned, but wouldn't fire, so I offered  
the guy what I thought the core was worth and we brought it home  
along with the suspension.

Yesterday evening I did a little more investigating.  The plug wires  
weren't in their usual orientation, so I thought I'd figure out where  
#1 TDC was and see if the dist was 180 out.  This is where things got  
interesting (scary).  Pulling the plugs, I took out Champion RN12YC -  
a 3/4" reach plug.  Uh-oh.  Then, turning the engine seemed to result  
in a compression stroke on every revolution of the crank for #1.   
Hmm.  Tried #2, and found *no* compression.

At this point I'm thinking one of two things.  My first guess is that  
somebody decided to give the engine a "good tune up" and "knew" it  
must need a valve adjustment.  Second guess is the cam gear key or  
the gear itself is broken.  I'd have expected some bad noises when  
cranking the engine with a bad gear, so I'm going to pull the valve  
covers and have a look to see if the valves are moving and if the  
adjustment is way out.  Hopefully the engine isn't completely trashed.


Bryan Blackwell bryan at skiblack.com
http://autoxer.skiblack.com/
   Corvairs: '61 Lakewood, '64 Greenbrier, '65 Corsa, '66 Corsa
   '69 Road Runner, '97 Ford F-150, '99 Neon R/T
"Why do something if you're not going to obsess about it?"