A Warm Garage = Shorter To Do List

When Tom got home from work yesterday, he fired up two of the kerosene heaters, so I knew I'd get some of his precious time. The last couple of evenings he's been working on other cars in his fleet, but now it was my turn. After the recent flat tire, Tom promised Ariel that he would put better tires on me. He had three decent spare tires from previous Corvair. One of them had replaced the flat rear one, so the other two were installed on the front last night. The issue he needs to resolve is that I know have three tires that are 185/80-13 and one that is 185/70-13. The odd one is on the right rear. One of the tires he removed is still in good shape, so he'll install that one on the left rear. We'll see if Ariel notices the difference of two inches in diameter.


While I was up on jackstands, he tackled the replacement of the Pittman Arm bushing. Note that all pictures are courtesy of Clark's Corvair Parts Website.

Getting the old, rotten one out wasn't too bad other than removing the bushing's metal shell from end of the drag link. He had to cut and chisel out the sheetmetal where it had bonded by corrosion to the inside surface of the hole. With the old bushing out, he coated the hole and the new bushing with anti-seize and pressed it in to the hole using a socket and large c-clamp. Unfortunately, he didn't have a way to get the bushing in the last eight of an inch. He needed some large washers with holes that would fit over the bolt head to allow him to press directly on the flange of the shell.

He also needs to buy a new nut since the old one was rounded off during removal.

With the bushing installed as far as possible, he turned his attention to the replacing the throttle linkage bushing at the transmission with new parts.

He also replaced the busted accelerator cable boot, the melted vapor vent plug on the left carburetor, and PCV tube gasket - all with new parts from Clark's.

Whew. The busy guy was able to cross a lot of items off of the To Do list. He also promised me he'd be back out again the next night for more work.