Bad Ground

At the tech session, Gary (the Corvair mechanic) noticed that one of my tail lights wasn't behaving. He diagnosed a bad ground and told Tom how to fix it - attach one end of a wire to the outside of the tail light housing (ensuring good metal to wire contact) and the other end to a screw into a good ground. Last night Tom did just that and now I've got two bright tail lights.

Joint Replacement

Saturday, Tom and Ariel took me to the Tech Session of the local Corvair club. With help, they replaced both of my upper balljoints. Each joint is held on with four rivets that they had to shear off and then drill out before installing the new ones. Tom discovered that the lower joint that was loose was actually a loose nut, not a bad joint. They also installed new front gas shock absorbers. Ariel says I handle and ride better.

Even though they were able to cross one thing off of my To Do list, one thing had to be added. The screw that retains my blinker assembly keeps coming loose. Tom has had to pull the steering wheel off twice to tighten the bolt - each time trying something different that doesn't permanently fix the problem. He's e-mailed the guy at the Corvair Ranch for help.

Running Smoothly

It's been a little while since I posted last, but "no news is good news." I've been running fine. On my last tank of gas I got over 17 mpg in a mix of city and hwy driving. Last night Tom repaired my turn signal mechanism again. This time he claims he did it right so that I won't stick on the left turn mode anymore.

I'm looking forward to this Saturday when Ariel and Tom will take me to a Corvair club tech session and replace three of my ball joints and my front shock absorbers. It will be nice to have the clunk go away.