[1969] Frt Brake Hose

[Kent Sullivan]

Another item that amazingly made it onto '69s is the redesigned clutch cable
that has the Heim joint at the pedal. Great idea, but way too late to make
any appreciable difference, especially considering the small size of '69
production -- and the low percentage of '69s that were equipped with manual
transmissions. I believe the clutch/brake pedal assembly also had to change
to accommodate the new cable.

--Kent
-----Original Message-----
From: 1969 [mailto:1969-bounces at corvair.org] On Behalf Of Mark Corbin
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 1:17 PM
To: David Brown; 1969 at corvair.org
Subject: Re: [1969] Frt Brake Hose

All,

Having worked for 30 years for GM, I'd venture a guess that it was some
engineer's pet project, something that he thought should have been done
years ago but they didn't have the money to do it. Just like the '69 clutch
cable fix. There are several other small items on only the '69's like this.

You see, every year the management earmarks a certain dollar amount for each
car line for upgrades and redesigns. With the Corvair, the management was
probably unconcerned about the car, so they blindly allocated "X" dollars
towards "federal safety and emissions standards", not realizing that most of
that work was probably accomplished on the '68's. So this gave the engineers
some "play" money to spend (because if they didn't spend it, they possibly
would have been cut back on the projects they really wanted and needed to
put through). So they made sure they spent it, even if it was on someone's
pet project.

It may have been that said engineer in question had felt that the original
design was lacking in some respect. So he had this idea, and this gave him
the opportunity to put it into effect. But whether the original design was
deficient or not is irrelevant. What is important is, from an historical
perspective, if you are going for truly stock hardware, stick with the
"special" design parts. Otherwise, there's no reason that you absolutely
NEED to stay stock.

Bottom line is that I learned long ago that there's the right way, the wrong
way, and the GM way, and that what GM does often times defies rationality
and logic, at least from our perspective.

-Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: David Brown
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 9:27 AM
To: 1969 at corvair.org
Subject: [1969] Frt Brake Hose

Hi All,

Just a quick 'minutiae' question that is bugging me since I am currently
replacing my original front brake hoses (*only* available from your friendly
Corvair parts folks).

Does anyone know the history on these hoses?  I have spent about an hour
checking & can't find anything else that might have used these.  Are they
really specific to 69 Corvairs only?  Why would the factory make up
something specific like this for a car they were phasing out (and were
trying to use up all parts specific for the Corvair)?  Since the front brake
hose for 65->68 Corvair is the same part used on the 69 Belair, Biscane,
Nova, etc., it doesn't make sense to me that the factory would make an
effort to use something different, and specific for only the 69 Corvair,
when there was a huge supply of the 'regular' ones available!  Any comments,
thoughts, history facts??

Regards,
Dave

David Brown
#3287
140/4, Posi Monza cp.
Wimberley (Austin), TX