<VV> The amazing 45 mph Corvair (found and cured the problem)

[JRVIDRINE at aol.com]

Folks,
 
Recently I had asked for help on my car which would start, run  smoothly, 
idle well, sounded good, but didn't have any power and could  only manage 45 mph.
 
Well, I changed out the carburetors, the fuel filter, the fuel pump,  checked 
the distributor, changed out the vacuum advance, checked the points,  
adjusted everything etc.  Nothing worked.
 
In any case I have been working on it as I can (which isn't a lot of time  
due to work, etc.).  I have been convinced that when I found the problem,  it 
would be something simple since the car was running well before I started the  
work that I had been doing.  A large part of this was taking off all of the  
shrouding to repaint it and to replace the engine shroud to body seals.  Of  
course part of this involved taking the generator, carburetors, sparkplug  wires, 
etc., off.  I had placed ziplock bags over all of the exposed  ends of fuel 
lines etc.  Apparently not well enough.  Enter the evil  mud dauber wasp.  
Yesterday after reading some of the recent VV posts, one  spoke of the mud daubers 
and the damage they can do.  
 
I decided to pull my fuel lines off from the tee at the fuel pump to see if  
they were clear.  The first one I pulled was on the passenger side  
carburetor.  Blew into it and sure enough it was stopped up.  After  using a thin wire 
to push in as far as I could, I got some mud out.  I then  tapped on the line 
(lightly) with a ball peen hammer on an anvil and got even  more out.  I then 
blew carb cleaner through and lots of air.  
 
It runs fine now and I even had her up to 80 with promise of more to go,  but 
let wisdom intercede and slowed down to the speed limit.  I drove her  around 
for about an hour and went to Church in it this morning (everyone there  gets 
a kick out of seeing it).  
 
I do want to thank all of the good people on this site for their helpful  
advice which I have saved in a file.  Even though it wasn't anything  that was 
discussed, I now have a lot of trouble shooting information to refer to  later.  
It's amazing how well your outlook improves along with your morale  when your 
Corvair is running right. 
 
Thanks to all.
 
Randy Vidrine 
62 Monza Coupe
Branch, LA