<VV> Luna Tuna report (long)

[AeroNed at aol.com]

I finally got home and recovered from the Luna Tuna....
It all started yesterday at 8 AM at Terry Kalp's shop. The weather was more  
appropriate for Cold Tuna than Luna Tuna, cold windy and rainy. That didn't 
stop  the hard core Corvair crowd in Kansas. Folks started to arrive shortly 
after the  first pot of coffee was ready. There were plenty of doughnuts, danish 
and  muffins to go with the coffee.
Anyhow, the big Corvair projects were a suspected dropped valve seat, a bad  
clutch and an engine that needed to be assembled. When everything was 
finished,  I got home just before 11 PM.
 
One of our members that is a college student driving a 63 coupe everyday  had 
a "family friend" diagnose a dropped valve seat in his car. No problem, we  
can swap out a head. He had the car towed to the shop and we got him started.  
Once the head was off, the seats were just fine. Time to get more information 
on  why someone thought a seat had dropped. Once we got all the information on 
the  problem, the problem was more bad diagnoses by a non Corvair "mechanic" 
than  anything else. One of our local Corvair experts, Dennis Fuller, looked 
over the  car and found the points were horrible misaligned. Reinstalled the 
head,  adjusted the points and the car ran fine.
 
Ryan Verthein made it to the Tuna from Topeka in his sedan. He overcame the  
cold weather and lack of heater in his car. Once he thawed out, he got to work 
 on changing out the clutch, PP, flywheel, etc. The old one was coated in 
oil.  Ryan is a very methodical mechanic and does fine work. Once he was 
finished,  there was a problem with the engine under load. A little troubleshooting  
revealed a severely worn points plate. Once that was replaced, the car ran  
better but still not as good as it should. Yoda, (aka Terry Kalp) said it's a  
bad condenser. Once that was replaced the car was much better. Ryan headed home, 
 but he still has plenty of opportunities to work on his sedan.
 
Travis Bolten came down from KC to get some help assembling his engine for  
his 63 convertible. He had most of the parts cleaned and ready to be assembled  
as well as all the necessary bearings, rings and gaskets. He learned the 
"joy"  of checking clearances. There was lots of interest in how to properly 
install  the cam.
 
There was food too and lots of it. We were a little short on chairs, again.  
The day was long, but I think is was another successful Tuna. We'll do it all  
again in February.
 
Ned