<VV> OK is it true or not ?

[Tony Underwood]

At 01:37 PM 8/22/2007, kcvair at netscape.com wrote:
>Frank-I've heard that also.  I've been driving Corvairs since 1962 
>and never had the problems people keep bring up when they see a 
>Corvair.  The only thing about the engine falling out is the 
>possibility of the rear motor mount coming loose and allowing the 
>rear of the engine dropping down a few inches or maybe hitting the ground.

The engine won't ever hit the ground unless the bellhousing 
breaks.  The early cars' axles will stop it before it gets that close 
to the pavement.

IN late model 'Vairs, there's no swing-axle shafts to hang on the 
rear swingarms, so if a late motor mount fails the engine could 
likely drop down far enough for the skid plate to make 
sparks.    However...  on my '65 ragtop I deliberately did drop the 
engine down after removing the motor mount, just to see how far a 
late drivetrain might dip, and it did NOT hit the ground.   The axles 
and lower strut rods combined to "bind up" enough to not allow the 
engine to droop down far enough to touch the ground, even with me 
pushing down on it from above...  not real hard, didn't wanna crack 
the bellhousing which was all that was supporting the engine.

OK, I'll 'fess up,  I'd been trying to replace the harmonic balancer 
and I thought I'd just drop everything down and make quick work of it 
with an impact wrench on the puller.    ;)

On earlies, dropping the engine is more likely to happen simply 
because of the way the motor mount works.

This has happened to me twice, in two different early model 'Vairs, 
one belonging to a friend, the other my mom's '61 700.   In mom's 
car, the mount was still attached to the engine but the bolts that 
secured the mount to the box member had *both* broken.   They snapped 
off flush with the cage nuts in the box member, evidently because 
they had been slightly loose or whatever and the rattling and flexing 
eventually did them in...  in any event, they were the original bolts 
and of the correct grade.

Check those 'motor mount to box member' bolts on those earlies, don't 
let them get loose.

Mom's car had its "event" occur as she was backing out of her parking 
spot, preparing to leave the ITT Nightvision facility (which caused 
some problems when I showed up to rescue her what with the guards and 
other security people and all being an issue at ITT), so she called 
me and off I went with a castle nut and cotter pin... to find all 
that stuff still on the engine.    I managed to unscrew one of the 
broken bolt shanks out of the cage nut, stole one bolt out of my 
Spyder and hooked her back up and we both got back to my place where 
I replaced the missing bolts in both cars, no more problems.

The friend's 'Vair unscrewed its castle nut because there wasn't a 
pin in it (he didn't think it was really needed), shredded the (63) 
air grill etc.   Mom's air grill fared better, bent it up but it 
straightened out OK.


I've not ever had a late model mount fail and drop the engine.



tony..