<VV> Covair engine restoration - Any Opinions?

Frank DuVal corvairduval at cox.net
Sun Apr 26 12:58:42 EDT 2009


Notes injected below:

Frank DuVal

Arlette Carl wrote:

>Currently I am working on the engine, which the former owner from Wheeling West Virginia claimed had only done 31,000 miles from brand new.
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Never believe odometer readings or people until verified by 
investigation. Besides, it really doesn't matter in the long run.

>Having removed the engine from the car and removed all the metal covers and after steam cleaning I notice that the cooling fins have worked to remove excess metal from between the cooling fins. This suggests to me that the engine has been out of the car at some point in the past but it must have been a very long time ago because rusted bolts were everywhere to be found when removing the engine.
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East coast, rust happens right away. That's why I use liberal amounts of 
anti seize on everything. Even wheel studs.

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>My plan is have all the tin wear sand blasted and powder coated satin black, remove the sump cover and rocker covers then clean powder coat them flat silver, replace front and rear crankshaft oil seals and associated gaskets, replace the top cover and fan bearing. In short tidy up the exterior of what I understand to be a low mileage engine.
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>Before steam cleaning the engine, I noticed most of the really 'wet' heavy oil deposits were inside the rear bell housing and around the area where the crankshaft pulleys, fuel pump and distributor are.
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In this case, also replace the oil cooler o-rings, oil cooler adapter 
gasket, oil filter/delcotron adapter gasket and rear housing gasket 
(maybe what you call the rear bell housing?) oh, and the oil pump gasket 
while you're there...  Fuel pump o-ring, gasket in oil cap.

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>This suggests to me that the major oil leaks have been at both ends of the crankshaft and of course it's my intention to replace these oils seals with the best available.
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>My expectation is that with the above work and rebuilt carburettors than this low mileage engine should perform very well and I guess if it does not then removing a nice clean engine with no rusted bolts to deal with should not be a lot easier than it was the first time around!
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>However I am starting to wonder if I should, or if I have to remove the 'heads' so that the Push Rod Tubes can be removed and the 'O' rings replaced as I understand oil can leak from these.
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Read the shop manual, head removal is NOT required for push rod o-ring 
replacement. Just think of the head as three separate heads and do one 
cylinder at a time. i.e. exhaust and intake of one cylinder. If these 
o-rings are leaking, you will see the hangers for the exhaust logs are 
wet with oil. But I would change them at the same time as all the other 
work just so everything is fresh at the same time.

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>Any comments or advice would very much appreciated, as there are not Corvair experts in Australia.
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Now with the Internet there are! ggg

Don't forget the oil pressure switch as a possible leak also. If it 
leaks, it should be obvious.

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>Regards 
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>Carl L. Kelsen 
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