<VV> Back on the road...

[LonzoVair at aol.com]

Hey guys & gals,
This note has two purposes... and there IS Corvair content.
Yesterday I finally got the "spare axle" installed on the '64 700... it had 
 snapped (yes, SNAPPED) back in early March for reasons unknown. I had 
installed  a new harmonic balancer on the Sunday we had returned from our cruise 
(the  balancer had separated on my way to work one morning, so I had it 
towed home on  a flatbed, and once I was home I drove it to it's "resting 
place". Once the  balancer was installed, I started it up, put it in gear, and 
NUTHIN'... looked  under and saw the axle floppin'...)...and the poor thing 
had sat ever since.  We've had some serious rain in my neck of the woods for 
the last 2 months, and  the few days it WAS nice, I was sick (fighting 
pneumonia since the first of  May), so yesterday was my first chance to get to it. 
I remove the axle bearing (axle had snapped about a 1/4" into the bearing)  
and proceeded to beat the flange off the end (I used to have one of those 
flange  removers, but I loaned it out, and never saw it again)... after 
longer than it  should have been, I finally got it outta there, and installed the 
used axle I'd  gotten from a friend.
I'll be taking her out on a test run in a few, since the battery had  
drained whilst sitting for so long...
The bearing that was on the snapped shaft was one of Clark's "rebuildable"  
bearings with the 2 piece aluminum housing... I'll be calling them for a  
replacement seal, puller ring, spacer and keeper-ring on Tuesday... 
 
My test drive will take me out to Millwood, KY, about 25 miles, to the  
graveyard where my paternal Grandmother, her parents, and her grandparents  
rest... a simple country graveyard sitting on a hill, surrounded by farmland,  
and a fence row filled with wild blackberries about two weeks from  being 
ripe. Great-grandpa James Harned was a Spanish-American War veteran, and I  
have a small flag to plant at his stone... he didn't die in the war, but 17  
years later he was helping a neighbor get their family and belongings out of 
a  burning house & barn, and he died a week later from complications due to 
the  smoke inhalation (most likely pneumonia)... leaving behind a wife and 4 
kids (my  Grandma was 7 years old)...
So I take some time out to honor him, by marking  his resting place with a 
flag he was willing to give his life for... just a long  tradition that my 
Dad had started years ago for a grandpa he never knew.
 
Take a few minutes this weekend and consider the sacrifices that many have  
made for us. I, for one, am thankful for everyone who ever donned a uniform 
of  the armed services, and our young men & women who are out there right 
now,  in harms way... I pray they make it home safe. 
 
Now, where are my keys....
 
Lonzo in Kentucky where there's been a  three day stretch of "no  rain"!