The Story - by Russ
The first car my wife owned was when she was in college. It was a 1962 Corvair with the powerglide transmission. Any Corvair owner at that time knew you always had spare fan belts, tools, and cans of oil in the trunk. Every time you put gas in the gas tank you also had to add oil. The air cooled, pancake six cylinder engine was dependable, however it leaked and burned oil.
I found this "diamond in the rough" in Southern California. For $200 and the trouble of towing it home, it was mine. I saw leaves sticking out of the louvers on the hood. When I opened the hood, the engine compartment was completely packed with leaves. I literally had to shovel them out to get to the engine. The car had not run in 15 years. The gas had turned to varnish in the carburetors and gas tank. All of the rubber, hoses, and gaskets crumbled to the touch. There were dents, scratches, and surface rust covering the car. The rear window had leaked and rusted out around the window frame. The water had rotted the rear seats and rusted the floorboards. Much of the chrome was rusted and pitted.
I started by stripping the car down to the bare frame and body. I welded up the rust spots, window frame etc. I straightened the dents and sanded the entire body inside and out. I used POR-15 to neutralize rust where it would not be painted and Rust-Mort on the surfaces that would be painted. After endless hours of primer, sanding, primer, sanding, primer, sanding, I was ready to paint. I painted the entire body, inside and out, with Dupont base coat/clear coat paint.
I removed all of the upholstery from the seat frames and springs and sand blasted and repainted the springs. New seat padding from Clark’s and a local upholstery shop along with seat upholstery kits were installed on my kitchen floor along with appropriate skinned knuckles, pinched fingers, etc. I installed new headliner fabric, door panels, carpeting and padding, padded dash, window tracks, etc. A trip to the chrome shop took care of the bumpers and a lot of hand polishing took care of much of the remaining chrome and aluminum.
I rebuilt the carburetors, replaced the “O” rings and other seals, cleaned all of the engine components, replaced one of the heads, replaced the muffler and tail pipe, installed Petronics II electronic ignition and sand blasted and painted all of the engine sheet metal. Almost exactly one year after I started the project I took the completed car for a drive. This is by far the most complete rebuild I have done to date.
