1962 Corvair Spyder
(My first car)

This is my reply to GrayDog … [DT: see “Broken down cars” by SnakepitKansas]

My dad bought this car for me in 1971 when I was 16 for $300 and I paid him back at $50 a week. A year later I traded it in for a 1966 Mustang HiPo convertible and I paid $1000 for it of my own money from working in concrete construction.

If you look at the attached pik you’ll get an idea of what I am going to write.

The Corvair drivetrain is set up like this, from front to rear – transmission, rear end-transaxle, engine. The transmission is connected to the partial frame at the front with 2 motor mounts. The transaxle is supported by the suspension. The engine is supported with just ONE motor mount at the very rear in the middle.

If you look at the attached pik there is a silver circle “thing” right in the middle at the very rear. That is the fuel pump (diaphram type, center vertical plunger, rides on lobes on the cam) and is important as you will see.

Directly under the fuel pump is the single motor mount. The mount is sort of like a fancy angle iron with a hole drilled through it. That angle iron matches with another angle iron mounted on the rear most part of the frame with a nut welded to it. Now this is what I consider a design flaw. The 9/16″ bolt that connects the 2 angle irons together is inserted from below and held in place by a cotter pin.

My dad was an airplane mechanic (C119 flying boxcar) in the air force in Japan in the early 50’s and one of the many things he told me was that all bolts were inserted from above because if the nut falls off the bottom the bolt will remain in the hole doing it’s job. Corvair apparently did not have air force airplane mechanics in their design line up.

At 16 I was very damaging to anything with an engine and this Corvair got a fair share of my abuse. And I spent a lot of time fixing on it. Stuff like changing out clutch discs and pressure plates and throw out bearings, replacing sheared off bolts on the ring gear in the transaxle, valve jobs on the heads, replacing cylinder sleeves, you know, routine stuff for a young dood with high detergent 30w running though his veins. lol

That drive train spent as much time on the driveway as it did in the car. Well, apparently, when I had last had the engine out, upon putting it back together I had neglected to reinstall the cotter pin that kept the motor mount connected to the car. Vibration rotated the bolt, and down it fell on the road with the engine following it.

Are you still with me?

I walked down the road and luckily found that bolt.
Note the spare tire. Under it is a bumper jack – remember them things? I laid the tire at the rear of the car, and using it as a fulcrum, I used the shaft of the bumper jack to lift the engine up and inline with the motor mount. Not as easy as it might seem.

An engine is heavy, hundreds of pounds and at that time I was maybe 150 lbs. I had to stand on that jack to get the needed leverage. I also grabbed a large tree branch laying along the rural road to act as a spacer while lifting the engine. It was a balancing act. 1 foot on the jack, lift the engine, scoot the branch with my other foot. Rinse, repeat, inching that engine into position. I got that bolt back in there but could only hand tighten it and that wouldn’t do. I had a pocket knife so I cut the horn wire and used it to make a “cotter pin” to keep that bolt from falling out again.

Keep in mind this was in the summer of 1971 in southwest FL and it was a hot as a half ****ed fox. I was sweaty and hot and thirsty and miserable and 30 miles from home.

I jumped in and cranked the key but it would not start. Looking at the engine again I noticed something odd about that fuel pump. It was broken loose from the block. WTF???? When that engine dropped down to the ground that fuel pump hit the motor mount on the way down and broke off at the shaft. JFC!!!

After pondering this new dilema for a few mins I came up with an idea. I cut some more horn wire. I wedged one end of that bumper jack under the spare tire bracket, across the top of that fuel pump, and while pushing the pump down hard into the block I wired the other end of the jack to the battery bracket. What a mess.

But.

It worked!!!
I cranked it a couple times, pulled the manual choke, and violin! it started. And ran fine!

When I got home no one else was there so I stole one of my Dad’s Schlitz brews and went out on the back porch and lit me up a B52 bomber and zoned out. LOL

Just one of thousand of adventures of a yound dood with what would now be called over the top ADHD and endlesss curiosity and just enough retardedry to be almost dangerous.