This page contains material from the September 2003 newsletter.

Editor: Jim Pittman Next Meeting: Wednesday September 3rd, 7:30 PM Galles Chevrolet, Lomas & University This Month: Dues Due Sylvan Zuercher August Meeting Notes Chuck Vertrees August Board Meeting Jim Pittman The Driver's (Hot) Seat Robert Gold For Sale, Trade or Wanted Everybody Calendar of Coming Events Everybody State Fair Car Show Robert Gold Seven Years Ago Jim Pittman There And Back the Aircooled Way Dave Huntoon Pikes Peak Club Web Page Dennis Pleau Resurrecting a '66 Corsa Geoff Johnson Tri-State 2004 Hotel Information Ken Brown CORSA Newsletter Award Jim Pittman Cover: Mary Lou's Convertible at the NMCCC Picnic === "I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it." -- Mae West Dues Expired or Due or Approaching Due: Gordon Johnson 2003-Jun Mark Morgan 2003-Jun Richard Foster 2003-Jul Robert Harvey 2003-Aug Larry Hickerson 2003-Aug Steve Johnson 2003-Aug Jacob Schlessinger 2003-Aug Sylvan Zuercher 2003-Aug Lee Olsen 2003-Sep Jon Anderson 2003-Oct Willard Davis 2003-Oct John Topp 2003-Oct Jason Ward 2003-Oct Del Patten 2003-Nov Jack Bryan 2003-Nov If your membership is due or has expired, please send your dues to: Wendell Walker, CNM Treasurer, 301 Utah Meadow, Rio Rancho, NM 87124 Note: the Club will mail in your National dues when you renew, but only if you send us the renewal form from CORSA Communique! === August Meeting Notes Chuck Vertrees The meeting was called to order on 8/6/03 at 18:30 at Galles Chevrolet. There were 23 members and 2 guests present. We were glad to see our president and family back from Spain. Sylvan is starting to feel a little better and hopes to be able to make the next meeting. The minutes of the last meeting were approved as printed in the newsletter. Treasurer Wendell Walker reported that CNM had $676.50 in the checking account and $4,644.76 in the GMAC account for a total worth of $5,321.26. Mark Martinek reported on the last Car Council meeting. Most of the report concerned the coming September Car Auction, Corral, Show & Swap Meet. The Car Council has an established website: NMCCC.TRIPOD.COM. Information on coming events can be found there. Mark Domzalski did not have any new CORSA rumors. We will have to read our latest CORSA Communique and see if we can find any. Bill Reider still has lots of T-shirts and golf shirts. The price is being reduced to get rid of our supply. See Bill for the latest price. The Santa Fe Fourth of July car show was mentioned. Be sure and check out our website. Steve has added a lot of new pictures. The swap meet mentioned in the Car Council report is on September 26, 27, and 28. CNM will volunteer to work the gate in the morning of some of those dates. It was said that the 28th is the date for the State Fair car show, but now there is some question if that is the date. STAY TUNED! The meeting was adjourned at 20:02. This was followed by a presentation by two officers of the Albuquerque Police Department bicycle patrol: Charles Hedrick and Cory Snyder. They work out of the "Mighty Southeast" Substation, the best in the city. Thanks to Jerry for coordinating this presentation. === Board Meeting Notes Jim Pittman On Wednesday 20-Aug-2003 at 5:10 PM President Robert Gold called the meeting to order at House of Covers. Present were Mark Domzalski, Joel Nash, Steve Gongora, Geoff Johnson, Sally Johnson, Jim Pittman, Heula Pittman and Jerry Goffe. Chuck Vertrees, planning ahead for his absence, had asked your editor to take notes. Wendell Walker, planning ahead for his absence, had mailed a copy of the treasurer's report. It said we have $742.50 in checking, $4644.76 in the GMAC account, for a total of $5387.26. Robert said that the Sesame Street number for today is "21" as in: the State Fair car show will be on Sunday 21 Sep 2003. Robert said he really enjoyed the presentation at the last meeting. It was more about police activities than about how to get into your car when you had foolishly locked yourself out, but no matter. Robert reminded us that there will be elections in October, so we'll need a slate of candidates. Sylvan has been the one-man nominating committee and election committee in the past but he may be less active this year. Not to worry: Mark Domzalski wishes to run for president and Sally Johnson wishes to run for vice president. Although they were not present to be asked, we believe Chuck and Wendell wish to run for re-election as secretary and treasurer, respectively. There's no lock on any office: other people in the club are welcome to run for any office. (Editor-for-life Jim reminded us that the newsletter editor's job is not an elected office.) Sally & Geoff have ideas for events and they wanted to bring them to the board meeting. First, they observed that in recent years we have had few activities where people actually bring their Corvairs. They were thinking of organizing a show-and-shine for a weekend before the State Fair. Mark commented that these things work fairly well for a breakfast on a Saturday. Robert commented that it need not be a big to-do but a low key event just to get people to come out with their Corvairs. Geoff commented that many people have their Corvairs "finished" or restored, but others have cars that are continually in a state of change. We should attract both kinds of Corvair owners. Steve said we should look at the British Sports Car Club newsletter: they go to breakfasts about twice a month. Sally will check out a restaurant for holding a Saturday show-and-breakfast. Sally suggested we could have monthly tech sessions - especially for new Corvair owners - in the past we have had sessions on how to repair brake systems, carburetor tune sessions, how to adjust headlights, speed checks with radar gun, how to install windshields. Sally said, with apology to present and past officers, that meetings tend to be "dull" and this may contribute to problems with member retention. Ways to overcome this could include being sure to put a notice of upcoming speakers in the newsletter so members will be looking forward to meeting; re-arranging the meetings to have the speaker first and the business meeting later. Then we'd need to be sure the speaker knows how much time is available. Steve pointed out that when the speaker is last, it gives the person time to observe the meeting and get a feel for the people there, and get better prepared for their talk. So we need to think about this. Sally continued that they want to have an autocross (Mark pointed out that the chair for the 2005 CORSA autocross was present at the meeting, hint, hint) and maybe we could go to the UNM Pit parking area some Sunday morning. Mark said we have been thinking about reviewing the constitution to bring it up-to-date. We need more formal statements of job descriptions for the officer positions. Robert brought up the need for better planning for the club awards, in particular, trying to incorporate the other Tri-State clubs into the process for selecting the recipient of the Boydston award. We have brought this idea up at Tri-State events and so far have had little response except for Steve Goodman's participation. Robert mentioned our planned participation in the NMCCC swap meet, 26-27-28 September. There is a car show Sunday 28 September. Since we will participate in the swap meet (we are scheduled for early Sunday) we can go to the car show as well. Joel said he would check with Larry Blair to speak at our next meeting on combat engineering in the military in Vietnam. He has slides to illustrate an interesting and informative talk. Mark said that Tarmo is working on plans for our October Aspencade tour and at this time the tentative date is 11 October, a Saturday. The meeting was adjourned at about 5:55 PM. === From the Driver's (Hot) Seat Robert Gold 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21 I bet you're wondering why have I written the number 21 so many times to begin this column? It's because if I don't say that number enough times I'm going to forget it. To begin with, I want to encourage everyone to attend this year's State Fair Car Show. I organize the show every year and in the past I could remember when it would be held. That was not the case this year. There I sat at the last meeting telling everyone about the show, but when it came time to state the date I forgot it. The previous newsletter said the show would happen on the 28th of September. I thought that was wrong, but I wasn't sure. Well I'm sure now-- THE STATE FAIR CAR SHOW WILL BE HELD ON SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. So if you want to have a great time, and get lots of ribbons to brag about, make sure you're there. Details about the show are in an article in this newsletter. Well that's enough of my senior moments for this month. I do remember that I attended the Council of Car Clubs picnic and my family had a wonderful time. That's if we ignore the fact that Sara managed to take a header into the play area tires. It was quite a moment when she slipped and literally disappeared into the bowels of one of those gigantic truck tires. We knew everything was all right when she started yelling. Dead children don't yell. We cleaned up her scratch and she was off to terrorize the world. The Car Council did a mighty fine job in making everyone feel at home. I count as one of my better suggestions to include the picnic as our regular August event. A quick count of the various cars showed that the three Corvairs were the most of any one make there. Great going CNM'ers. Oh yes, I can't talk about the picnic without commenting on one more thing. You see I'm the safety officer for the USGS here in town, so I tend to notice safety problems. There was an individual at the picnic who was trying very hard to start the charcoal for the barbecue. He stacked the charcoal and applied the lighter fluid and threw in a match. The fire started slowly and died out. So he threw some more fluid on it and fired it up again. It then died again. We watched as this guy sprayed so much fluid on the coals that we were ready for a reenactment of Pompeii. Luckily nothing bad happened, I guess we could say, "no harm, no foul". The summer is starting to wind down, but CNM still has a lot of activities planned. Sally and Geoff Johnson were kind enough to attend the last Board meeting to propose some changes in how we do things in order to make the club more friendly to new members. I took offense (just kidding!) when Sally said that new members might not be enthralled by the monthly Car Council report. I guess I'll need to jazz up the presentation so that the membership doesn't go to sleep. Anyway, Sally and Geoff suggested that in preparation for the upcoming State Fair Car Show (21 21 21 21...) we have an informal "show and shine" event a couple of weeks before the show. The idea is to encourage the membership to actually bring their Corvairs to an event so all of us can see what wonderful cars we have. I remember way back when I started in the club I was worried that I would be looked down upon when I drove up in my primered 65 Monza. That fear evaporated when I took a look at the cars parked around Ed Black's. What most impressed me was Sylvan's early model that was sort of customized (bashed in) in the back. Anyway I think it's a great idea to emphasize Corvairs, so Sally will be looking into a place and time for all of us to get together. The thought at this time will be a breakfast combined with a parking lot get together to look at the cars. Another suggestion was to have an autocross for those who like to go fast. In recent years we've emphasized more sedate drives and car shows, but haven't done much in the speed department. So I guess it's time we strap on the helmet and let 'er rip! We'll try to discuss some of this at the next meeting. For sure we'll firm up the show and shine event at the meeting. Speaking of the next meeting, Joel Nash has arranged for Larry Blair to speak on engineering in Vietnam. It is at this point I'd like to pause and make one of my many confessions to the membership. I've had a professional relationship with Larry for many years. It began when I headed a project for the USGS to collect water data in the Albuquerque area in cooperation with the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority (AMAFCA). Larry was the Director of that agency and I was floored when I discovered that he was a Corvair fan. Since then I've had a chance to follow his career as he became the head of the City of Albuquerque Public Works Department, and to learn a little bit about his background. All I can say is that I'm astounded at what Larry has accomplished in his life. He had been honored numerous times by the New Mexico Society of Professional Engineers as the most outstanding engineer in the area, and that does not even include his accomplishments in the military. He is truly a renaissance man. In addition he has a wry sense of humor that comes up unexpectedly whenever his gives a talk. With this in mind I encourage you to come and hear Larry. You won't be disappointed. Looking into the future, plans are beginning for the somewhat annual Aspencade. Tarmo Sutt is heading up the effort. This is one event that is unique every time it's held. We may be traveling through the Jemez Mountains or we could be in the Santa Fe area. Who knows. At this point only Tarmo knows, and hopefully we'll be hearing from him at the next meeting to see what's up this time. I guess that's all I have for this month. I could talk about the Golds' soccer adventures, but that will have to wait to farther into the season. All I can say is that Anne Mae is beginning the journey into coaching. I know she'll be unlike any coach the AYSO has ever seen. Just one example should be proof of that fact. Sara's team colors are lime green and black. To this Anne was inspired to suggest that the team be called the margaritas. The AYSO management thought that name to be "inappropriate." So goes life in the Gold household. I guess that's all for now. Be sure to attend the next meeting on Wednesday, September 3 at 7:30. I hope to see you there! -- Robert Gold === * * * * * * FOR SALE, TRADE OR WANTED FREE: 1964 Corvair coupe - needs restoration, new cylinder head. Geoff Johnson - 720-1484 FOR SALE: Extra Greenbriers to go -- call Carl Johnson - 344-3178 Talk to me. Must also be discussed with Sally & Geoffrey. FOR SALE: Yellow Tri-State T-shirts $10 - XXL $12 Yellow Tri-State Golf Shirts $14 - XXL $16 Call Bill Reider 299-4597 FOR SALE: Book on MG-T series. Comes with an MG-TD. $7,500.00 Jerry Goffe - 345-3100 FOR SALE: Super Manual for 1960 Cushman. Comes with a 1960 Cushman. $3,000.00 Jerry Goffe - 345-3100 FOR SALE: 1961 Honda Scrambler No book. $2,650.00 Jerry Goffe - 345-3100 * * * * * * * * * * * CNM ADS ARE FREE TO CNM MEMBERS, $5.00 TO NON-CNM MEMBERS === ============================================================================ C O R V A I R S o f N E W M E X I C O C O M I N G E V E N T S ============================================================================ | | | | | S e p t e m b e r | O c t o b e r | N o v e m b e r | | | | | | : 1 2 3 4 5 6 | : : : 1 2 3 4 | : : : : : : 1 | | 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 | 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 | 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | | 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 | 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 | | 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 | 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 | 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 | | 28 29 30 : : : : | 26 27 28 29 30 31 : | 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 | | : : : : : : : | : : : : : : : | 30 : : : : : : | ============================================================================ Wed 3rd Sep 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Sat 13th Sep 1:00-4:00 CNM Ladies - TBA Wed 17th Sep 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Fri 19th Sep 9:00 PM Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman Sun 21st Sep 7:00 AM State Fair Car Show - Robert Gold - 505-268-6878 Fri 26th Sep ....... NMCCC Auction - more information later Sun 28th Sep ....... NMCCC Swap Meet - more information later Wed 1st Oct 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Sat 4th Oct ....... Old Route 66 Clean-up - more information later Sat 4th Oct early! Balloon Festival starts - continues through week Sat 11th Oct CNM Ladies - TBA Wed 15th Oct 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Fri 24th Oct 9:00 PM Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman Wed 5th Nov 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Fri-Sat 7-8 Nov Great Western Fan Belt Toss & Swap Meet - California Sat 8th Nov 1:00-4:00 CNM Ladies - TBA Sat 15th Nov ....... CNM Pot Luck & Auction - more information later Wed 19th Nov 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Wed 19th Nov 9:00 PM ===EARLY=== Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman Wed 3rd Dec 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Sun 7th Dec Christmas Party - more information later Sat 13th Dec 1:00-4:00 CNM Ladies - TBA Wed 17th Dec 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Fri 19th Dec 9:00 PM Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman (early) Wed 7th Jan 7:30 PM Regular Meeting - GALLES CHEVROLET 1601 Lomas NE Sat 10th Jan 1:00-4:00 CNM Ladies - TBA Wed 21st Jan 5:00 PM Board Meeting - House of Covers Fri 23rd Jan 9:00 PM Newsletter Deadline - Jim Pittman =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Subject: Next Meeting Larry Blair confirms he will talk on combat engineering at the September 3 CNM meeting. - Joel Nash (joelnash AT msn DOT com) === State Fair Car Show Robert Gold Corvairs of New Mexico will be holding our sixth annual State Fair Car Show on Sunday, September 21. This is the last day of the Fair. We'll meet at the Furr's Cafeteria parking lot on the southwest corner of Central and San Pedro at around 7:00 AM and will leave around 7:20 to enter the Fairgrounds through gate 3. This is the furtherest gate to the south on San Pedro. Admission, if we are lucky, will not have to be paid when we enter the fairgrounds. We will be parking on Heritage Ave just south of the Manuel Lujan Building. This is where we were last year. Show times are from 8:00 AM to approximately 4:30 PM. Ribbons will be awarded for three "best of" classes and seventeen novelty classes. This should assure that you'll be getting at least one ribbon to display to the world. You'll get to display your awards as soon as the judging is completed, which should be before lunch. If you have any questions call Robert or Anne Mae Gold in the evenings at 268-6878 or send email to: beisbol30 AT aol. DOT com. We've had good support for this show in the past, so let's keep up the good work this year!! See you there -- Robert Gold === Seven Years Ago September 1996 Volume 22 - Number 9 On the cover, conventioneers from Pennsylvania mistake Acoma Pueblo for condos. President Mark Domzalski ran our meeting and treasurer Will Davis said we had $1133 to spend. From the Car Council: the VMCCA was preparing an "un-fair" car show (since the State Fair was having no car show this year) and CNM planned to participate. Bill Reider said the convention bank account held about $15,670 and he was in a hurry to pay all bills and close the account. Ollie Scheflow reported that we now "owned" the second mile (eastbound from Tramway) of old Route 66 and we'd probably do our first clean-up as soon as we could be trained by the highway department. Your editor was putting together a "How to Run a Convention" booklet and asked for articles from all committee chairs. An outline of the topics took up a whole page. Sylvan welcomed new members: Wayne & Judy Ward of Las Cruces had 40 Corvairs including an aqua Spyder convertible. Sal Roybal had a 1963 convertible. Michael & Joan Hurst had a red 1964 turbo convertible. C. H. Valerio had a 1964 gray coupe. Johnny & Veronica Silva of Espanola had a 1963 convertible. Bruno Parks of Iowa paid dues at the convention to get our newsletter. Mark thanked all who worked on the convention and asked members to try to attend as many meetings as possible. Mark also described the sinking feeling when his Rampside just quit motivating - turned out that the drive shaft broke and the ends melted into blobs. The tech tip was - replace the shaft with a new one, not an old spare! Bill Reider discussed torque patterns for Corvair heads. There's the shop manual way, Richard Finch's way, and then there's Bill's way. Each is better than the others. Actually, Bill's way minimizes the number of times you have to change the socket on your torque wrench as you go around the pattern. Fourteen Years Ago September 1989 Volume 15 - Number 9 The cover featured styling sketches by Fred Edeskuty showing variations on the Lakewood: a pickup, an "El Camino" and a two-door mini station wagon. Tom Martin asked whether the benefits of mailing our newsletter to so many other clubs was worth the considerable cost. Bill Reider gave the recent national convention in Kansas City high marks. President Bill Hector reported on the movie "Tucker, the Man and his Dream" and said there were many parallels between the Tucker and the Corvair. Tech items included carburetor idle circuits a la Bill Reider and a complete price guide from Old Cars magazine. Twenty-one Years Ago September 1982 Volume 8 Number 9 The cover showed an Opel "Spyder Corsa" which probably never made it from Europe to the USA. Treasurer Mary Twilley reported $382 in the bank. President Bill Reider reported that CNM was now registered with the IRS as a non-profit organization; several members claimed that they were, too, but not on purpose. We again discussed the idea of bidding for a CORSA convention in Albuquerque. Bob Phillips volunteered to organize our Christmas dinner. George Morin gave a talk on front suspensions. LeRoy reported on the CORSA convention in Syracuse, New York, rating it Excellent. LeRoy previewed our upcoming trip to Trinity Site. Twenty-eight Years Ago August/September 1975 Volume 1 Number 8 There was not a separate issue for September. In the August/September issue we said we were expecting a report from Steve and Hector Gongora who planned to drive up to the Denver CORSA convention. Jim reported on a Road & Track article about a car show at the Newport Harbor Art Museum which featured a 1968 Corvair. Ike Meissner's tech tips included: be careful when buying a used generator as it may have been rebuilt before and the commutator may be too far gone; the standard Corvair pulley is too small and turns the fan and generator too fast, so look for a larger pulleyfrom a truck; stay away from aluminum end plates as they tend to crack; brushes can be replaced with hard carbon brushes for longer generator life. === There and Back the Aircooled Way -by- Dave Huntoon Recently I had the opportunity to attend a high school reunion. I had never been to one and since I now have the time, being a person of leisure, I thought I would give it a try. It was in Illinois and I could combine it with a brief visit to my family, still all in Illinois. To add a special twist to it, I would drive back in my '61 VW bug. Not a Corvair, but both rear engined and aircooled. Besides I wanted to test/prove that all my work on the VW would hold up. Sort of an acid test. Took tools, oil, parts, fuel pump, and a fan belt. The same type of things most Corvair owners are familiar with. I left on a Monday morning towards Tucumcari and then Rt 54 up into Oklahoma and Kansas. Stopped the first night in Wichita. No problems so far, though the 100 degree in the afternoon was a bit much. Sort of like a sauna. My car is pretty loud to begin with and with the windows open, it only adds to the commotion. Of course I knew it would be like that, but knowing it and actually experiencing it is another matter. Don't need no stinkin' AC or cruise control or gas gauge (optional on VWs until '62). A big thunderstorm overnight in Wichita cooled things off nicely for the next day. I could even leave the windows up for most of the morning which helped with the noise problem. Up to Topeka and then secondary roads to St Joseph and across the top of Missouri. Crossing the Mississippi at Keokuk, up the River Road along the Mississippi (love typing the word Mississippi) through Nauvoo where the Mormons left for places west. Nauvoo looked like an interesting place with fine old buildings and houses and a vibrant tourist industry. I hadn't planned on going that far on the second day and looking at the map I could figure I had maybe 5 hours left to get to Elgin, 40 miles west of Chicago. Interestingly, we have two other members of CNM from Elgin: Ollie Scheflow and Jon Anderson. Okay, Jon is now in Colorado but it still counts. Go figure the odds on that. I persevered and got to my parents' place at 9PM. Still no problems with the VW other than a slow leak in a tire. Folks are fine, brother and sister likewise. The weather was not hot at all, mid 80s, green grass all over, large trees, fields of corn and soybeans and oats, all that Midwest stuff. My brothers' Corvairs (Greenbrier and '64 convertible) are well except for a dragging rear brake on the '64. I worked on that some, not sure if it is fixed yet. Time will tell. The reunion (40 years) was Saturday evening in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Not a typical reunion (I guess) in that there was no band or cardboard-tasting catered meal. Just a room above a pub with a bar and some pizza, pretty low key but correct in my estimation. Bumped into (literally) quite a few of the people I have known since I was 5 years old. Really nice to know they have done well. Lawyers, judges, engineers, business men, doctors - nice group of people. I felt like an underachiever compared to some of these people. When one would ask what I had been doing the last 40 years, it would take maybe 2 minutes tops to relate my history. Oh well. The pretty girls then are still pretty now, stunning in many cases. Not quite the case with some of the guys. A little extra poundage and a little less hair (something I can relate to) made recognition more difficult. That is why they invented name tags. Later in the evening, after dark, most went on a three-hour pleasure cruise (Gilligan's Island springs to mind) on a large tour boat around Lake Geneva. The sun was down. A gentle breeze from the progress of the boat and the motion of the boat itself was a fine way to kind of wind things down. I would say all there had a good time, me too. Since I thought the VW was sounding a little different, perhaps it was just my hearing had not recovered yet, I changed the plugs, adjusted the valves and adjusted the fan belt. It was still spitting some when cold but that was likely a carburetion problem from being at 700 feet instead on my normal 7000 feet. I left it alone. I had also noticed the oil pressure was 5 pounds lower on those 100 degree trip days: 30 versus a normal 35 pounds at 70 MPH after being fully warmed up, which takes a good hour. Next time under similar conditions I would like to try full synthetic oil and see if it makes any difference. Any bets? During my stay I drove my brothers' Greenbrier (110 HP, PG) around on several errands. Easy to drive, gets lots of attention, so my brother and I have hatched a plan. Since he wants a kind of hot, noisy, slightly modified street car and I like to drive the 'Brier we are going to trade. He gets my turbo coupe and I get the 'Brier. Haven't quite figured out how or when yet, maybe next year at the convention in Lexington. Maybe sooner, who knows? We both just got the itch for something different, so that is what we are going to do. The Greeny is one that I found in Moriarty maybe 8 years ago and hauled back to Illinois after fixing the PG and replacing tires. So it is coming home, but then again my turbo is leaving its home. The balance is maintained. I left on a Monday morning again using I-88 to I-80 through Iowa into Nebraska and then south to Manhattan, Kansas for the night. Used I-70 from there to Rt 56 to come back through Kansas and Oklahoma and into New Mexico at Clayton. Another hot day. In the end, I had no mechanical problems, no repairs on the side of the road. The bug got 33 MPG for an average fuel economy. The best MPG was on the Interstates at 70 MPH rather than 60 MPH on the secondary roads. Must be those finely tuned forty-year-old VW aerodynamics that kick in at 70 MPH. Yeah, that's it. All went well as I had hoped. Saw only two old VWs on the trip and waved to them but got no response. All old VW guys wave out here and I see at least a dozen every time I go to town. I would like to thank Del and Kim for taking care of my cats while I was away. They are kind of shy, so Del and Kim rarely saw them, but the food was consumed and the litter box was used so assumed all was OK. As indeed it was. And that, my friends, is my 3000 miles the aircooled way. === Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 20:38:21 -0500 From: Dennis & Debbie Pleau (ddpleau AT earthlink DOT net) Subject: Re: Web Page PPCC now has a web page. We had an unofficial one before which one of our members had posted, but it went away. CORSA gave PPCC a site, and I put this together tonight. It's far from done. Jon Anderson has volunteered to be webmaster so I'm going to transfer it all to him. I will finish the picture pages which I have listed but don't have links from yet. Note, I have a link to the CNM web site. Check it out at http://www.corvair.org/chapters/chapter809/ Dennis === Resurrecting a '66 Corsa Geoff Johnson It sounded nuts at first and I was not really into the idea. We wanted an autocross car. The idea was originally conceived when we had run out of car projects. My sister's '61 was a good solid runner, and my Buick was just about finished, and my yellow '63 was still in a long rehabilitation after its accident. The most likely choice was a hull of a '66 Corsa that had sat engineless and abandoned for 30 years outside of our father's house. There was also a '64 coupe that needed a cylinder head, and a lot of work. We settled on the Corsa since we wanted a late model to counter balance all of our EM's. It had several things going for it, factory fast steering, factory headrests, and a lack of rust, other that though, it was very rough. In 1972 it had been purchased from a used car lot in Santa Fe for its engine. The engine was pulled, and the car was headed to the scrap yard, when our dad traded some other car parts for it. He never really seemed to have plans for it, and it sat, and sat, and sat. I remember as a kid climbing in through the shot out windows and playing with the shifter pretending to drive it. The New Mexico sun took its toll on the interior, and paint whilst it sat. In 1996, when the convention was in Albuquerque, we were thinking of thinning out the collection, and offered it up for sale. A man from California wanted to buy it and we pulled it around the house so he could pick it up. The main purpose he wanted it for though was the quick steering, and we were relatively sure he would have picked it up and stripped it. We did not want this happening to an otherwise good body, and told the man thanks but no thanks. Later the same prospective buyer asked again saying that he had plans to put the car together if we would sell it to him, with its transaxle. So dad said ok, at that point neither Sally nor I had any interest in the car so it looked like it was going. Well thanks to our dad's lazy outlook on life, he never arranged the deal and it never left. On Easter Sunday of this year, I borrowed a friend's truck, rented a tow trailer, and we set about loading the hulk up on the dolly. It took most of the afternoon to retrieve it. First we had to excavate it from 2 feet of accumulated crud (fencing materials, volvo parts, sports equipment...) around it. Then to find tires that could hold it up for its 4-mile journey to my house. We got the car home and set about cleaning out the hulk all the time wondering if we had made a wise decision in attempting to resurrect the dead. That night I set about rebuilding the brakes as everything was surely gone after 30 years of sitting. Within four days the car had good brakes. Enter another Corvair. A 1966 A/C Sedan that in 1975 someone thought it would make a good dune buggy. This person crudely cut the front off with an OxyAcetylene torch, after that they gave up and my dad picked up the remains for 50$. It still ran, but had loose flywheel bolts, so it sat as well. This would be our source for a powertrain, an engine that runs and could be used until we finish building it a perfect 140. I set to removing its powertrain, which had roughly half an inch of dust on everything from sitting. A messy dirty job, in cramped quarters, as the car was parked in on all sides but the one that was 1 foot away from the garage wall. Within a weekends hard work we had it out, and moved over to our house for cleanup, and flywheel and clutch replacement. It was a three speed so we had to find and put together a good '66+ 4-speed for it. Then came assembly. We had a bucket of bolts and a lot of stray parts. Amazingly the powertrain bolted together and up into place in the Corsa with relative ease. Not a cakewalk but easier then when I put an engine in my Buick. For the better part of a weekend we sat, slowly rounding up stuff we needed, bolting it together and putting it in place. We did remarkably well having never worked on a standard, or late model Corvair. Then all of a sudden, very much to our surprise it was almost together! Got in turned the key and bam! It was alive. Deafening, as we still had to put the muffler on, but it was running. Within about an hour we were ready to take it around the block. Two weeks to the day from when we brought it home it was alive! I never believed it would happen. From there came hundreds of other things involved in resurrecting a car from a 30-year slumber. Clean, oil and grease everything that needed it. Removed 3 feet of accumulated newspapers, TV parts, sports equipment and other assorted junk from the interior. We replaced the hood that was dented with a good one. I put a door of matching color on to replace the badly dented one on the passenger side. I had to replace most of the window glass as vandals had shot it out over the years. We put 14-inch FC rims on to have a better choice of tire sizes for autocrossing. Within about a week of the engine first running it was approaching roadworthiness. Getting it registered was far easier than we thought it would be, since it had been out of the system for so long. We put in the original very nice condition black seat out of the parts car, making the interior much better. The Corsa dash was completely restored, and all the gauges now function, along with the addition of two Stewart Warner Greenline gauges, to monitor oil, and keep a better eye on vacuum. After driving it for a few weeks it popped a valve seat one Saturday night while sitting at a stoplight. We got it home and pulled the head the next day. The valve seat dropped because of an excessively worn guide. I put on a head with new valve guides and N.O.S. valves. Since, it has been running and driving beautifully, becoming my daily driver, since it is such a joy to drive. It still needs tons of bodywork and a paint job, but that will come soon. The '63 coupe is in line ahead of it though for bodywork, as it is almost finished being repaired. === Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 20:47:10 -0500 From: Dennis & Debbie Pleau ( ddpleau AT earthlink DOT net ) To: casa AT unm DOT edu Subject: Tri-State Hotel information Jim, Here's the information on the rooms for next year's Tri-State - Dennis Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 16:35:55 -0600 From: "Brown Ken" ( KBrown AT lps DOT k12 DOT co DOT us ) To: ( lwredvair AT msn DOT com ) Cc: ( ddpleau AT earthlink DOT net ) Please tell your members that they have to mention "Corvair Club" for May 21 Friday through checkout Sunday May 23, 2004. They can come earlier or stay later for the same rates. I think our members have failed to mention the Corvair Club block for the Tri State and they were told no rooms are available as they are saving 54 for us. The cost is $50.00 per night tax included and only 13 non-smoking rooms are available. Six of our members toured the hotel in eight different rooms and could smell no smoke so I think they do a wonderful job of cleaning without spraying that awful perfume substance. We are excited about the chance to make this the largest turnout ever for TriState and are working on a lot of family and driver events and fun. If you would be so kind to forward this message to the President of the Albuquerque club, I would appreciate it. If your members have any trouble after doing the above steps, please ask them to call back on the 800 number and dial extension 2199 and either talk to or leave a message with the Special Events manager Jenn who is great. She will take care of any problems we might encounter. Thanks for the picnic yesterday. Due to things I had on my plate I was late getting there but everyone enjoyed a good time. Mention also to your members that Sept. 10th is the deadline to call me at 303-347-3404 in Littleton or Ben Benzel at 719-598-6886 or e mail me at this address to get into the north gate of the USAFA for our picnic on Sept. 14th Sunday from 11-4 PM If in doubt call and if they don't come no problem, but if they decide on Friday or Saturday they can't get in. My home phone is 719-481-6812 and cell is 719-337-5348 Ken Ken Brown Littleton Public Schools Director of Assessment and Evaluation 303-347-3404 kbrown AT lps DOT k12 DOT co DOT us === Editor, CORSA Communique - 30 July 2003 P O Box 607 Lemont, IL 60439 Gentlemen, I got my Communique today and immediately sat down to read it. I was delighted to see Frank Dotson's article on the "Best Newsletter" award. I thank all of you at CORSA for making this award a part of CORSA's tradition. I believe a good newsletter is a major part of maintaining a healthy and prosperous club. In recent years many Corvairs of New Mexico members have commented that CORSA should have a "Best Newsletter" award, and furthermore that if it did, our newsletter would certainly win it. I always told them not to be so sure. I never expected our newsletter to win or even to be considered. There are just too many attractive newsletters out there for ours to make much of an impression. I know; we get several exchange newsletters every month, including some that you mentioned, and some of them are very nice indeed. I believe the primary value of Enchanted Corvairs Newsletter lies in a quality a CORSA committee would hardly be able to judge: dependability. Since February 1978 we have not missed an issue. We always have the same basic content: some kind of picture on the cover, officer contacts, new members, notice of dues due, meeting minutes, a calendar of coming events and a "seven years ago" feature. Occasionally we are even able to include articles of general or technical interest. Our club has been exceptionally fortunate in always having a broad range of talent and interests among our members, a consistent meeting time and place, and a regular and reliable newsletter to keep everyone in touch. In my opinion, the appearance of a newsletter every month, without fail, is a large part of what makes for a successful club. Thanks again for an important award, a good article and a great publication. Jim Pittman Editor, Enchanted Corvairs Newsletter Corvairs of New Mexico Albuquerque NM 87112 ===