It’s a Process

As I announced in my 3-3-18 post, I’ve decided to bump up the priority of Mikhaila’s Corvair (named Scarlett) so that she can have it to drive sooner (within a few months) rather than later (within a few years). I should state here that, for the first time, one of my children has more cars than I do. In addition to the aforementioned Corvair convertible, Mikhaila also has her daily-driver MX-3 and the Golf GTI we’re working to put on the road. Speaking of the latter, this past weekend she and I got the new clutch installed, the transmission put back into place, and everything reinstalled and hooked back up. Yay team. We did all this in very close confines (see above layout). Once I confirm the clutch take-up is where it should be, I’ll drop it off the jackstands and drive it out of the garage. That’ll allow us to move to the next task, replacing the heater core. For that, though, I’ll drive the LeMans out of the garage and put the GTI in its place. There’s no way I can strip out the interior and dash in its current confines – it’ll take the entire garage.



During the, hopefully, short time the LeMans is outside, it’ll be under a tarp with most of the loose parts pieces piled in a corner of the garage.

Once the GTI has its heat restored, it’ll leave the garage and Scarlett will take its place. When Mikhaila’s not available, I’ll be working on finishing LeMans’ body and interior parts. Could be a busy Spring – I sure hope so.

More Room

I thought that getting the LeMans running would solve my workspace issue. I would just start up the car, drive it out into the driveway, throw a tarp over it, and have the entire space (minus all the garage stuff - workbenches, tool chest, spare engine, etc.) to strip paint, hammer dents, prime panels, and work on one of the family's daily-drivers when required. I've changed my mind. I don't want the LeMans outside, and I think I can make it work.

Through the magic of AutoCAD, I can show the current floorplan versus the proposed one.



The LeMans will be on wheel dollies, so when I need the welder, I can move the car around and get to it. But since the car is so rust-free, the only welder usage I think I have ahead of me is pulling out a few dents. My hope is to implement this rearrangement Friday evening.

Speaking of bodywork, it's looks like this coming Saturday will be warm enough for me to open up the doors and get out the paint stripper. Sunday will be cold again, but I'm hoping that the heaters will get the garage up to temp so I can lay down some epoxy primer over the bare metal (after extinguishing the kerosene flames first).

Last weekend I went hunting for LeMans documentation I knew I had from back in the day. My hunt was successful, so part of episode 16 of my YouTube video series includes sharing the stuff I got from Pontiac Historic Services. Links to PDF files of the different literature follow:

• PHS Cover Letter 
• Build Card and Decoding 
• AMA Tempest Specs 
• The Tempest Line Story 
• The Tempest Engineering Story 
• Storage Suggestions

By the way, the arrow is currently pointing at Atomic Orange Candy for the LeMans exterior.

What To Buy?

With last weekend’s completed sale of my ’68 Corvair, I find myself with a little coin in the LeMans kitty. I’m still not clear on this whole irony thing, but isn’t it ironic that the first item I buy is a come-along (aka Cable Winch Puller)? The Corvair was parked up against the wall of the garage, so I needed to yank it out in the middle in order to get it off the dollies and rolled into its temporary home in the portable garage and a come-along was the right tool for the job. By the way, it’s very odd to type the Corvair, since it’s been fourteen years since I’ve only had one Corvair.

Anyway, last night, with the help of my future son-in-law, Jeff, the Corvair was moved out of the garage leaving only some tidying before the LeMans can be relocated there. With no rain in the forecast through this coming weekend, maybe that will happen sooner, rather than later.

Back to the real subject of this post, how to spend money. I was on the verge of buying a HEI distributor and high-performance spark plug leads on Amazon, but decided against it, since the first thing I need to do is tear down the engine and transmission, not dress it up. I’m starting with the engine and transmission since I know both have issues (broken piston skirt and balky shifting respectively). Once the car is in the garage, the plan is to immediately pull the engine and transmission and tear down each. That reminds me, I need to remember to back the car into the garage when it’s being moved. Once I make sure the the hard parts are reusable, I’ll buy a set of pistons from Egge, a re-ring kit off eBay, a ST-300 rebuild kit from autotran.us, and an ATF filter from RockAuto. Only after the drivetrain is back in place, will I worry about distributors and spark plugs.

I’m excited!

Making Room

Since moving into my circa-1922 house with detached garage, my main focus of car roadification has been Corvairs. I’ve been able to relatively comfortably fit project, tools, and parts simultaneously into my two-car garage. At seventeen and a half feet wide by nineteen feet deep, it’s not spacious, but I’ve read about folks that have done far more with far less square footage. The footprint of my ’65 LeMans is roughly twenty-five percent greater than a Corvair, so there’s no way I could continue hoarding Corvair parts on the shelves taking up a good chunk of precious floor space. For the last couple months I’ve made a huge dent in the size of my stash – a complete Corvair engine plus spare block, gone via Craigslist; two pickup truck loads of parts, gone to the Corvair Ranch; a big bolt bin full of bits; emptied into small tubs now sitting on a small shelf high on the side wall. Even with this cleansing, I still feel, as you can see from the drawing below, that I’m gonna’ be cramped.

The stall behind the garage will be available once I pull the LeMans out, but my first thought (and the easiest plan to implement) is to put the Corvair that I’m keeping back there, out of the way. That would free up the portable tent garage that sits in my driveway for holding parts and body pieces as they’re pulled off the car. The portable garage is not secure nor weathertight, so I wouldn’t be comfortable moving any of my tools out there, thus they’d still be taking up precious space in the garage.



Another plan I’ve cooked up is to put the Corvair in the portable tent garage and properly enclose the stall behind the garage with T-111 screwed to the six-by-sixes posts to form the walls. Initially, gravel and plywood would constitute a floor with concrete being poured at a later (much later) date. I’d cut a doorway in the garage’s rear wall and hang a 36” door. I’ll put up the heavy-duty shelves for staging LeMans parts and empty the garage of everything except my rolling tool chest and a work bench. I like the looks of the following.