From Dave Edsinger in Maryland via Seth Emerson.
As a 19-year-old Corvair enthusiast, I was excited to meet with other Corvair folks down south, so Jack Dempsey and I planned to go to the Corsa Mini Convention in Birmingham in May of 1975. We left the DC area and drove the 700+ miles to the convention without incident. My car was a 68 500 Coupe that was factory ordered with a 140, 4 speed, and I think it had about 70,000 miles on it at the time.
We arrived at the convention and settled in and did some vending. Sales were good and we had a great time hanging out and getting to know some wonderful people. One of the Big Draws to the Convention was the tie-in with the Winston 500 at Talladega Speedway which included an “All Corvair Pace Lap” on the Speedway. I really don’t know how it was for everyone else, but my Corvair did not appreciate the slow speed Pace Lap that was barely fast enough to keep the back end of the car from sliding down the 30-degree banking, and all of the oil migrating to the left-hand rocker cover….
Long story short, at the end of the Pace Lap, my car didn’t sound nearly as healthy as it did when we started out. I didn’t really think the engine was okay, but when you’re better than 700 miles from home, you tend to want to be positive.
However, when the Convention finished up and we headed home, we didn’t get very far up the road when things started sounding ugly. I don’t recall the Route #, but we were headed north toward Chattanooga. We stopped a couple of times to assess the engine damage, and pulled the pushrods on a couple of cylinders as part of damage control. We went a little further and things just kept getting worse. We pulled into a gas station and were wondering what to do, when this long-haired hippy (takes one to know one!) pulled into the station driving an early 4 door Corvair. We befriended him and asked him if he knew anyone who might be into Corvairs or might have an engine for sale – his response was “no”. We then asked him if he’d sell us his Corvair and after a little negotiation, Jack and I owned an early Corvair for $200.
Since my car would barely move now, we made it to the “Dude Motel”, which looked like something we could afford.
The next morning, our hippy friend delivered his car and took his money. We were then faced with the challenge of swapping the engines with no floor jack – we only had a stock Corvair jack, which made things interesting.
We jacked up the donor car and cribbed it up using some split-rail fencing, brick, and cinder block that we found in the parking lot. When we got the car up high enough to get the engine out, I got under and loosened all the bell housing bolts and related items. When everything was free, I slid the engine off the input shaft and let it rest on my chest. While Jack pulled on my legs, I wiggled out from under the car with the engine on my chest. We went through the same painful process for removing the engine from my car and then putting the donor engine into my car.
After we hooked everything back up and put the broken 140 in the trunk of my car, we fired it up and headed for home, hoping the fellow we got the car from didn’t get into trouble resulting from us leaving his car abandoned in the motel lot. Heading back to Maryland, we took some slower routes including the Blue Ridge Parkway to keep speeds down on the donor engine because we didn’t want to go through this again. It ran flawlessly all the way home, getting 26 mpg.
After 55 years of messing with Corvairs, I still enjoy the cars and the people.
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