1969 Corvair AMT

Modeling Subjects Autos
1

While waiting for some stuff for the van I decided to get started on another one of my Cars I Used to Own series.

Mine was actually a '66 but since the '69 kit was readily available and cheap I evoked the “Meh close enough” rule.

It is the latest release from Round 2 and I was not really impressed. There was so much flash and massive mold lines it was just a vagally Corvair shaped chunk of styrene. I was so shocked that I didn’t even think to take pictures but the mold seems on the rear of the body were so big it looked like a '59 caddy! It was disappointing but of course not insurmountable.

As always I started on the engine. It required a great deal of cleanup as well but went together nicely. This will be another rather worn and well used build as mine was 14 years old and all original when I got it.

Without flash

With flash

2

Hello!

I’m looking forward to another build in this series!

It’s interesting to see details of a rear-engined car. That “bent” belt drive looks really weird, for example.

You might want to take care of that mold line on one of the mufflers - that cool weathering really brings it out…

Anyhow, looking forward to more progress on this one - good luck with it and have a ncie day

Paweł

3

That’s a kit I didn’t even know was out there. Looking foreward to it !

4

I got realy good at putting that belt back on at the side of the road. It didn’t like the heat and no matter how it was adjusted it would throw at random times. Being an air cooled engine you had to pull over imeaditly or risk overheating very very quickly.

That mold line is almost invisible in real life and it is just the magnifying aspects of the camera that make it stand out so bad. Even then once in the car you won’t be able to see the ends of the mufflers anyway. Those engines are really crammed in there.

5

They are very old molds that date right back to 65. It was updated a couple of times between '65 and '69 for the minor year changes and race versions. The current molds have not been change and apparently not even maintained since 1969!

This boxing is from 2015 but there seem to still be loads around.

6

Very interesting engine!

7

They are the only North American designed boxer engines (no they did not come from Porsche like urban legend likes to state.) and the turbo versions were the first turbo production cars anywhere. They were way ahead of their time and although much maligned were a very good engine.

8

Hi!

As an owner of Two of the Turbo Versions of the car, I would say the engine was certainly ahead of it’s time. My company bought me a new engine for one. The field park tank for Employees and Conractors, was accidentally filled with Diesel! My Secretary filled my car for my return trip to Arkansas and only when I turned off the ignition in Texarkana did I realize it! The engine kept going till I cut the fuel lines.

Brown and Root replaced the engine as I wasn’t the only casualty that day. But, Because it was Aluminum with aluminum heads everything got welded together by the extreme heat generated by the cumbustion of the fuel (Without Spar Plugs I might add!) they melted to the cylinder heads.

We, at the engineering shop could get it to run on a stand after the fact. We kept it going till the temps fell enough to get it to die, Fuel starved and powered only by the starter which we burned out in the process! But an amazing piece of engineering it was. I hated that belt. We replaced mine with a metallic linked belt which was used by racers.

To this day, I am surprised it just didn’t plain explode! I have NEVER figured out that part! I guess it was the fuel was a mix of Gasoline and Diesel (More Gas than Diesel) I think close to a 40% mix of Diesel to Gas

9

That odd fan belt arrangement caught my eye right away! What were the engineers thinking when they thought that one up? I bet the Germans would have made a complex gearbox to drive the fan. Maybe an electric motor would have been better. But to rely on a motor that runs all the time to cool the engine would have made the Corvair…unreliable at any speed. [:P]

10

Porsche and VW went with a vertical fan but that of course increases height in the rear. The horizontal fan gave loads of space to keep more of the North American design lines in place. It actually worked pretty well but mine was old and worn. In hindsight and with 40 more years of car experience I believe that most of my issues were likely due to worn out pully bearings not the actual design. I didn’t have a whole lot of money so I pulled down the engine enough to get it running well but the auxiliary components remained original. The beauty of these engines was that they were dirt simple to just drop out of the car, work on and pop back in. No rad, coolant lines, pollution conrol lines, A/C crap, etc just some wire, a fuel line and 6 bolts. Could have the engine out in under 20 minutes.

11

So it became a heat ignited two stroke! The smoke must have been amazing.

12

Well this was supposed to be a nice simple out of the box build but since the only other thing for the engine bay (as above) from the kit is a battery I have some work to do!

13

Curious place for a spare tire.

14

I presume it was for weight distribution since the A/C cars had them in the front.

It makes far more sense really.

Mind you there was no space left if you had A/C!

They had to get really inventive with a mount for the rear.

Even the turbo cars had them in the rear. They had to factory dent the housing to get them to fit!

15

Tcoat!

I could’ve hidden a battalion in the smoke for sure!

16

Battalion? I think your underestimate the volume. Probably at least a brigade level possibly edging on divisional.

17

Not 100% accurate but busied it up. Will get dirtied up a bit more when body on.

Proper fire wall made.

Heater duct is a piece of a header with wire wrapped around it for “pleats”

Shrouds all around so can see through.

Rubber shroud gaskets are screen spline split into smaller strips.

Long skinny stock 1966 battery swapped for normal one.

Spare tire from spares box parts crammed in.

Wires are… well wires.

18

Now that’s some nice detailling!

19

Yeah Tcoat;

I’ll go there!

20

Hey Pawel!

Could you E-Mail me at gjgeracci846@gmail.com.I still owe you for a favor!