some of you might remember me posting a few weeks ago that I was looking for a bus as my next project. I had planned to wait and do so research and buy in about 6mths or so.

Thank you for all those who offered up some not too bad starters, some inbetweeners and some beautiful busses that I could only dream of building/owning. Top of my list was actually a nice stock lowlight dualcab, But I was afraid that as I do would probably butcher it.

Things rarely go as planned and I happen onto this bus on ebay, just around the corner from me. Really it was like 20minutes down the road! I had a quick look, the body is pretty much like every kombi you'll find now, rust here and there. but pretty much still a solid bus. The twin mufflers give something away



For $1800 It was a reasonable buy, but this is where it gets interesting. There is no VW 4 cylinder back there, some body has miscounted on the push rod tubes

ken Ingersoll from what I have found out in my short research used to do these conversions back in years gone by. 80's-90's?
can guess this is one of his

there sure I a lot of chrome on this puppy

corvair motor

Cool!

Does it go??

Right you are Tarin.

It only runs on 5 cylinders at the moment, no compression in one. apparently is quite common to drop a valve seat hen they get too hot. Will investigate in the coming weekends

The problem is you've got a radiator cap on your Aircooled motor.....

I hadn't even noticed that! I have seriously had 20 minute with this thing since i bought it, haven't even looked if it has a vw box anymore

Looks like a fairly straight old girl from the photos and that lovel orange might even buff back to a shine with some effort.

Corvair donks run the wrong way so they must have changed the diff at least in the gearbox to make it work plus an adapter plate.

I am sureyou will get it working as these motors are very similar in technology to an aircooled VW donk.

Keen to see why the radiator cap like everyone else.

Cheers,

Scott
Fellow Central Coaster

Noice

Cap is where you fill the oil......

Right you are matt, it actually is written on the cap "oil only"

Will pull the plugs and rocker covers this weekend and see what nik the mottor really is in

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
wonder why it cut my post off there? anyways......

-6, 110
-4, 95 oh oh
-2, 0.00000 Bummer

6,4 and 2 are the left hand bank. So seeing as how 4 was also down, maybe the head just needs retorquing, and you know what! all the studs would have needed about 2 turns. I was hopeful!

compression check, - zero,

So the tear down began, thing that sprung out at me straight up as I was pulling this this apart was, how clean and fresh everything looked. I really don't think that it has many km's on it before this unfortunate business.





Just to show how similar these engines are, Those are piston hold downs, deckheight tool I bought when building the baja motor. There are actually guys in the states fitting 94 mm vw pistons and barrels to these engines to take them out to 3100cc


Once again the chambers are barely dirty


And here is the #2 intake valve



#4 intake valve is not much better


Only reason it has less damage I think is because of the broken valve spring, thankfully it has doubles or it could be much worse


All in all a productive exploration and shouldn't be too dear to fix, basically who ever did the heads dropped the ball on probably the quality of the parts he was using. The rest of the engine is full of all kinds of good gear, electronic ignition Viton rubber seals thoughout, copper head gaskets.

Question now arises as to weather to pull the otherside head and stake the seats in before a similar fate becomes them, not much work for a lot of piece of mind.
And to show it wasn't all doom and gloom to day, I started day dreaming about what kind of kombi this will be. Think it will be subi powered and I will just swap this motor into the bus for now and the subi motor and box that I have been prepping for the baja will find a home in the back of the bus, beside aircon would be cool.
I was starting to hate on the wing mounted radiator anyways and more I think about it staying aircooled would be a better option for the baja anyways.

Then the [size=6]big[/size] question arises for the bus, to baja or not to baja?
- I can do this fully legal in NSW
- with a 4 inch lift and stock wheels it will still fit in my garage (yes I measured )
- if I drop the engine and box again, I would not even need to cut the nose off the subi box
- The baja and the bus would actually share the same set of rims and tyres, so less outlay. I checked the fitment of the new rims I have for the beetle today and they are swweeeet!

besides, how cool would these look with polished ribs? Hanging out the back of the baja?

Sounds like a plan

There's a few buggies in the states getting around with Corvair motors, so why not a Baja

Who would i get to do aluminum heads in the newcastle area?

Unlimited Head Jobs
302 Parramatta Rd, Ashfield NSW 2131
Phone (02) 9798 6412

They have done the valves and seat work for a lot of the VW guys down here

Seems the previous owner may have been well endowed

I have no idea what its about!!!
Mitchell

Gday guys turn the code upsid down or am i the dill
ernie

big boobies :-)

I have about 20 corvair motors kicking about, tons of spare parts, including s/h heads, give us a holla if you want any advice, been playing with these things since the late 70's, what is the last 2 letters of the engine number, will let you know what HP it is, cheers Frank

Doh, i sent my heads to the machine shop on Friday

PM your why