I wanted to get a project car that I could buy, practice my welding techniques, drive for a short time and then make a little money to fund other projects. I met a guy in the parts house about a year and a half ago that said he knew a guy with a '69 Firebird that needed some work, but drove, for a very cheap price. I kept the guy's number all this time and when I called him I found out he sold it three days before. Terrible timing.
I've kinda wanted to drive a Corvair for a while so I first went and looked at this one. It turned out to be far too much money for the rust bucket it was, despite looking pretty good in the pictures.
I got a call the same day from the guy who owned this little red car. I ended up buying it. It was raining I realized I probably bought it for the right price, but not a price that will allow me to make the profit I was wanting, because these cars are pretty cheap to begin with, even in decent condition. It needs some rust repair and I want to practice on something like this before I move on to the next steps in the '37, which will involve welding pieces of the body that will be fully exposed.
I thought the tach was pretty cool with the 4 speed.
I haven't been able to do much in the last two weeks because of weather, sickness and general life obligations. I did manage to clean the trunk out, which is of course up front because of the rear mounted engine. It had some useful parts within, but mostly was just full of junk. I managed to get the gas tank out this past weekend. I, of course, managed to get rust in my eye three times. It was a good decision to pull the tank because it was absolutely full of garbage, debris and the sending unit appeared to be covered with black tar and was frozen solid.
The '31 Chevrolet was in need of higher charging capacity. The generators of old weren't the most efficient units. Because the properties of electricity change depending on the temperature, these old generators had an adjustable brush that needed to be engaged or disengaged depending on the time of year and desired output. When these engines are at idle they actually discharge the battery, or when you run at night with the lights on. Some people set their generators to charge at a higher rate so they can run their headlights at night without running the battery down, however this means that they must also run them during the daytime or it would overload the system. A 6 volt alternator will take care of this problem and the regulator will allow the system to only use the amount of charge it needs and keep the battery fully charged. My old battery, which came with the car, has since died.
I took the old generator off.
I'll use this original bracket as a template for my new bracket, then store it safely away with the generator when I'm finished.
This is as far as I have gotten so far. This came from the big piece of 1/4" that I got from the scrapyard for practically nothing and I have been using for the last couple years to supply projects with metal when needed. Because I do not yet have a drill press, drilling through the 1/4" steel is time consuming and difficult work. I rounded the end for a better look and hopefully the scrap piece up top will be enough to cut in half and use as the tabs that I'll weld on to mount the alternator. The hardest part will be getting their position exactly right because the orientation of the alternator must be correct or it will throw belts or wear the bearings in alternator shaft.
