Barn find Corvair Corsa project

I've been watching for a Corvair project for some time.  Had a few misses and close calls but hadn't found one until now.  This car is a true barn find.  It has been stored in a Texas barn under a tarp for more than 10 years.  It was a 'ran when parked' project that it's owner intended to restore.  He is retired now and realized that he was never going to get to it.  He wanted to travel instead.  I bought this sight unseen off of a Craigslist ad that had only been up for 4 hrs.  The VIN he posted checked out as a 1965 Corvair Corsa convertible.  He assured me that it was all there and that there was no rust.  He already had someone on the way to look at it.  I'm in Nevada and he was in Texas so I paid him over PayPal and started planning a trip to pick it up.  This is what it looked like when it was rolled out and the tarps removed:

Not too bad!  Corsa convertibles with AC are not very common.  The 'no rust' was a bit of an exaggeration, but what was there was minor.  It had more than 50 Mudd Dobber nests in every nook and crevasse.  Probably a good thing as it kept any rodents from even thinking about nesting in it.  I owned it now anyway so we just loaded it up and headed for home:

It's home now and now I get to go through it and see what I bought.  I am pleased so far.  It was worth the risk as I only paid $2.500 for it.  I could part it out for that, but that isn't the plan.  Reno is a big classic car city with Hot August Nights week long events every summer.  Let's see if I can get it running.  Stay tuned as I check it out.

This is going to be so great....cannot wait for the video of it firing up!

Is that original paint?

Corsa ragtop with air?  Yes please!  If you're not 100% purist, replace OE compressor with a Sanden or similar, and move the heat exchanger to the frunk.  The engine will thank you with better performance and lower operating temps.

Pull carbs, linkage, and fuel lines. Get rid of all the crud and deflash the cooling fins.  

Change oil and filter, mark the distributor housing and rotor positions, then pull the distributor and spin the oil pump with a long flat screwdriver blade chucked up in a hand drill.  Mark the position of the harmonic balancer.  Have a partner spin the pump while you turn the crank one revolution by hand.  Spin the pump some more, then turn the crank one more turn.  Line up your balancer marks, Drop the distributor back in, run a temporary fuel line from a jug to the fuel pump inlet, and I bet it will run.  Rockers will clatter for about 10 minutes until the lifters pump up.  

Please, Love on that one for Me!

Really liking the look.

The wheels are awesome. They kind of look like torque thrusts but not quite...what are they?

In reply to AxeHealey :

I think those are original 60's era Torq Thrusts.

The wheels are 14x6 vintage mags and in need of restoration.  I'm really undecided if I want to keep them or go back to original.

This was a good sign.  A Corvair Society of America decal in the corner of the windshield.  That means that somebody has loved on it at some point in it's life.

These are the only areas of rust on the body.  Repairable.  The car will need a respray.  It is Corcus Yellow which was a Monza and Corsa only color in 65.  

It cleaned up pretty good.  There's a little wrinkle in the left front fender behind the bumper.  The hood is likely not original as it is missing the "Corvair" badge that should be on the left side.  Paint is not original as all 65 Corsas had a pinstripe from the factory that ran around the car just below the belt line.  I'm not a fan of the side moldings (though that was very 60's).  I will probably have them removed when I have it repainted.

As one of the few resident Corvair guys, welcome! 

Looks like you got yourself a rare one there for sure, there were very few Corsa Convertibles with A/C. 

I believe I saw your car over on the Corvair Owners Group on Facebook.  

I have a ‘68 Monza project myself but it is on hold due to life and money. 

Good looking car, in real nice condition!  It won't take much to get it all cleaned up.

Pontiacs had the same paint color available in 1965, except they called it Mayfair Maize - I used to own a '65 Grand Prix that was painted that color.

The wheels are a generic 5 spoke and not American Torq-Thrusts, a number of companies were selling them back then.  A good thing about Corvairs is they have the same bolt pattern as Camaros so there are plenty of aftermarket wheels choices available (Personally, I like Minilite style wheels on them.)

 Yea Mini Lites in an 8x15 please , they likely cost as much as the car. 8x15 Rally Sports are However Everywhere. NOTHING looks better /Caps no rings.  Those wheels may be Kelsey Hayes.   The dark center is representative of the Magnesium look. so check they may be worth what you gave for the car if real Magnesium.

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid :

I hate it when pesky things like life get in the way of projects.  Business travel has been recently messing with my Wednesday night on-line racing league.  Love the Fitch Sprint roof.  Hope you get going on it again soon.

Very nice, you still have SNOW?

Whatever they are, I dig them. I couldn't tell that it was a stepped lip from the trailer picture.

Argo1 - My vote is keep! If they aren't the real deal they probably aren't worth the effort in restoring though. The minilite suggestion is a good one too.

The only ID on the wheels is a patent number cast inside one of the spokes and a date stamp of 1967.  The patent number is 3250571 and was issued to Roy Richter and Bell Auto Parts in 1966.  The patent concerns joining a nonferrous center section with a steel rim.  A magnet check confirms that the outside rims are steel and the spokes are not.  Roy was the founder of Cragar wheels so I suspect these are vintage Cragar wheels in the Torq-Thrust style.

You Need To See If Those are Aluminum or Magneisum, A Friend Has them on his 55 Chevy Gasser.  I Posted here( My buddy Lances Car )thread, they look just like those but 15"

In reply to Argo1 :

Talk about a thorough answer! Great research.

they are super heavy but they'll sell on eBay for more than you'd imagine.   i sold a set for $400 about 14 years ago.

Cragar did make a five spoke wheel in that style.  Unfortunately they are 14", which severely limits the available tire sizes these days (as well as their resale value.)

and that is what his are 14"x6

Does anyone know a simple way to determine if they are aluminum or magnesium?

Discovering as I go along here... After pulling the wheels, I find that someone has replaced the brake lines with new and the plugs in the drums are new.  New brakes?  Need to pull the drums.  There is no brake fluid in the system right now so the brakes don't function at all except the handbrake works.  Also, as you can see, Mud Dobber nest number 74 and more to be found.  There are nests inside the fan shroud of the engine.  At least they are easy to get rid of.

Based on this Fisher body tag, I probably have the rarest Corvair in existence.  I will explain:

OK, so lets decode the body tag. 09B means it was manufactured in the 9th month (Sept 1964) and B, the second week of the month.  The letter D is the interior paint color. D= Red.  65-10767 matches the VIN and decodes to a 1965 Corsa convertible.  WRN is the Willow Run assembly plant.  394 is the 394th body of this type made at Willow Run.  785 is the interior color and material of the upholstery.  785 = Red vinyl.  The R-1 is the exterior color and convertible top color.  R-1 = Red paint with a white top.  The long series at the bottom lists the options.  Let just focus on the last digit.  The O.  The O signifies the 180hp Turbo motor.

Now we begin to see what has to be the only one in existence:  Somebody along the way took a factory red car with a red interior and a white top and converted it into a yellow car with a black interior and a black top.  Who does that?  I know of plenty of people changing car colors TO red but not changing FROM red.  I don't get it.  They did a good job.  Everything down to the inside of the fuel filler door has been color changed to Corcus Yellow - a correct factory paint for a 65 Corsa.  You have to look under the car to the frame rails to see any evidence of red.  Ditto on the interior.  It's all changed to black.  Everything.  I have no clue why.

The other thing is that this car used to be a Turbo not a 140.  I understand this a bit more.  The turbos got replaced in a lot of cars.  They tended to overheat (that red hot turbo made a nice cooling air pre-heater).  The 140 drove better and had more usable horsepower.  The rear bodies were different on turbo cars as they had a cutout on the right rear corner for the turbo exhaust.  This car does not have that cutout and it is the original fender.  I read that some of the early 65 turbo cars used 64 turbo exhaust which exited lower.  Maybe this is one of those cars.

This car also has GM factory air.  Factory air wasn't offered on 65 Corsa's.  It was in 66.  In 65 the AC condenser was over the engine fan.  In 66 it was on the firewall.  This one is on the firewall.  It was obviously installed, possibly dealer installed, at a later date.

So, an interesting history.  I guess a numbers matching restoration is pretty much out.  I wasn't going to do that anyway.  The engine block is a YC code which is not a turbo block or a 140 block.  So it has a built motor of some kind.

I'm going to paint it anyway.  Do I go back to original red?  Corcus Yellow is a far less common color.

I like the yellow