- Hello Everybody!
More news about SnF week. On the way home from SnF, I detoured toward Daytona,
through Orlando, and went on to Port Orange to visit William's facility. His Pietenpol was
there: with a real, genuine, General Motors, Chevrolet, prop turning, rear starter
equipped, aero-flying, American made, Corvair engine! Yeah! I finally got to see it. I
would have flown off far away in it - but William was too observant! Besides, I didn't
bring my goggles.
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- So we had a cup of coffee instead. And we talked Corvair engines and Corvair engines,
and Corvair engines. And the rear drive really works and looks good - cranked right up.
And there was an aluminum transfer block where the oil filter accessory use to be. Hoses
were running from this block to an oil cooler mounted on the firewall and a remote mounted
oil filter, also on the firewall. And, he was trying out a new breather
attachment/arrangement on the top cover. The older breather arrangement was laying on the
workbench - just what I needed to see - and how he made that. It is the one that looks
like a small rectangular box on the top of the top cover. I am going to make mine like
that because it works good.
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- The muffler on the engine was cool - until you touch it - no, really - I have to have
one - just as described in the manual - a Supertrap. Besides, it will keep the neighbors
from shooting me when I do get to start up my Corvair in the backyard.
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- And there was the Warp drive prop with its 12 inch spinner, too. I believe the one on it
now he said was a 68 inch diameter. If fact, just about everything in the manual was
present right there in the shop. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then actually
seeing something is worth a thousand pictures.
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- It was a great epilogue to SnF, to see the origins of the Corvair Authority, where the
manual was developed, and all the hard work done - and made available to us.
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- Thank you William for the hospitality.
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- Tom Cummings
