Unsafe at Any Speed: ’62 Corvair in Baja California with two burned pistons Excerpted from “Ronnie’s Roadside Repairs,” by Ronald S. Mullisen © Ralph Nader, the Green Party 2000 presidential candidate, wrote a book in 1965, titled “Unsafe at Any Speed.” It was the story of the Chevrolet Corvair‟s propensity to roll over in turns at “any speed.” The Corvair was Chevrolet‟s answer to the VW beetle. It had a rear engine, air cooled, flat six and a faulty swingarm, independent rear suspension that was responsible for over-steer and rollover in turns. The book was a best seller. It simultaneously killed the Corvair and delighted us hot rodders. Our delight was not because we liked reading the book – no one I knew read that book. It delighted us because prices plunged on these cars because of the book. In the mid-sixties we could pick up a good running Corvair for about $50. Gene Rodeiger accumulated a bunch of these Corvairs. He put good engines into good bodies and ending up with a good performing car (except in turns). “Good performance” meant a nice combination of acceleration, speed, fuel economy, and off-road capability due to the rear engine, rear wheel drive. And all of this for around fifty bucks, thanks to Mr. Nader. The year of this particular Corvair escapes me. It was somewhere in the early 60‟s. (Corvair aficionados may recognize some remaining chrome trim in the accompanying photos and nail the year.) Gene and I had gone east almost as far as you could go in ‟64, north almost as far as you could go in ‟65, and now in „66 we were attempting to go south almost as far as you could go. We were off to Baja California, Mexico in a fifty-dollar Corvair.

Fuel stop in El Rosario. You had to pump the gas up to the glass cylinder at the top of the fuel pump, using the hand lever on the side, and then let the fuel drain by gravity down into your gas tank.

With camping gear and confidence from our New York and Alaska experiences, along with toolboxes (we always carried lots of tools) and the summer ahead of us, we were off. We were 19, we didn‟t know Spanish, and we didn‟t care that we didn‟t know Spanish – this just added to the adventure. The pavement ended just south of Ensenada. Shortly thereafter the dirt road began to split and even though this was the main north-

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south road there were no signs indicating which fork to take. However, we soon realized that most all of the roads went north-and-south, so it didn‟t matter which fork you took as long as you progressed south.

El Rosario was the last “service station” – from then on we purchased fuel in steel cans from ranchers as seen here. The transfer of gas from the can to the car required siphoning. With the can on the ground and one end of a rubber hose in the gas we started the siphon by sucking on the other end of the hose to get the gas most of the way up the hose. Then the hose end was transferred from the mouth to the thumb without breaking the vacuum. Next the can was placed on the car roof and then the hose with thumb placed into to the Corvair gas tank filler neck. Release the thumb and the fuel would start to flow – if done correctly. The trick was to suck just enough, but not so much that you got a mouth-full of gas.

El Rosario was the last place where we got fuel from a pump – a hand operated fuel pump. After that we purchased fuel from ranchers when we could. This fuel came in a can which we siphoned into our car. We paid with our US dollars. One time we only had a twenty dollar bill and the rancher was taken back by this large denomination. He invited us into his home – a small, one room place – and proceeded to make change. To do this he first went to 2 or 3 jars that were on a shelf and took out Mexican pesos and US dollars that were hidden in these locations. He then counted his bills out on a table, collected what he thought was the correct change and handed us the bundle, which included our original twentydollar bill! We told him “No, no, no.”, handed him back our $20 and then made the correct change, carefully explaining the transaction in English which he did not understand but he did understand our honesty. When we drove off he appeared both happy and puzzled. 2

What could be better than cruising down a Baja back road generating a huge plume of dust? While we were in the clear in the front seat, the rear of the Corvair was engulfed in fine dust. Engine intake air passed through louvers in the rear deck lid so it didn‟t take long for the oil-bath air cleaner to clog up. Our response was to toss the air cleaner – in our minds we weren‟t worried about the engine consuming a little dust. But it wasn‟t a little dust that was passing through the engine – it was a lot of dust. The fine dust found its way past the piston rings and into the oil. The contaminated oil made for a hot running engine which also burned a lot of oil. At a ranch we inquired (in English) about purchasing oil, but the rancher did not understand our request and brought out his wife to assist. We brought out an empty oil can. The rancher‟s wife responded with a smile, went into her home and came out with a can opener. “No, no” we replied and again pointed to the oil can. So she went inside and came out with a different can opener! Finally we learned that aceite is Spanish for oil and we were able to make our purchase.

The first problem: a dust-clogged starter we repaired. Note all of the fine dust on the rear window and rear deck lid. This dust eventually killed the engine.

Now the problem was to get the oil in the engine while it was running. We resisted shutting down the engine because it was becoming difficult to crank-over and start. There was a large crankcase blow-by coming out of the oil filler tube that prevented us from pouring in the oil. There was also a large loss of power and the smell of aluminum. We shut the motor down wondering if it would start again. It wouldn‟t even crank over. The time had come for “exploratory surgery.” Out on the desert, between ocotillo and saguaro cactus, with the car jacked up and the engine lowered down, we pulled the heads. Immediately the problem was apparent; there were holes burned completely through the tops of two pistons.

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Gene doing some repairs while we were on the main, northsouth road. When we stopped we didn‟t worry about pulling off the road or closing the doors – usually no one passed by. It appears that Gene took off his sweatshirt and laid it out on the dirt road to keep the removed parts clean.

Our solution followed the success we had converting a Chevy V-8 to a V-7. We converted the opposed-6 into an opposed-4 by removing the bad pistons and relocating the good pistons matched with the best bearings into opposing cylinders for proper balance. The crankshaft throw bearing with missing rods had oil ports that required capping to hold oil pressure. We sawed off the ends from the two rods with burnt pistons, shimmed the bearings with aluminum foil and snugly bolted these sawed-off rod ends on the crankshaft throw bearing. Next came the moment of firstfiring-up and the anxious anticipation, hoping the repair will work. To our joy the engine started and ran smoothly.

Gene with one of the burnt pistons.

The two burnt pistons are on the rear fender. The cylinder heads are on the ground and fuel lines, various wiring harnesses, and mechanical linkages are on the roof. Our sleeping bags can be seen in the left fore-ground.

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We turned around and headed home. But immediately it became obvious that our 6-cylinder to 4-cylinder conversion gave us a drastic loss of power – so much so that our poor Corvair could not climb the first moderate hill we encountered on our return north. So we sat for a few days until Mexican truckers came by hauling live sea turtles up from Bahia de Los Angeles. We made our predicament known when we produced the two burnt pistons, which worked better than fluency in Spanish that we didn‟t have. I‟m inspecting something under the car. The cylinder heads and other parts are on the desert floor.

The modified four-cylinder Corvair did not have enough power to make it over this hill. Our technique in negotiating previous hills was to unload the car and carry all of our gear to the crest of the hill. Then with only one of us in the car (to further keep the car as light as possible) a bonsai run was made. The driver would back-up and make a full-throttle run approaching the hill, hoping the built-up speed and light weight would allow the car to reach the crest. The throttle cable, which ran in a tube under the car, was inoperative due to the battered tube (along with everything else under the car). Our alternate throttle was a nylon cord that passed through a hole punched in the rear firewall between the back seat and the engine compartment. Driving required one hand on the steering wheel and one hand over your shoulder, pulling the nylon cord throttle. Gene‟s head, deep in thought – he married Dorothy Schwab a few months after our return – is visible just above the raised, rear deck lid.

Leaving our crippled Corvair with a near-by rancher and taking only our sleeping bags, we accepted the invitation to hop up on top of the turtles for the ride north. Those poor turtles were stacked about four high with a piece of canvas covering the whole pile and Gene and I sitting on top of the canvas. During stops the driver would wet down the canvas to cool off the turtles. Soon we discovered that each turtle would inhale and exhale with such regularity that we were able to predict when the next turtle would inhale based on the one that just exhaled. Three days later, when we arrived in Ensenada, the doomed turtles went to restaurants, while lucky us went to the bus depot. Two bus rides took us back home to LA. With a borrowed ‟55 Ford pickup and a hefty tow rope and with our high school buddies Dick Nuss and Brian Phoenix, we departed a day later to retrieve the Corvair. But that is not the end of the story. The Corvair broke down again, this time under tow, with a failed rear axle bearing which forced us to leave the car on the roadside, just north of Ensenada. Determined to succeed, we drove back to LA and returned, now with a borrowed flatbed trailer. As we were winching up the crippled car on the trailer a local tow truck approached, slowed down, went past us, turned around, and slowly drove by again in the direction from which it came. Knowing what was on the minds of the guys in the truck we were very happy to arrive when we did. Had we arrived an hour later we would have returned to only an oil spot on the side of the road. The tow home was unremarkable. 5