[Amc-list] Re; A bunch of stuff, one e-mail covers all.
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[Amc-list] Re; A bunch of stuff, one e-mail covers all.



NSU Prinze if that is spelled correctly, was seen in Rochester N.Y. at the
time, a fellow I worked with owned one, the Rotary powered roadster or coupe
(don't remember) was seen at the show room for NSU where the 4 door was
purchased from. The web sites referred to as "RESEARCH  I am sure would have
more information as to what they were. What I remember most was seeing a
carburetor on what appeared to be a transaxle and had it explained that it
was a rotary engine (what ever that was at the time). Speaking of Rochester
and applications of Rust Mort I do not know of any place that had more rusty
cars than Rochester, although Cleveland gets bloody close and not all cars
in Arizona came from Arizona, but those that did still have original factory
paint on the under side and the axles. As Rust Mort has the viscosity of
water rather than wall board paste I find it a very useful product and
prefer using it to the thicker and gooier alternatives but that is just me I
guess. That way when something has been dealt with I can then finish things
off the way I want them finished off with other products. For those of you
who have seen the 1980 AMX Front clip project Rust Mort was used extensively
to retard or eliminate the damage caused to the car that was not replaced by
local rust free sheet metal. But battery boxes still rust as well as area
left sitting in standing water does too.  The biggest problem that I
observed with the Corvair was some mechanic or owner inflating all of the
tires equally to something in the order of 32# or so. The car became evil
when driven and would oversteer with the slightest provocation such as a dog
peed on the tire. 

The recommended tire pressure was in the order of 18 to 20# in the front and
something on the order of 32ish pounds on the rear and when done correctly
handled quite well thank you. Beetles had the same problem, but Beetle
owners programmed them selves to keep tire pressure correct. Chevy owners
were programmed to ignore all recommended service idiosyncrasies and leave
routine maintenance to the whims of others, at least that is what it was
that I observed at the times. Personally I think the swing axle and the
totally independent later versions handled pretty much the same IF the tires
were inflated correctly. I drove and worked on a number of Corvairs at the
time and they drove horribly until the tire pressure was jockeyed around to
where it belonged.  Obligatory AMC content, the Gremlin was just the
opposite, it would plow through corners like a berserk '47 DeSoto. As this
was the day of the load range B bias belted tires, using inflation pressures
recommended to tire sizes and the weight carried, the front tires would work
well at about 30#, the back ones at about 20# and if you had a good set of
shocks you could warp it through the twisties with the best of them. I used
to regularly dice it out with a fellow who had a TR6 and used to annoy the
h$#% out of him on the tight roads but the pedestrian 232 was not up to
keeping up with him when the road straightened out. I lost the Gremlin
though when a fellow ran a red light and hit the car just forward of the
front wheels. It swayed the unibody about 5 inches out line but I drove it
30 miles home with the help of a few bungee cords attached  extraneous loose
sheet metal somewhat affixed to the car. As far as tire balance goes, yes
the weight is added to the light side of the tire.

 

As far as the Load Range B recommended inflation pressure charts, I have
found nothing that seems to relay the same information as applied to current
radial tires and their recommendation. Just yesterday I had the resident
know it all tell me that the factory recommended 32 # pressure was too high
on a tire that has a do not exceed 44# pressure warning on the sidewall and
no other recommendations anywhere as to what the correct pressure should be.
With all of the warnings on do not under inflate your tires but no
guidelines as to what they should be initially when cold do we depend on the
1. Side wall recommendation of do not exceed, 2 the 10 year old sticker in
the front door jam that was printed in a different tire era, or 3 the advise
of the resident know it all that has been doing this for 20 years (which in
many cases is a bit scary to think of and whose primary objective was to let
him install a new set of struts)? He never did spot that I had the car
overloaded at the time and the rear axle was sitting on the bump stops. Talk
about NASCAR coil binding theory! This thing drove like a 2 ton go kart. 

 

Have a happy week end. 

John. 

 

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