Bob's 1962 700 Station Wagon (9/07/06)

Wow, I Own a Corvair Wagon!

I'm pretty proud of this one too. Purchased from Larry Sorensen in August of 2006, It's in the kind of shape I'd like to have bought my coupe in.

Condition

The condition of this car is fantastic. The original padded dash is still soft and supple. As near as I can tell the seat covers, a vinyl and fabric combination are original and still in pretty good condition with only some minor staining. The rubber flooring actually still looks good too but there's a bit of rust underneath which will have to be removed and treated.

Major Improvements

At this point there's only a couple of things I've been able to do with it. I remounted the tires removed from the coupe on the 4 lug wheels. For some reason, no matter how ratty a car may look, it always seems to look better if all the tires are inflated. After installing a new 51R battery I tried turning over the engine. It didn't turn at all so I went through that part of the electrical system, verifying the connections and circuitry and found that all was in order. A few good smacks of a hammer to the starter unfroze the solenoid and it's been cranking since. The carburetors were rebuilt next. There were some issues with the wiring for the ignition but that was soon corrected and with a slight ignition timing change the engine fired to life. There's no unreasonable blowby coming from the draft tube and the engine runs well even considering that the gas in the tank is in the neighborhood of four to five years old. It appears to be leaking oil from the front crankshaft seal (a job that I always look forward to) and there's no choke rods coming from the thermostats on the heads. While the heads have been identified as 1963 102 HP heads, I haven't looked to see if under the top shroud which is a 1961 shroud as near as I can tell. I took it for a short trip recently. The engine is strong and I was very pleased with the acceleration of the car. The brakes pull the car to the left somewhat.
 

One .of the nice features of the station wagon is that there's a panel that can be removed in front of the engine access lid. That made access to the starter very easy. (I never have liked working under cars.)

 

Another work in progress! The tailgate works well, opening and closing as expected as do all four doors, after a good shot of WD-40. I was fortunate that I had some correct 1962 taillights to put on the rear. One of the reverse lights is missing its chrome trim ring but that's in the glove compartment waiting to be glued on.

Three of the hubcaps are what I believe to be correct for the year with the except of one which has the "900" plastic disk in the middle.

 

The front end is in good shape too. The front chrome emblems are decent driver quality as are the headlight bezels. The bumper chromes is also of decent driver quality. No pits and, for the most part, it shines nicely.

There's still a lot of electrical issues to take care of. The windshield wipers don't work, the radio and cigar lighter, heater blower and turn signals aren't working either. The good news is, the right brake light does work and so does the glove box light.

 

All the glass is in good shape. The windshield tint has yellowed some but otherwise decent. All the side glass rolls up and down but probably could use some grease in the working channels. The windshield and rear glass rubber will have to be replaced.

The paint isn't horrible but the roof is rusty. The whole car will have to be sanded down and painted.

Still, overall, its a pretty decent looking car.
 

Why didn't they call it a Lakewood?

 

It's actually legal to drive as it is. Registered, insured and sporting a new antique plate, except for the brake light issue as previously mentioned.

The rear bumper isn't correct but who would know, except myself, other wagon owners and anyone bothering to read this.

That white thing seen inside the back window was a protective sunscreen used to protect the dash. It worked well!

I found it a bit disappointing to learn that Chevy dropped the "Lakewood" name with the making of the 1962 wagons. I'm seriously thinking of adding the Lakewood emblems to the sides in the rear anyway. I can't wait to hear the objections over that.

I'll be updating this part of the site as work progresses.

 

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