Quote:
Originally Posted by sammyg2
Lemme see if I got this right, they named the corvair, pinto, gremlin and pacer, but left out the chebby vega?
You gotta be kidding.
As a comparison, the average vega engine had a lifespan measured in months .All you had to do was overheat it once (which wasn't hard to do) and the sleeves would come loose in the block. Then they would leak oil and water and smoke and everyhing else you could imagine. Most unreliable POS I've ever seen that didn't come from Great britain. But it didn't make the list because it wasn't ugly enough.
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Sammy, You've got some things right and some wrong here. I bought a brand new Vega GT in 1974 when I was 17 years old. Yeah, yeah, go ahead and offer an opinion on that purchase (I'd probably agree), nevertheless the choices in that price range new in those days was pretty much a Vega, Pinto, Super Beetle, or Opel Manta. I paid $3600 out the door, tax and license included. I couldn't imagine paying over $3000 for a Bug
(I should have!)
The Vega did NOT have cylinder sleeves....not until it was rebuilt that is! It had one of the original high silicon content aluminum blocks (they HAD to use the casting plants they'd built for production of the recently Nader-killed Corvair). They used a honing process that was SUPPOSED to remove the aluminum and leave the pistons to essentially ride on a film of silicon. Didn't work consistently in practice. Also, a BIG problem was the head had the upper part of the valve stem down deep in a casting hole. The valve stem had a little O ring type seal on it which quickly hardened and was more or less useless so once that happened, oil would drip down the valve stem int othe combustion chamber and the engine would burn oil. That was a big problem because if you weren't diligent as hell you'd be running nearly out of oil quickly. It BARELY had a 5 quart capacity. Once one quart was in the top end, one in the filter and one was in the crankcase if you were a quart down (or more) from not checking constantly, you had only one more quart or less coursing through the engine!
Now, mine was METICULOUSLY maintained. It was waxed EVERY time I washed it and I washed it at the very least, weekly. I blew excess water out of cracks, etc. I babied the hell out of that car...it rusted anyway around the hatch window. It pains me to agree they were lousy cars. Mine was a lot of fun and looked great but in truth it was a pretty bad car.
P.S. STILL glad I didn't buy a friggin Pinto. Wish I'd bought the Manta.