chasinthemirage's 1964 Mk3 Zephyr

[chasinthemirage]

Hello again OS, figured it was about time I put up a build thread for my Zephyr. A bit of back story first though, some of you may have seen the thread that I had for my Camaro, I did a few bits and pieces to that car and then sold it about 18 months ago to help fund my OE. My girlfriend and I spent six months travelling around Europe, it was awesome and I don't regret selling the car to fund travelling in the slightest. Since coming home I've found it pretty weird not having a goal to be working towards and combined with facebook reminding me that it'd been four years since panel beating started on the car I figured it was about time to do something with it!

I bought the car from a member of the Zephyr Zodiac car club who'd had it sitting in the shed for about ten years. He'd been planning to chop the roof and convert it into a V8 coupe but for whatever reason hadn't got around to it. I spent a few months rebuilding the brakes, steering etc and then got it a wof. It was my daily driver for about six months until the head gasket went. I figured that I may as well rebuild the motor instead of doing just the head gasket and as these things tend to do it snowballed and I ended up stripping the entire car.

I got a few bits and pieces done and then motivation petered out and I ended up buying other cars, pursuing other interests etc. I turn 24 in Octbober this year so I'd like to have the car driveable, even if not entirely finished by then. Please bear with my while I dig out some old photos and get the thread up to date with the current state of the car.

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/55346-chasinthemirages-1964-mk3-zephyr/

 

[chasinthemirage]

Once the engine and interior had been removed from the car I started stripping the underseal. Used a heat gun, scraper, hammer and chisel. In hindsight I should have used dry ice but I didn't know about it at the time! Next time I will definitely build a rotisserie as chippng this stuff off while lying on your back on a concrete floor is bloody awful.

As to be expected I uncovered a few bits of rust but not too bad overall. Before I bought this car I had another that I was going to rebuild but the state of the shell meant it made far more sense to repair this one.

Shell stripped and ready to go to the panel beaters. The panel work is being done by a friend from the car club. He has done top notch work on lots of the club members cars so I wasn't going to turn him down when he offered to complete the work on my car. 

 

[chasinthemirage]

Hey, hi, hello. Time for my yearly update on this thing. This entire thread is 6 or so years out of date so I'll get the bodywork up to date and then go from there. Below is the first of the rust repairs. Overall the doors weren't too bad but we decided to replace the entire lower skin to save it having to do this again in a few years.

I've skipped a fair few photos but this gives an idea of the state of the doors and front guards. Can't speak highly enough of the panels that Les has made, they line up amazingly and will require SFA filler.

 

[chasinthemirage]

Same story with the boot, I've seen far worse but we think it may have been parked with the boot exposed to the elements as the seams are a bit crusty.

Again we've elected to replace the lower skin as well as the far corners but if I can find a tidier bootlid we'll swap them over as Les is worried that unless we remove the skin entirely we're going to end up chasing rust again within the next few years.

 

 

[chasinthemirage]

Before I bought this car my folks and I bought another Mk3 which we planned to restore together. It ended up being too far gone but it provided a fair few useful parts, one of them being a spare gearbox which I partially rebuilt.

I stripped it and got the fellas at my workplace at the time to check it over. We couldn't really find anything wrong with it apart from the selector linkage bushes so I bought some parts and back together it went.

 

[chasinthemirage]

With the gearbox sorted I then turned my attention to the clutch and flywheel. The factory flywheel is a cast unit with the clutch recessed into it. They are perfectly fine for normal driving but they have a bit of a reputation for exploding at high rpm. Fortunately for me the hard work has been done here and I was able to buy a custom made flywheel from my friend Paul from the Zephyr club. While it's heavier than the stock flywheel it's the same as what Paul is running in his car and I don't think it will cause any issues.

The clutch has had heavier springs fitted to the pressure plate and a Mitsubishi (Lancer/GSR I think?) cover adapted to the Zephyr flywheel so should be well up to any abuse I give it.

Yarns go here: 

 

[chasinthemirage]

Yeah g'day, been a minute eh. In fact I hadn't seen the car in something like two years but a couple of weeks ago the old man and I hired a trailer and picked it up from the panel beaters. 

The body has been taken back to bare metal, the rust has been sorted as well as a redo of a couple of old repairs for peace of mind. Theres still a few wee things to be sorted before it gets painted, I think years ago I told the panel beater I was keen to have a go but tbh I'll just pay an expert to do it and then get them to prep and paint it at the same time. Hopefully got someone coming to see it in a couple of weeks. Tbh I kinda cbf with paint, pretty tempted to just rattle can and slam it so I can actually drive the thing. 

Progress will likely be at my usual glacial pace, mrs and I bought a house a few months back and I'm unenthusiastically working my way through an apprenticeship so things are fairly busy but pretty exciting to have the thing tucked away in the garage after being away for so long!

Yarn fred here: