Projects 37 Zephyr build thread

Amazing Build!

 

Holy Crap Batman, she sure looks swell!!

 

The 37 Zephyr was also a favorite of mine. I created a photo illustration of one.
Take a look for inspiration.
http://edooleydesign.com
There are others cars there too but look for the burgundy coupe.
Best wishes on your restoration.
Ed

 

Hoe. Lee. Shit.

That was a Zephyr you started with, but just barely.

The result is almost beyond words.

God I love the lines on the '37 Zephyr . . .

 

That turned out great! I remember staring at it in the classifieds for a long time. All it takes is time and lots of skill! One more back from the dead! Great job and enjoy the heck out of it

 

Great job on the zephyr paul!, I am glad you are the one who got it, no one in the U.S. wanted to tackle it, tom.

 

Great looking Lincoln but maybe you could have done the front like this picture

 

Paul, that's just amazing. I'd watched this car for sale for so long thinking to myself "what a shame, it's just too far gone" and to see it now is fantastic. You are an inspiration mate. Can't wait to see it progress further.
felix

 

Been checking in weekly and got to say very nice job. She sure looks nice and glad you were able to save the swan.

 

Nice!!!!

 

Hey Tom, I'm glad you sold it to me too. I have enjoyed every minute so far. If I had the cash I would be giving your other coupe some serious thought. Trouble is this one has cleaned me out of spare cash for quite some time.

Not so sure I like the twin nose zephyr, it's a whole lot of work but I prefer the original front.

Thanks for all the kind words guys.
Still chipping away at it, I have just about finished wiring it out now, just the charging circuit and the rear indicators (turn signals) to finish.
Should start making the exhausts tomorrow (well today I guess, it's already 1.15 am here). Got a clash with the steering box and the stock manifold on the flatty so I'm going to have to make a quick set of headers to get me by.
I need to get this running and start using it to iron out any teething problems before the pendine meet which is just over four weeks away. It's a good 700 mile round trip so I would like to get a few miles in on it first.
Having problems with my computer so I can't upload pics at the moment, but I guess you have all seen a whole bunch of wires strung together.
Will update (hopefully with pics) after the weekend.

Paul.

 

This car is coming together in record time! Looks like I'm standing still! Awesome work!

 

That dual nose Zephyr makes me dizzy. like I'm seeing double.

 

Update time.

Well I have got it running, the initial fire up took place as a very spur of the moment thing, very hotch botched with petrol fed from a funnel and pipe to the carb and a dizzy that was miles out of time and absolutely no manifolds on the exhausts.
I just had the urge to at least hear it fire even if it didn't run. Well run it did and although very loud and out of tune it actually ran pretty good.
I spent the next couple of days making some headers to clear the steering box and an exhaust to run both banks into one single so that the exhaust runs through the frame as stock and therefore had no ground clearance issues.
Plan is to run one single 2" pipe as a straight through exiting under the rear bumper. I have got it as far as the rear axle at the moment but need some bends to worm my way around the axle,hairpins and petrol tank.
I have now fitted and plumbed the tank so the engine is now fed from that via the stock flatty pump.Today I finally filled the gearbox and rear axle with oil today only to realise that in the mad rush to get it ready for the inspection I hadn't actually fitted or bolted down all the bolts on the shifter tower, but had fitted the transmission tunnel and all the sound deadening and carpet on top of it. I couldn't get to them from underneath so with the help of Nick we managed to remove the carpet and tunnel and get at the bolts.
All back together and now running pretty smooth, albeit not at all tuned up we thought it would be a good idea and rude not to get it out of the workshop and try it up the road so that I could at least see that it went through the gears ok, clutch and brakes worked etc.
So we pretty much did just that. Result was, it brakes pretty well, needs a bit more bleeding but I knew that, gears all work , clutch seems fine, steers but is vague but I haven't set the tracking at all yet, not even roughly.It has amazing steering lock, way better than I thought.
It runs well,doesn't seem to leak oil, doesn't seem to breath like it used too and pulls very well.
Happy, you bet I am.
It's back in the shop now as there are still a load of small jobs to finish, but I think progress was definitely made today.

Here's some pics











There will be video to follow, just got to either get it on youtube or get Nick to post them up for me as my bandwidth will run out on photobucket again.

Paul.

 

Damn this thing is cool...

 

Love this build! Damn nice job

 

Some film clips of the engine starting up after a long slumber and the first drive in the zephyr.
Nothing that special to see but a major milestone for me ,Beverly and the zephyr.







Paul.

 

That is awesome Paul. Fantastic to see the thing spring to life. What an amazing transformation. Man do I miss English country lanes.

Great job, great style.

 

Are the videos not working for anyone else? Glad you got it moving again but dang do I want to watch it going lol

Sent from my DROID RAZR using H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

They work fine for me..

Nothing beats the smile on an owner's face after returning from that first trip around the
block! Congrats....

 

Wow, very impressive Paul!

 

Well after loads of radiator problems and a last minute rear axle build I finally got to drive the zephyr properly today.
I went over to Nick Blanche's place to help him move a rod so he could get his 32 out of his garage, followed by Beverly and our mate Ant as back up team in the truck just in case things went wrong.
A 60 mile round trip which went pretty damn well, no breakdowns,no stops on route, a few issues showed up that need looking at but nothing to major I hope.
The Radiator being one of them, went to have it recored a couple of weeks ago, they told me a week as I said I was on a tight deadline. A week later I phone up to see how they are getting on only to be told they hadn't started on it and it will take a week to order the core and another week to finish it.
So I re collect said rad still with its hole and water feature in the front. Spent a while and soldered it up and reduced said water feature to a slight drip. I decided that Kseal would cure the rest.
I re fitted it at silly oclock this morning and then filled it with water today only to find a leak where I had welded the temp sender boss. I went to open/remove the tap on the bottom of the rad to drain the water only to succeed in breaking the solder and the whole tap and boss came of the bottom of the rad.
So out came the rad again, cut the steel frame away from around the damage ,quick clean up and re solder, weld the frame back up and re fit. Filled with water, added the K seal ran the engine up to temperature and the leaks all stopped. Job jobbed.

So drive to Nick's (30 mile) park up and steam everywhere and no water. DAMN.
Did the same on the way home. Upon inspection it would appear that somebody has altered the overflow pipe and it is way to low in the header tank and is basically draining the rad of water. I will investigate more tomorrow .

I appear to have what at the moment seems to be bad clutch judder, but I'm thinking the engine mounts may want tightening up more, another job for tomorrow.

It would also appear that I have built myself a hardtail custom !!!!!!!!! The rear drop is to severe for the stock frame as it's now sitting at best about an inch of the axle tubes. I did always wonder whether this would happen as there never was a lot of travel left after I lowered it, but now it's settled it's too close.
A quick Cnotch of the chassis reqd before Pendine then.

Apart from that all was good, tracking needs a bit of playing around with but I only set it with a bit of wood and a tape measure (again at even more silly oclock this morning). Brakes are not bad at all, Engine runs well, but apparently smokes a bit on acceleration, I'll have to look into that. Considering the miles that that engine has done I really can't complain about it.

All in all, I am happy with the outcome. It drove way better than I thought it would considering the amount of work that has been done.
Should be sorting all the parts for the gas conversion tomorrow, so hopefully that will be sorted before Pendine.

Sorry guys no pics, in the mad rush to fix the rad and then get going I forgot the camera.

Paul.

 

Been watching and cheering you on for awhile now. Great story and beautiful images. Grew up on stories about my grandad's '37 Zephyr. V-12 and the fabled Columbia rear axle- he never grew tired of telling me about it. As a highschool Senior in Half Moon Bay CA in 1944, not sure where he got the money for a 7 year old beauty like that, wartime gas rationing and all... When grandad volunteered for the Navy after his 18th birthday, my great-grandfather took the wheel of the coupe and finished off the V-12 by constantly lugging the motor in high gear high range. While it was in the shop getting rebuilt, the shady shopowner convinced my great-grandfather that the high-range rearend was part of the problem and swapped it out for free! When my grandad returned home in 1946, he was so disappointed about losing that 2-speed he promptly sold the car. Couldn't stand only going 90 mph topped out, he said. Swore the Columbia was good for 110 mph. Anyway, nice to have pictures of your beautiful coupe to go with the stories from my dashing young sailor Grandfather!

 

Hot rod hero!


Our only recourse on this road to hell is we're driving a firetruck!

 

I saw this in the flesh at Pendine at the weekend - amazing absolute credit to you

 

Yes have seen the pendine videos so there are pictures to show its risen from its rusty ashes and live to breathe again . Superb build.

 

To see your Zephyr on Pendine Sands was absolutely fantastic and an inspiration, you should be very proud of your achievement mate...hats off to ya!

 

Looked stunning on the beach

 

I thank you guys.
Just made it home from a weeks holiday in pendine. The racing and the atmosphere and feeling of being on the sands was incredible. A memory that will stay with me forever.
The old zephyr did me proud, apart from some issues with the engine on the way there (first 200 miles covered running on between 5 and 7 cylinders) and the fact that it used a sump full of oil without me realising and ended up running the last 40 miles to pendine with no oil showing on the dip stick.
It's now got a very nasty rattle/grumble which sounds like the cam bearings maybe.
It did two runs up the beach one to get a feel for it and a second which I was just going to take it steady but ended up taking it pretty flat out .
It has just covered the 340 mile journey home in around 10 hours (with stops and traffic) and has returned a very reasonable 23 mpg. I ended up running it on petrol as it was playing up on the way down there on lpg.

I will put some pics up asap, but I'm knackered at the moment.

Paul.

 

A few pics of the zephyr at Pendine sands











Paul.