TINNEW’s Mk3 Zephyr Project
By Martin Newby
This is the car as I got it in 2006. The
yellow paint job was poorly prepared and all panels had indentations. I thought
the engine was reasonable but later found it had a broken valve spring and only
half the tappets were getting oil due to a blocked rocker shaft. The car was
from country NSW and I later realised it wasn’t very well looked after. When I
got to the diff there was very little oil in it, the differential bevel gears
were badly worn/loose and it had heavy deposits inside. The car had had a basic
tidy up, seat covers were installed over very rough seats (the front seats had
a curtain, a blanket and pieces of carpet stuffed into it), dash and roof
lining had been covered with grey vinyl in an interesting fashion and the
carpet was a crudely cut piece of felt like material that fitted poorly. The
under body and boot had been sealed with tar like material but had not been
cleaned down properly first. One good thing about this car though was that it
was pretty straight and appeared to have minimal rust. At this stage I hadn’t
owned a Mk3 for some 15 years or so. Back in the late seventies and eighties I
had had a few Mk3s, including at one stage 3 Zodiacs.
First
job I got into was the boot, removing all the black tar with paint thinner. The
right rear quarter had had a previous repair that was only riveted in (this was
subsequently welded in). The red oxide paint had served to protect the metal
reasonably well
All
the yellow paint was wire buffed off and sanded back. Here you can see the
uneven surface on all the panels. All glass and door internals were stripped
out at the time
The
boot drain channel was in poor condition. I had to cut out various rusted bits and
weld in some new sheet metal. My welding skills had improved at the time as I
had also been repairing the son’s Escort.
As I worked my way around the car I had to
do weld repairs in the spare wheel well, some minor repairs to the boot floor,
the previous repair to the rear quarter had to be welded in properly (it was
also only screwed together at the bottom). The right hand side dog leg needed
new metal welded in and the bottom corners of most of the doors needed some
very minor repair welding work. The front guards had the usual problem of rust
in the top and bottom corners of the side but again this was minimal. Repairs
were also required over the headlights. The bonnet had a little rust at the
front and the boot lid had a little rust in the corners at the back. All in all
this car was not too bad rust wise.
I had completed most of the welding work and
had started sanding and repairing the boot and rear quarter panels. I intended
to pull out the engine and repaint the engine bay so I thought I had better get
the engine running smoothly and make sure it was all right so I could reinstall
it when I was ready. Got it running and started to check it out, pulled the
rocker cover off to find the broken valve spring and some rusty tappets that
weren’t getting any oil. I very quickly concluded I needed a major overhaul on
this engine or another one. I decided to opt for another engine as the car had
been fitted with a Mk2 engine at some time.
I pulled out the Mk2 engine and got a hold
of a Mk3 engine. I stripped it down to find the top of one piston was broken.
After some deliberation I decided that I might as well have the engine
reconditioned so went about procuring all the parts and took the engine to a
local engine reconditioner in Geelong. I won’t say how much it cost altogether
but it was quite a fair bit.
I then got to the engine bay which by this
time was stripped. Some kind soul had painted it with tyre black or something
similar. There was again some red oxide paint near the hinge bases which had
helped to protect the metal. The engine bay was sanded down and undercoated and
came up quite well. The pictures below tell the story. Astute readers will
notice this is a 62 model due to the firewall bracket for the brake and clutch
cylinders. It was also made in the UK. In the background can be seen the son’s
Mk2 Escort that I spent a lot of time on. He had just had some Forest arches
installed but had lost his job. The Escort got sold which was a little sad but
at least I had more room in the garage.
Next job was underneath the car. Initially I
was going to leave the sealer in place but when I got underneath I realised it
was a shoddy job and the sealer had been applied over whatever dirt, grease and
oil was under the car before. I got the drill and the wire brush out and buffed
and then washed it all off. The diff came out in the process and the whole
underneath was cleaned down and undercoated. In the process I also welded in
another LHS jacking point as the original one was missing. Some repairs were
also done to the other one. I welded in some seat belt anchors too while I was
under the car.
You
can see some of the dirt that the sealer was applied over above left. You can also
see where I have welded up some holes in the floor left from a previous bucket
seat installation. The car was pretty good under all of the dirt, grease and
tar.
It
looks a lot better in the third photo compared to what I started with The guy I
bought the car off had just put the sealer on at the time He also used it as a
selling point. Knowing what I know now I would disagree!
Next job was the underside of the front
guards. This area too had had the tar treatment. Underneath the tar I found a
dirty brown enamel paint that had been applied and had again provided
protection to the steelwork. Somebody had cared about this car at some stage in
its life! This paint was all removed and the area sanded back. The only problem
I found was some light pitting at the top outside of the strut tower and some
slightly heavier pitting at the wheel splash point on the firewall panel. Not
bad for a 46 yr old car!
I started on the panels finishing off the
rear quarters and progressing on to the roof, doors, bonnet and guards. This
took some considerable time as I certainly don’t consider myself to be a panel
beater, but I did want to try and do most of the work myself
The photos show some of the work at various stages.
The roof was particularly hard to get the low spots out of. I spent a lot of
time filling and sanding and wet rubbing it before I was satisfied with my
work. By this time we were heading into winter time and the weather was getting
a little colder. The next step would have been putting some colour on the car
but I decided to wait until the weather was warmer and concentrate on some of
the mechanical work that was required.
In the process of chasing up parts, namely a
Girling MkIIa brake booster which is an original part that I did not have, I
decided it may be wiser to see if I could retrofit a Supervac booster to my car
like the later models had. I would then have little trouble finding a booster.
On closer examination I noticed there was a depression in the inner guard that
seemed as if it was there specifically for the Supervac booster. Seems like
Ford always intended to fit the Supervac booster even to the earlier cars,
maybe they couldn’t get any at the time or perhaps they had a stack of MkIIa boosters
that they had to use up.
Any way I procured the necessary parts from
a mate’s wreck and proceeded to alter the firewall mounting bracket. Turns out
I also needed the pedal box out of the later model car. Pictures tell the
story. It was a bit of fiddling around but I think well worth the effort.
The inner section of the firewall also had
to be replaced as per picture
As you can see I have also undercoated under
the dash. One had to be quite a contortionist to get under there.
The bracket you can see had to have 2 more
holes made in it above the original ones to marry up to the later pedal box.
You can just see where the pedal box bolts to the underside of the dash. 2 more
holes are required here each closer to the driver’s door. On the top I had to
file away some of the same bracket so I could fit in the small bar with
threaded holes (also scavenged from the donor car) that the pedal box bolts up
to. You can see this in the picture on the right (enlarge it to see it more
clearly). I’ve given some detail here just in case someone else wants to try
this.
Below are a few more photos and some info on
the work that I have been doing up until now (Nov 2009)
Above. This is the heater out of the car.
The inlet duct was absolutely chock full of leaves and debris. I had to install
a new resistor so I had two speeds on the fan. I pulled the fan motor apart and
gave it a good clean at the time. The heater core was split so it had to be
resoldered together. A coat of paint and it looks like a new one
Above. The front struts and callipers have
been fully rebuilt. Rods on the struts were scored so I had the units
reconditioned. I had to buy new springs
as the old ones seemed to be a mismatched pair with the LH one being almost 2
inches shorter than the RH one. New pistons and seals have been fitted to the
calipers. I used paint from KBS paints on these parts which is very tough and
durable. Check KBS out at www.kbs-coatings.com.au
There are other parts in the boot of the car
above that have been bead blasted and painted with KBS satin black chassis
paint. Almost everything that I could think of that goes in the engine bay or
underneath the car has had the same treatment, i.e. cross members, rear
suspension components including springs, bumper brackets etc etc. This should
make the whole process a lot quicker when I am ready to put the car back
together.
I am working on the differential at the
moment. Initially I was just going to clean it up and paint it and change the
pinion seal. It was leaking a little oil around the diff centre gasket so I
decided I had better change this gasket as well
I pulled the axles back and removed the diff
centre to find very little oil in the diff and a heavy dirty grease residue
that was difficult to remove on all internal components of the diff. Closer
examination revealed the differential gears to be badly worn on the faces and
on their support shafts. This diff was obviously no good but luckily I had a
spare from a rolling spares car I had just acquired. I decide to rebuild the
diff assembly with new bearings and seals and am in the process of doing this
at the moment
Diff casing is nice and clean now but it
sure was difficult to get all the gunk out of it. Also a photo of the spares
car (thanks Steve from the ZZOCM who has finished his car) Spares car is also
‘lime green’ which is the colour I am going to paint my car (I hope my painting
will turn out better than this fine example ...lol)
Finally
here is a photo of the car as it is today
I have a lot of the parts that I need to put
it back together such as new tie rods and reco track control arms for the front
suspension. The idler arm to draglink connection which is the threaded type is
a little worn so I need to sort that out. I have all new rubber ware except the
rear quarter window rubbers. I have new door glass thanks to a guy that
Rarespares dealt with (but unfortunately he has now gone out of business so
glass is no longer available from Rarespares). You can see that the seats need
a bit of work from the above photo. The door trims are a little sad in that
they have been damaged by water but I am hoping that with a little bit of work
I can salvage them.
I’ll be glad when the car has some colour on
it!!
Seems like I have a little way to go yet!!