Bo11ox' Aircraft Carrier

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Hi all, you may recall i stomped off AS 6 months back after getting annoyed at the wanky moderation on here. Well I must have got over it to some extent, as i had been logging in from time to time recently, mostly to see what was on the for sale board, and guess whats happened? I've ended up with another car.

I need more projects like I need a hole in my head, but this turned up on the FS board with no back wheels and no price and I was intrigued. Struck up a convo with @Snake Charmer who was looking after it on behalf of the owner Alan. It had been on Snake's driveway for 15 years and it seemed like it was 'out of sight out of mind' for Alan. Anyway photos were exchanged, I had a chat with Alan, more photos and videos came down the wire, then Alan said I could take it away for £1000 and pay after it was collected!!! Very decent of him. (I think he mostly just wanted a painless sale and a good home for it). At that price i could not refuse. So @worldofceri was drafted in for logistics, Snake refitted the rear wheels and home it came to castle bo11ox!!!

I think both Snake and Alan are interested to see how I get on with it, so I'm chucking a thread up on here to record what happens with it (if anything).

So lets have a look at it.

So its a 1968 Zephyr Mk4, 2.5 Essex V6, 4-speed manual box and column gearchange. Snake has rebuilt the engine, and its got a new clutch and various other bits and bobs. It does run but doesnt drive as the rear calipers are dismantled and in the boot. Also the exhaust is rotten. I did bust out the mop on the bootlid and roof as well, I need to go right round it still.

So far all I have really done is stare at it, I absolutely love how it looks. I always liked the shape of these and they seem to have avoided the crazy prices and knucklehead image of most old fords. Probably cos they supposedly drive like a half-burst lilo on the Whitley Bay Leisure pool.

It seems amazingly unmolested really. Pretty much everything is present and correct. Stuff like the carpets and door seals etc do look like theyre 50 years old, but thats because they are right? I can't find any signs of it being welded amazingly - look at this flitch panel behind the NSF wheel. No splash guard - looks like it has the factory coating on it, yet all there is is a bit of surface rust.

NS sill flange:

Amazing! The only bits of rot I've found yet are the front wing tips and this little hole in the corner of the windscreen:

That'll be a screen out job to sort, but I did find a company in Oz that make new screen seals so if I can get hold of one of those, the screen can be cut out to avoid another palaver like I had on the horsebo11ox. Amazingly this does not seem to have rotted out the bottom of the A pillar!!!

Anyway the biggest problem is the lack of brakes. My driveway is sloped, so I've got the wheels chocked but with no brakes at all its completely immobile till i can get something sorted. The calipers were removed and dismantled some time back, heres how they look now:

Snake reckoned they might be salvageable but looking through the bits I could only find one piston!!! (should be 2 obvs) Also, these calipers are pretty unusual, theyre the same as you get on a Rover P6 and they have some very weird mechanisms inside them. I decided I needed another pair of calipers 'intact' so that i could see exactly how they assemble and be sure I wasn't missing any other bits. @barrett put me onto some stammering geezer in Brighouse who has a stash of P6 parts so I had a trip up there and came back £70 lighter but with with 3 more calipers ("probably don't even need a rebuild m8")

So today my workbench looks like this:

Now I've got 5 calipers! on the far left there is one which I am planning to keep intact as a guide to how the thing assembles, the other 4 are now in bits. Also I found the missing piston. Also got 2 new seal kits.

Now then, the real nub of the problem here is the pistons:

All the pistons I have, are in really poor condition like these. Theyre a really weird design with that arm on one end and clipped inside is a female-threaded adjuster that wobbles about, check it out in the middle of this cross section:

I noticed past parts sell reconned calipers for these/P6's so i thought they must have a source of new pistons, so I rang them up today. They reckoned they re-use pistons but bore out and re-sleeve the caliper bodies. I sat and thought about it and decided that sounded ridiculous - why fit a new sleeve, when the seal is static in the bore and the sealing surface is a moving piston? Then I sat in the garden for some hours wondering how I could get some new pistons machined up in stainless and how to attach those crank arms to them. I even opened one up to have a look inside:

Didnt really come up with a satisfactory answer TBH.

Then I had a brainwave when I realised that the main piston is not actually hydraulic at all!!! its the little one on the left of the X-section that is, that must be the one that PP resleeve. So actually, those miserable looking pistons will be perfectly OK after all. I will just clean them up as best I can and chuck loads of vaseline over them to protect them.

I'm hoping I might be able to go up to Cobblers' place and get some of these bits cleaned in his ultrasonic cleaner before reassembling but hopefully i can get them back together in the next day or two either way.

Also gave the backplates a clean up and a coat of red oxide & satin black (forgot to photo the finished jobs!)

Ive got this week off work, booked it ages ago so I could do loads of horsebox stuff - Ive not touched that at all yet, as i am still in a 'love haze' with this Zephyr. More soon!

[Ghosty]

welcome back. 1k for that is bonkers, congratz. 

[brownnova]

Excellent purchase, and fascinating write up!! 

[Dick Longbridge]

Great to hear of your exploits once again. I saw your interest on the Z when it was advertised - that's great news you've managed to seal the deal and get it back on your driveway. 

Cracking starting point for your project too. How has it sat for fifteen years and not gone all Ka? It must have been stored really well prior to the lay-up too, given the fact that the bits which tend to go ginger still look pretty damn respectable. 

 

[stripped fred]

I love the look of these. Well bought.

[LightBulbFun]

Awesome and very happy to have you back Mr Bollocks   

and I like what you have come back with! I very much am looking forward to seeing how things get on with this  

keep up the awesome work  

[wuvvum]

Wow, I thought the days of '60s Fords for a bag were long gone!

[vulgalour]

I'd seen some snaps of this over on the social medias, I hadn't realised how honest and solid it really is from those.  The styling of these can be best described as 'reverse mullet' but it's still a joy to see one and for the price paid you did really rather well.  Finned Zs go for considerably more when you can find them and the only advantage they seem to have over these later models is some stylish fins out back.  Anyway, here's a hurried snapshot of a nice one I spotted locally last August.  I reckon I've seen all of two aircraft carrier Zs in the real world in the last decade, and that includes ones at shows.

[Parky]

Wonderful stuff Mr B - should you need a middle man for parts importation, let me know if you would benefit from any “local” representation for parts in Australia or New Zealand.  If they won’t ship to the uk, maybe they will ship to Christchurch and we can sort freight forwarding from here.

Having done Hairnets moped, some rubber trims will be a walk in the park!

Had a quick scan on TradeMe.  There’s a few bits knocking about including this little puppy so things can be found down this way

 

[Jim Bell]

Reported to the mods for being TOO MEGA. 

Nice to see you back, and great to see more of that lovely machine. 

Very well bought. 

[Angrydicky]

5 hours ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

Then I had a brainwave when I realised that the main piston is not actually hydraulic at all!!! its the little one on the left of the X-section that is, that must be the one that PP resleeve. So actually, those miserable looking pistons will be perfectly OK after all. I will just clean them up as best I can and chuck loads of vaseline over them to protect them.

 

Yes, this is correct. It's only the small piston bore that gets resleeved. They used to recon these calipers all the time, but JR Wadhams (I think) sell exchange ones cheaper now so people don't send old units in anymore. Had some lovely new splined adjusters made for them, as the teeth are often stripped, now they're just sat on the shelf gathering dust!

This is an absolute barg, check out the bench seat! You'd feel on top of the world wafting around in that, burning up vast quantities of petrol. Much more interesting than a P6 and on the rare occasion you do see a MK4, it's always a Zodiac; the Zephyrs don't seem to have survived very well in comparison.

[puddlethumper]

That's top bo11ox Mr Bo11ox. Lovely.

[Jenson Velcro]

Good news on several levels. Nothing beats a bit of Bolly.

sadly not clever enough to edit photos 

[lisbon_road]

Looks very impressive.  There used to be a road in Southampton where three of these were always parked.  One had an old record siliconed to the roof presumably to stop a leak.  There was a garage and one day I saw it open, and there were even more of them in there.  Good luck with yours though it doesn't look like it needs too much.  Definite candidate for patina restoration.

[cort16]

Very nice and glad to see you posting again. This is one of these cars I don't ever recall seeing in real life. 

[eddyramrod]

I'm so glad this has stayed on here, and with you!  Being old, I not only remember these on the streets: I can remember them being launched in 1966!  (A most appropriate term for this shape of Zephyr there.)

I nearly had one too, way back when I was 18 or so: KLE 200D, which I think was a V4.  But I never got to sit in it, never mind drive it.  I'd really like to try one with the column shift, it can't possibly be any worse than the floor shift in my 72 Granada.  And bench seats are for Absolute Winnahs.  Good luck with it!  Should I have a look in my stash of books and see if there's a Zephyr one lurking?

[Dave_Q]

Yay bollox etc.

Glad you're back as we will need boots on the ground in the Somercotes area around new year - the infamous prolapsed Cortina will be MOT exempt and potentially prowling the streets again.

EDIT: the thing is MOT exempt already but won't be tax exempt till next April so maybe that's the time to be on standby.

[phil_lihp]

Good to have you posting again Mr B, that looks amazingly solid.

[Bren]

It's screaming for black steels.

The work on the engine will not have been cheap - essex parts are pricey.

[Twiggy]

Good to see you back Mr. B.   This place may be useful to you: Newford  Parts Centre,  01254830676, it`s between Chorley and Blackburn.

[Datsuncog]

SUPERB STUFF

That is all.

Love these Big Zs.

[5speedracer]

Are you painting two doors white and putting a blue light on the roof? Straight into an episode of "Z Cars"

[JeeExEll]

Early registration madness, have never seen a Mk4 on a 1965 C-plate.

[DaveDorson]

As I said on FaceyB, glad to see this saved.

[dollywobbler]

Now that's what I call a triumphant return. Wonderful.

[dozeydustman]

I need say no more

[R1152]

1 hour ago, JeeExEll said:

Early registration madness, have never seen a Mk4 on a 1965 C-plate.

Official launch date was 20.4.66 - I have a press pack for the launch. Not sure, but I think some of the location shots were done in Beirut. 

Thread followed: I love the Flying Pig, my father had a (non-Exec) Zodiac for 15 years. 

Has it been top-plated around the front struts? I can't see the characteristic bulge in the middle of the front wings...  and if someone hasn't yet replaced that fibre oil pump drive and timing gears in the engine, now's the time to do it. 

[Bren]

Canadian actor Paul Maxwell driving the zodiac. Do I get five pounds?

[R1152]

15 minutes ago, Bren said:

Canadian actor Paul Maxwell driving the zodiac. Do I get five pounds?

You should do...! 

[JeeExEll]

https://www.classicfordspares.co.uk/vehicles/ford-zephyr-mk4-v4-v6-1966-to-1972

Loads of detailed diagrams on this site.