Bo11ox' Aircraft Carrier

[timolloyd]

Back with a bang. Excellent to see you here again.

[Amishtat]

That's almost unbelievably solid for one of those, let alone one which has been sitting outside for any length of time. Definitely my favourite '60s Ford. Nice to see a Zephyr for a change too, the Zodiac must be the most numerous of the few surviving examples. Certainly looking forward to seeing how you get on with it, and nice to know it's in safe hands. I'd suggest that the given reason for your flounce isn't 100% accurate, but never mind. 

[davocano]

I have missed the humourous stylings of Mr_Bo11ox and also welcome his return.

And what a car he's brung with him.

[GingerNuttz]

Great to see you back fella. 👍

 

[hairnet]

crazy mutha

hope it wont be a war like some of your other veehickles

whitley bay lmao

 

[Isaac Hunt]

Told ya this was gonna be good, look at the shine on the roof already.  

Doom blue really suits old Fords of this vintage.

it’s a barge and a half is this

[Snake Charmer]

6 hours ago, R1152 said:

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. 

The launch date was also Hitlers 77th birthday!

There are no plates on the inner wings but I think they may have been painted at some stage, probably at the same time by whoever did that fibreglass and filler in the wing fronts. The arches have been painted too.

I rebuilt the engine, it may have had a steel timing gear already, if not Richard will have a receipt for one in the paperwork I had. The heads were converted to unleaded by Vulcan Engineering who managed to convince AJ to have them gas flowed as well!

The clutch was an interesting one, I think it was a diesel Sierra I ended up fitting. Pistons were hard to find too, I did suggest fitting a 3ltr Granada engine I was offered but AJ wanted to keep the original 2.5ltr which posed endless problems on parts. 

52 minutes ago, Isaac Hunt said:

Told ya this was gonna be good, look at the shine on the roof already.  

Doom blue really suits old Fords of this vintage.

it’s a barge and a half is this

In all the time it sat in my front and rear gardens the paint was always flat. I pressure washed the green algae off it regularly and there was always a pale blue tinge to the water running away!

[Pieman]

He's back!  Great to see you back on here Mr B, always like your detailed and informative threads.

Now get that horsebox thread updated.  

[Isaac Hunt]

45 minutes ago, Snake Charmer said:

 

In all the time it sat in my front and rear gardens the paint was always flat. 

14 years off road parking in Heathrow, would not like to see the size of that bill

[High Jetter]

Less a "gentle, mild breeze" and more a 'Lightning landing on the HMS QE'. Bloody well bought and welcome back, Sir!

[motorpunk]

Fantastic car, great thread, just what AS should be about. 

[Mally]

I'd not be taking the screen out for that little pinhole if the rubber is reasonable.

You know what happened last time.

Piece of ally  full of filler, threaded on a length of mig wire. Pull it up from underneath.  Take mig wire out carefully.

Rub down good as new tomorrow.

 

[ETCHY]

Cool looking motor, that concave curve of the rear window is so unusual. All the more interesting for being one of the few times Ford got it wrong for the market, I've only seen a couple on the road ever.

It is in great nick for one of these, they were serious rotters even by the standards of the day, so a v6 Zephyr must be a pretty rare bird.

Looking forward to updates.

[Snake Charmer]

30 minutes ago, Isaac Hunt said:

14 years off road parking in Heathrow, would not like to see the size of that bill

Most people know me as Bill! 🤣 

[Isaac Hunt]

19 hours ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

 

Having just fettled a pair of rear calipers off a 15 year old ‘fast ford’ these sure do look mighty complex.  

But I suppose disc brakes were still a relatively rare setup back then, especially on the rear.  

Just look at the chamfer on those rear pads, it all looks proper Heath Robinson.  

I reckon even when you’ve got it all back together the chocks need to stay or we wake up to the headlines “HMS Bollox breaks anchor and wipes out half a local street”

[RoadworkUK]

If that 2.5 Essex proves a proper PITA, there's enough space under that bonnet to fit an additional auxiliary engine of your choice. Or, it being an aircraft carrier, perhaps a steam turbine.

World-beating thread, as usual. 

Commended.

[R1152]

3 hours ago, Snake Charmer said:

The launch date was also Hitlers 77th birthday!

There are no plates on the inner wings but I think they may have been painted at some stage, probably at the same time by whoever did that fibreglass and filler in the wing fronts. The arches have been painted too.

I rebuilt the engine, it may have had a steel timing gear already, if not Richard will have a receipt for one in the paperwork I had. The heads were converted to unleaded by Vulcan Engineering who managed to convince AJ to have them gas flowed as well!

The clutch was an interesting one, I think it was a diesel Sierra I ended up fitting. Pistons were hard to find too, I did suggest fitting a 3ltr Granada engine I was offered but AJ wanted to keep the original 2.5ltr which posed endless problems on parts. 

In all the time it sat in my front and rear gardens the paint was always flat. I pressure washed the green algae off it regularly and there was always a pale blue tinge to the water running away!

... and eight years before my sister was born!

Looking at that... that's not been top-plated. Wow - I mean, WOW. Normally they were giving up in about seven or eight years. And is that a real cross-ply spare tyre?!

Dad certainly welded plates into the fronts of the wings as IIRC they're totally open inside, which destroyed the mazak side/indicator lamp castings within four years. I wonder if these days, it's possible to find someone to fabricate a liner for the wing?

I have to say I prefer the concave-front Zephyrs to the later flat-front ones, done presumably to match the Zodiac. I think the V4 was even more of a rare beast as it had real trouble removing the skin off custard. I remember that a common 'mod' round here was to bung a 4-cylinder Perkins diesel in them, because the V4 wasn't slow enough. IIRC the contemporary 2000SL Victor made another 20bhp.

Certainly the "Sweeney Consul" got, I think, aluminium timing gears but the real "Essex killer" was that bloody fibre "pencil" that drove the oil pump - it certainly did for Dad's. Please tell me it's gone?!

This beauty is just all the win, isn't it?!

Elsewhere someone commented that they didn't think it was possible to buy cheap* Fords any more; I think the exceptions to that rule are these and the Corsair. I would settle for a Corsair 2000E if I couldn't get a nice Exec - I saw an Amber Gold 1600E the other day whilst out shopping, and being H-reg it matched in age and colour "our" Zodiac. At least the 1600E is still around: I'd love to know who crafted the cocktail cabinet in the back of the driver's seat in our Zodiac - seriously!

[Dick Longbridge]

3 hours ago, Snake Charmer said:

The launch date was also Hitlers 77th birthday!

There are no plates on the inner wings but I think they may have been painted at some stage, probably at the same time by whoever did that fibreglass and filler in the wing fronts. The arches have been painted too.

I rebuilt the engine, it may have had a steel timing gear already, if not Richard will have a receipt for one in the paperwork I had. The heads were converted to unleaded by Vulcan Engineering who managed to convince AJ to have them gas flowed as well!

The clutch was an interesting one, I think it was a diesel Sierra I ended up fitting. Pistons were hard to find too, I did suggest fitting a 3ltr Granada engine I was offered but AJ wanted to keep the original 2.5ltr which posed endless problems on parts. 

In all the time it sat in my front and rear gardens the paint was always flat. I pressure washed the green algae off it regularly and there was always a pale blue tinge to the water running away!

I still don't understand how a sixties Ford has sat out in the elements for many years yet still looks in better condition than most of it's counterparts would have looked by the mid 1970s. That's an original crossply sat under the bonnet too, isn't it? This Z must be a time traveller or something...

[bigstraight6]

Well done MrB, I’m so glad you jumped in on this car as I’d hoped as you have the skills and patience to return her to former glory, and being an old Ford it’s money in the bank! 

[R1152]

14 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

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.

Having been lucky enough to drive my father's, and also having fond memories of him collecting me from the railway station on a Friday night accompanied by my girlfriend when I was on weekend leave, being chauffeured in one of these whilst you watch the world go by from the back seat beats any Jag or big Rover 🙂

And they are barge-tastic.

[R1152]

1 minute ago, Dick Longbridge said:

I still don't understand how a sixties Ford has sat out in the elements for many years yet still looks in better condition than most of it's counterparts would have looked by the mid 1970s. That's an original crossply sat under the bonnet too, isn't it? This Z must be a time traveller or something...

Perhaps it turned up with Jodie Whittaker's replacement... 😄 Heavens, even the battery looks original too!

[Snake Charmer]

8 hours ago, R1152 said:

Perhaps it turned up with Jodie Whittaker's replacement... 😄 Heavens, even the battery looks original too!

An expensive replacement bought from a battery specialist. 

 

8 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

I still don't understand how a sixties Ford has sat out in the elements for many years yet still looks in better condition than most of it's counterparts would have looked by the mid 1970s. That's an original crossply sat under the bonnet too, isn't it? This Z must be a time traveller or something...

It would have been much better if garaged from 2007 when bought. I kept it on hard surfaces and the quality car cover disappeared one windy night in tatters.

It suffered some vandalism when parked on the road outside his house but he didn't notice. Some of the local tossers were running across cars at night, I found trainer prints front to back but no dents.

[Joey spud]

These mk4's are still ugly buggers in my eyes but everyone loves an under dog right ?

Going back ten years plus i would regularly see one of these in Greenhithe owned by a old couple.

I caught up with it one day after it had broken down (loose fan belt and lack of charge) and i recall the old chap telling me he had been struggling with its heavy clutch and his dodgy knees so at great expense had got a specialist to fit a servo assisted clutch system to it.

I followed him back home where he had another pair of mk4's parked up.

For the life of me i can't remember exactly where he lived as i would love to drive by and see if they are still there.

 

 

[JeeExEll]

A bit irrelevant to this particular car but I once had a 1975 edition of either Motor or Autocar which had an article in the first few general news pages about an unsold 1972 Zephyr 2.5 V6.  Zephyr was unregistered and being advertised by a Ford dealer for less than the price of a new Escort Popular, the most basic Ford available at that time (the Mk2 Escort had recently taken over from the Mk1s).

Unfortunately the magazine is long gone (someone may have one though).  The Mk4 Zephyr 6 must have been registered new on a N-plate or newer.

Or maybe it was never sold!  Now there's a thought.

[R1152]

I can remember seeing one as a child that was on a plate later than I expected - may only have been an "L" though. 

[2flags]

My dad had one of these, but it was the 3ltr Zodiac. Bought it to tow the caravan, but as the clutch started slipping while stuck in traffic going up some sodding great hill in Bristol while stuck in holiday traffic he chopped it in for a Landrover 109 safari. [Loved that Landy.] 

[R1152]

IIRC a few of the last Zephyr 6s were sold as a special edition with a unique metallic blue paint and a white vinyl roof. Pretty sure that's in Michael Allen's very informative book "Consul, Zephyr, Zodiac, Executive: Fords Mark 1 - 4"

[adw1977]

44 minutes ago, R1152 said:

IIRC a few of the last Zephyr 6s were sold as a special edition with a unique metallic blue paint and a white vinyl roof. Pretty sure that's in Michael Allen's very informative book "Consul, Zephyr, Zodiac, Executive: Fords Mark 1 - 4"

The colour was "Uranium Blue" IIRC and the special edition was imaginatively named Zephyr Special.

I do recommend that Michael Allen book, if you can find one!

[R1152]

9 hours ago, adw1977 said:

The colour was "Uranium Blue" IIRC and the special edition was imaginatively named Zephyr Special.

I do recommend that Michael Allen book, if you can find one!

That's the kiddy. 

I do have that book but like all my books, it's still in storage seven years on... 😔

If anyone will have it, it's Abebooks. 

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30905234694&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-tile1&searchurl=ds%3D10%26sortby%3D17%26tn%3DConsul%2BZephyr%2BZodiac%2Bexecutive%2B%26an%3DMichael%2BAllen

[ProgRocker]

I have a picture on my living room wall of an advert for a Ford Executive, taken from an issue of Motor magazine dated March 1966. Had it since 1993/4 when I became  obsessed with the mark 4s (and also mark 3 Cortinas) .