Ade Beckham’s V8 Mk II Zephyr
Hi,
I’m Ade Beckham (as far as I know I’m no relation to the famous footballer) I'm
basd in the North East of England and this is the story of how I came to own
the red Mk II in the members pictures.
According
to the logbook, my car is a Mk II Zodiac first registered in 1959, how she came
to be registered as a Zody I don’t know, because the front end is clearly that
of a Zephyr. I bought her after deciding I needed something to help me
unwind following a particularly unpleasant project at work (OK, it was just a
coincidence that I turned 40 at the same time!). I “discovered” what I
was after following an article in Street Machine magazine last summer where one
Matt Howell modernised a Mk I Cortina claiming it was relatively easy to
modernise any old Ford using off the shelf bits producing a classic looking,
viable alternative to a modern car, that handled and went well. I hung on
until the spring of the following year before I gave in, then the search was on
for a Mk I Cortina modernised as much as possible. These proved harder to
find than I had hoped (until I’d bought the Zephyr of course!).
I
chased a few adverts but to no avail until I spotted one for the Zephyr, pretty
much standard except for the Rover P6 V8 already fitted. I figured it
wasn’t what I was after but it would be useful to check it out and gain some
experience. The car was located in Birmingham (about a 3 hour drive away)
and at first sight seemed a wasted journey. Then I heard the engine…….
I remember thinking “Oh hell, I’m going to buy this thing and I have no clue
what I’m doing!” I kicked tyres for an hour and did my best to find
fault, but she appeared basically sound, if scruffy, the only real problem
seemed to be a very imprecise gear change and some rust on the bottom of one
door. My last hope was to offer an insulting price but even this failed,
I was doomed! The drive home was awful, the speedo didn’t work, the car
surged between an estimated 50 and 70 and I was fed up being a mobile chicane
on the M1. I got within 10 miles of home and decided I’d had enough being
frightened of the car breaking. I pulled off a small roundabout in
second, took a deep breath and floored it, held on past the misfire that I had
presumed was the redline…… and the world would never be the same again.
I’ve heard it said that certain illicit drugs will change your personality
forever, well, the scream of the V8 coming on song properly and the way the
world went into reverse had the same effect on me. I can’t describe the
feeling, but I know that is the main draw of the car.
So
far I haven’t done much towards my aim of modernising a classic, preferring to
drive the car a bit and change the things that need doing most. I’ve
stripped and cleaned the twin SU’s (this cleared the surging), remounted the
battery and fixed the old four-speed box that suddenly jammed in second.
In the process of fixing the box, I noticed that the transmission tunnel was
bodge of the century, consisting of about 20 plates all pop riveted
together. It seems the previous owner wasn’t good at major surgery, but
he did like to finish things off, if you look closely in the pictures you’ll
see small red hubcaps on each of the wheels, that are actually jam jar lids.
What
do I like about owning Loud Bess, as she has now been
christened. Well, I love the way that someone always comes and talks
to you whenever you take the car out, I love the camaraderie of the Hot Rod and
Classic Car scene and I love the hours I spend cleaning, fixing and generally
fiddling about. But there is absolutely nothing like the feeling of
planting your right foot and listening to that howl.
Anyway,
I hope my story has raised a smile or two, failing that I hope I haven’t
dribbled on and bored anyone and this small effort will go some way to repaying
people like Karl who contribute so much.
Update:
The
Rover V8 was already fitted when I bought my car so I can't claim any credit
for that, however, it wasn't a very good job, so this is what I did to improve
on it:
Transmission Tunnel
Here's what I started with, looks
pretty good doesn't it?
Unfortunately, this is what was
underneath........ pop rivetted in ....... all the way to the back seats.
And this is the hole it left!
And here's what I put back in
From underneath. Notice in the
pic above I've removed the radio panel to get access under the dash.
Sorry
I don't have any dimensions as everything was made up piecemeal as I went
along. The only starting point I had was the circular mid-section supplied by a
mate so I put that in first and worked around it.
Things
I would do differently:
-
Spend more time on it, trying to complete a job like this in half hour "bits"
is a recipe for disaster and frustration.
-
Take more care over getting the bits to fit properly, half an hour getting a
neat join will save an hours welding, grinding, dressing etc.
-
Take the extra time to get all the rust off before I start welding
-
Take a contortionism course so I can get under the dash to weld the top bit of
the tunnel
Anyway,
I hope this is some use and if I get around to lifting the motor out I'll take
some more pics and post them up here.