OWEN'S MKlll
G'day all,
Like rebuilding my Zcar, it's taken a long
time to get around to writing these few words. First let me thank Karl for his
friendship and willing advice down the wire over the past few years while I
have been allegedly finishing this MkIII restoration. Great site, great advice,
and I have incorporated a few of his nifty mods, which improve the car, no end.
The Internet certainly reduces the tyranny of distance.
My first car was a tired MkIII purchased from
a friend when I was 19 years old (28 years go), much to my Mum and Dad's
obvious delight...not. I rebuilt it over several months, and a mate applied the
silver jam in his garage and it was a pretty sharp looking jigger. Unique in
the Swinburne Tech car park even then. One inebriated night the motor finally
blew and they were thrilled once again when I degreased the newly emptied
engine bay on their front lawn and promptly killed the entire grass population.
It took a long time to come back. I bought a 302 and auto ready to
install, but couldn't afford the fit up cost as I was at uni doing
engineering at the time, but the profit made reselling it paid for the rebuilt
6. Mobile again. That car was eventually sold to another budding engineer with
a distinct resemblance to the MacDonald's hamburgler (remember him?), who
rolled it some months later up near Boort in NW Victoria. The damage was
apparently not too bad, and I wonder if it is still in some cowcocky's
shed up there.
Anyway, 20 years later, after marriage, three kids, two house moves, many other panel vans, motorbikes pets etc, I was selling a Toyota Hiace van and was checking that my ad was in the Saturday "Age" (I learnt to read from this rag) when I noticed the present Zcar advertised under "hot". I still have the ad somewhere. It was supposedly fitted with a Chev of unknown pedigree, but they thought it was a 350. The guy selling it was a tow truck/panel shop owner who rescued it from the Shepparton wreckers when he owned a Pawn shop in Echuca. Not a car you could easily miss, bright yellow, with black stripes, and with a big spoiler filling in between the fins, and it had obviously done some hard yards from the dents in the floor pan and compacted red dust several inches deep in the rear quarters and doors...I thought it was mega bog at first, it was so hard. Still, it was pretty straight despite some difficult repairs to amateur rear guard flaring, and the unavoidable, but relatively minor cancer here and there.
I bought it and got it delivered home on the
tow truck and it started first shot with a glug of petrol down the Rochester
Quad. Not bad considering the remants of cooling water had turned to a sort of
weird jelly in the intake manifold it was so old. I then stripped it as you can
see from photos in the photo album area. It had a 327 still with std bore and
crank (hard to find these days), and with no engine number (block has been
decked), mildly ported Powerpak heads, a Saginaw 4 speed and Borg Warner LSD as
fitted to XT GT's. Tasty. Painted on the RH front guard was a RoadRunner
cartoon bird, no doubt partly due to the old old truck horn fitted. I have
retained that horn and the distinctive gearstick for a laugh and for
history.
After 8 years, a bare metal respray, and
total mech rebuild, it is now just about ready to register. Putting a Chev into
a Ford is pretty dumb in a lot of ways, because the sump clashes so badly with
the Xmember. I had to move the motor over to clear the steering box (someone
fitted new extractors that didn't fit just before I got it), and do lost of
sump, cross member, tunnel mods to clean it up. Also tidied up many other minor
areas before it was straightened and painted, and Karl gave me lots of help
with brake set up, frame strengthening rails etc etc.
The motor has been warmed over with 350 valves, mild cam etc and seems to run pretty strongly. I am looking forward to getting it engineered, when I find someone I can trust over the coming weeks.
That's enough of my drivel for now. Hope
you found some interest.
Cheers
Owen