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Restoration of our 1959 Mk2 Zephyr Lowline.

Restoration Start Date - 27th March 2006

March 2006 I started to get the bug to restore a car, after searching the net for something I started leaning towards a Humber Super Snipe. Sonia my wife always wanted a Mk2 Zephyr, this being the first car she had ever driven which belonged to her brother. I myself had grown up around Zephyrs being New Zealand born and having owned 2 Mk1’s back in the 70’s, both of which were thrashed to death and ending up in a graveyard of old cars after going through a boot load of rear axles and spending a lot of time un jamming the gear linkages. These cars were fast for their era capable of 95mph.

In late March I decided it was going to be a Zephyr that would become a member of our family, so I started searching and found a Mk2 on EBay for sale. It was a 1959 Mk2 Lowline with a starting bid of $700. We drove for an hour and a half and had a look at the car. The motor and auto were out and the motor in bits. The body was straight, the sills were rusting, the boot was rust free, chassis rails were clean and the floor seemed ok. All in all it was in pretty good nick. The motor bits etc were spread throughout the car. We drove back home, thought about it and decided we would bid on it. We won the car for $730 on the 26th March. On the 27th we went back to where the car was to transport it home. After loading it on to a trailer I started checking around and found that there were parts missing. The head wasn’t there nor was the drive shaft or the radiator, the air cleaner, the carbie and manifold. The bloke said the head at some place in Brisbane and he would get it for me and that the other parts could be in a shed of his mates. Oh well we will sort it out later. Needless to say, none of the missing parts have turned up. The car was home and in the garage that night.

 

                                                

As this was going to be a ground up restoration with an estimated cost of around $20,000 the big strip down was started. Everything was stripped out of the old girl till it was a bare shell except for the front suspension and the diff as I needed to get it to the sand blaster. As parts were stripped out the nuts, bolts etc were bagged and labelled. Everything was removed, right down to the last nut and clip. We discovered the right rear floor pan was dying from cancer, apart from that there wasn’t any other major rust problem.

           

   

           

              

  3 weeks after we got her she was off to the sandblaster. This will show up any rust I can’t see. $550 later she was back home in the shed and surprisingly there wasn’t any more rust that I didn’t know about apart from a few pin holes here and there in the floor, which will be welded up. She is all clean and painted with black epoxy etch primer, that has certainly saved me weeks of scraping and sanding.

           

 

The front suspension and the diff were then stripped out and the shell put on stands, so now there isn’t a bolt or nut left on it.

I have decided that I need to be able to rotate the car to work on it underneath as I don’t want to be lying on the floor trying to grind and repair rust etc, so I am going to build a rotisserie for it. I found a set of plans on the net to build one and it looks strong and reliable. It is going to cost around $400 all up, which I think isn’t bad.

I am going to replace the inner, intermediate and outer sills on both sides of the car. That way I will know that I have removed all the rust. The biggest problem I have at the moment is the right rear floor pan. Where the hell am I going to get one?

I have started cleaning up some parts and painting them and am now working on the front suspension and steering. All the rubbers, bushes, tie rod ends and ball joints are going to be replaced. The front struts are going to be a problem. I am going to have to find a pair of second hand ones in good nick I think.

That is where our project is up too on the 5th may 2006

DO YOU HAVE A STORY ON THE CONTINUING BUILD UP OF YOUR CAR? CAN YOU SEND US A FEW WORDS AND PIC'S ON THE CAR YOU'RE DRIVING AND THE PLANS OR STORIES OF IT? Email AVOCALEA@XTRA.CO.NZ

 

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