One of my customer asked me last year if I could make a roof for a zephyr coupe if he bought it, and we discussed the details and he ended up buying it. This is what turned up at Christmas. I started on it in febuary and squared it up and put some bracing in. I hacked off the windscreen header and window frames. It had been chopped about 8” and the workmanship was very poor. Over lapped panels and the roof was oxy cut off, there was even body washers welded in to fill holes. I used a 38 ford sedan roof to make up part of the roof and back window, but it was to narrow and the gutter was different to the zephyr even though it comes from the same ford family. You can see in this shot it was looking a bit to raked in the roof, and I didn’t want a steel car looking like one of fibreglass kit cars. So we lifted the windscreen a bit and clipped another ½” out of the back window, we had a stock front garnish mould so we worked out we had a 5” chop. Next I had to fix the window frames.
You are a brave one for taking this on. I always wonder at the p.o. of cars like this; trying to chop a zephyr without a clue... Makes me shake my head Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Next I had to make the door frames, they were made from 3 parts. One was a L shape and curved with the stretcher, the second was a Z section shrunk on the inner edge and stretched on the outer flange to make the curve, and the last part was cut to the final curved shape of the back of the frame. Next was the gutter which started as a strip with a 90 bend and the other end bent over 120 degrees with a 3/8” radius. I then made a profile tool set of the gutter to go in the Pullmax, I run the part through the Pullmax a couple of times, stretching it to the shape of the door. Then it was a matter of just making patches to fill the gaps that looked the right shape and making it the same on the other side. The B pillar shape had to be changed as a 5” chop is going to change the roof shape and since we didn’t have roof anyway?
Nice save !! Can't believe someone would cut up a Zephyr that bad You're a brave guy to tackle it and it looks great now
Wow hats off to mister.This is one challenge a lot of people would of even tried to attempt let alone succeed.Great craftsmen ship.And gotta love a zephyr!! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Nice save! I may have attempted that on my own car, but to do it for a customer without having a template takes balls...
Holy shit Steve.. this looks rad! First time i've seen pics of Richards Zepher.. sure looks as rough as Dick and Curly said it was!
Nice save. Definitely seems the previous owner got in way to deep. Glad it's all coming back together. Gotta love these old Zephyrs. Paul.
HOLY CRAP! What a terrible thing to do to one of the coolest cars ever! I am in awe, literally at your amazing skills and the fact you could save it from the previous butchery! Unbelevable! I really wish I had one tenth the skills and abilities of guys like you! Great work, keep us posted.
Here you go Goofer, this is the build on my roadster so far, progress is slow as I have a lot of customer work at the moment. Thanks for all the positive feedback everyone. Cheers Steve. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/old-school-28-a-v8-roadster.825400/
Thanks Guy's, Starting on the rust repairs now, the edge on the blue guard where it bolts on was rusted and had a poor repair, and where it bolts to the running board was blended with a large radius. So I made it match the other rear guard. And knocked out a few dents. One of the spats was rusty and the other looked like it had been run over. Made a patch for the back corner and used a shrinking disc to straighten the other. Cheers Steve
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