Roger Zimmermann

For 1976, more than 114'000 Coupe de Ville were sold...Not a rare car, but how many are still surviving in a good shape? When this one is cleaned, the surface rust will sure be still there but it's not dangerous. The floor seems to be well protected, but I'm not sure if it was from the factory or dealer applied. 3 or 4 years ago, I bought a 1972 Coupe de Ville, unseen. The car was in Florida; it had about 20'000 miles. My idea was: what can go wrong with such a low mileage? The answer came when I let ship the car to a spare parts supplier/restorer in Pennsylvania: a lot. The car had more rust than that '76; brakes were to be replaced, there was perforating rust at the fender skirts and at one front fender, plus a myriad other small issues. I let repair most; when the car finally arrived in Switzerland, I found other ones like Cruise Control and A/C malfunction. Finally, the cars cost me much more than its effective value. In my opinion, "your" car is in a better shape; other tires are a must, and I would check the brakes thoroughly. Rubber hoses for the fuel will have to be replaced; rubber is expensive and has a limited life. I'm adding a picture from that '72 coupe: about the same dimensions, much too large for actual driving conditions! You just have to see how the car is exceeding the parking space in front and rear...

Indeed, I wanted to finish the front brakes; as I'm missing a spring to guide the cables actuating the front brakes, I began something else: the exhaust system. It must not be routed at 100% like the original did; it just must be coherent. I began with the mufflers; the original ones are very large with a diameter over 7 3/4" and just one each side. A funny system was used at the rear to improve the sound; I'll show it in due time. The inner construction is shown on first picture; a thin piece of brass was rolled on this skeleton and soft soldered. The front tube is not too difficult to do; after the 90° curve, it's almost straight. The other side will be more difficult as the tube must go between the brake booster and the frame and end almost at the same place as the RH one. I see also that I will have to plan very carefully the final assembly: for the moment, I cannot torque the front clamp; there are too many obstacles to insert a tool. Probably I will have to build some wrenches for that task.

The parts list is saying that there are six guides for the shock absorbers control. On the pictures I have from a V-16 frame, I see only four. The drawing in the shop manual has four, but this is the image from a V-8 frame, they are shorter. Anyway, I did only four. As the system is just for the eyes, I will not run into troubles. To attach the guides to the frame, I'm using 0.5 mm (0.02") screws in stainless steel, with nuts in the same material. When I'm using brass nuts, I can solder them to the base, but stainless steel cannot be soft soldered. Installing the nuts on the screws is taking some time and good glasses!

Looking good! I had the same work to do on my '56 Biarritz!

Thanks to follow this thread! When I have a dimension from a real part, it's rather easy. When not, as it's for the most parts, I have usually a picture of the said part together with something of known dimension. Then, I'm calculating the needed dimensions. It's never 100% accurate as there is always some distortion in a picture. Sometimes, I have to modify a bit what I calculated...

The next job should be the front brakes. For that I should buy a cable release for an analog camera. Why? the pushing device is a small but long spring, diameter about 1 mm. They are still available new, but if someone has such a cable he will never use again, I will gladly buy it. What has still that thing?

On the first picture, you can see the actuating lever attached to the shock absorber. On my project, it's soft soldered to the shock absorber. The next picture is showing the first rod from the shock absorber to the relay lever. Then, there is a view at the inside of the frame with an intermediate rod going from the relay lever to the idler lever which is shown on the next picture. The free "leg" at the relay lever is connected to the linkage going to the dashboard; that leg is not present on the RH relay. A third rod finally go from the idler lever to the rear shock absorber's actuator. The idler shaft is connected with the other side; it is transmitting the input to the RH shock absorbers. What I still have to do are the guides for the middle and rear rods. They are useful to prevent buckling from the rods when they are in mode "pushing".

While looking at details pictured from a real car, I saw a rod coming from the front relay down through the frame. At first I did not understand the reason for it, until I found a picture from one relay: the rod is indeed a tube with a grease nipple! As there is a shield between frame and engine, this pivot could not be greased without removing the shield. So, I did it to look like the real thing. With some errors (the spring was on the wrong side), I installed the idler shaft with the levers. The provision to adjust the rods is done at those levers; as mine will just be static, the rods will be pushed into the clevises. Then I finished the relays at the front. The inside lever on the left side has a leg more: it’s for the rod coming from the dash to adjust the shock absorbers. The next task will be to remove the shock absorbers, solder the actuating levers and fit the various rods.

Don't worry, Pat...Sometimes people are overreacting!

Absolutely! It seems that I'm not the sole fool!

With the body still on the frame, it's easier to check for proper gap between frame and body. I did more or less that when I restored my '56 Cad Biarritz: without a sound floor, taking a rusted convertible body away from the frame could lead to a disaster...

Recently, I was busy with the shock absorbers regulating system. It requires a lot of small parts, an annoying job. Of course, that system will be static on the model with most parts soft soldered to each other. As some holes must be drilled on the frame, I will have to remove the steering system and the engine; maybe the suspension can stay undisturbed. Some clevises have a small tube which is silver soldered; I had to find an unusual method to perform the job: a tube was turned on the lathe, then soldered and finally cut from the stock. The tube alone was so short that I found no other method to solder it with a relative precision.

What a project! Good luck with it, you deserve it.

Pat, on some elements like wheel "bearings" and steering gear have some grease or oil. This will be washed away during the paint process, but I will again lubricate all moving parts after that process, like I did on the other models.

It seems that this system was used also in Switzerland/Europe. I believe that they are not allowed anymore due to the contaminants in the exhaust gases.

Thanks Randy! It seems that you are forgetting a major difference between Gerald Wingrove and me: yes, he did models at scale 1:15 which eliminate details possible at 1:12. However, the main difference was that he did models for a living, but not me! You can estimate the price I should sell the Mark II to have a decent income for 9 years...

Another interesting project to follow! Those Nash coupes are not to be found at every corner...

The steering system is basically finished. The last piece to be added was the steering connecting rod. A straight bar? Oh no, it would be too easy! This bar or rod is vertically and horizontally curved. Looking from above the curve is obvious: to clear the way for the tire during a left turn. But why horizontally? I don't know. Maybe to clear the rear shackle from the front spring. At both ends, I have a ball stud, two shoes, a spring and a treaded plug, however much simplified compared to the original set-up. This elaborate system is allowing to have no play at the joints during a normal effort. I still must add a dirt/grease shield over both joints. As my assemblies are without splines, I had to add something to index the Pitman arm and steering wheel on their respective shafts; I did that with a 0.5 mm diameter rod inserted between hub and shaft. Totally not visible when assembled, but allowing a disassembly if needed.

Pat, there are also "nubs" at the underside of the rim, like most steering wheels. The upper ones were maybe needed to have a better grip as power steering was not yet born. Maybe it was just a decor...

Once the rim was done, I trimmed the hub and prepare the spokes. They were silver soldered to the hub; the trimming coming after this operation. Once the spokes were trimmed, I soft soldered the rim to them. I also added a small decor to the spokes, somewhat simplified compared to the original steering wheel. Now, I can do the link between the steering box and the steering lever. I had to buy tap and die for that job; I had nothing as large (3 mm) in my tool store...

For the moment, the rim is ready. Maybe I will try to lower the ridges when the steering wheel will be assembled. On the other side, if they raise in proportion the same as the original ones, they may be unnoticed...

With a completed steering box, the model now is requesting a steering wheel. It's not the first I'm doing but this one has an annoying characteristic: on top of the rim, there are small ridges in addition to the usual rim's shaping at the underside. How to do that? I did a tool to soft solder the rim to have the correct inside diameter. The I did the 60 slots with a milling tool. The idea is to silver solder tiny brass bits. With the proper trimming I may be able to replicate the shape. We'll see soon... The attached pictures are showing an original steering wheel, machining the rim, the slots and the soldered brass bits.

Well, with the time the brass is getting darker, not always nice. Paint also is hiding some small defects...

The steering box is ready and installed on the frame. As I expected, there is a tight fit between the steering column/box and the exhaust pipe; in due time, I will slightly modify the exhaust pipe to have a more comfortable space between both elements. The various pictures are showing the involved parts; on the right, I installed a rough steering wheel hub. As you can see, there is also a complex part made with two flanges: the one to close the steering box and holding the pitman shaft and another one which is the attaching element from the unit to the frame. When I was in Germany more than three years ago, I had the good inspiration to measure the steering tube length and the distance at its end to the frame. Those dimensions allowed me to do a temporary fixture for the steering box; with that, I could locate exactly the flange attached to the frame before silver soldering it. Unfortunately, that steering box will not be without play because the worm's bore is not exactly concentric (Made in USA is definitively not as precise as Made in Switzerland!). The result: some hard spots, but not at the right place and, in between, some play. As its indeed a static model, this unwanted characteristic is not that bad. Now, I will do the connecting rod to have a functional steering. And then, the steering wheel to complete this chapter.

Thanks! It's not yet totally over, but I'm OK now.