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My first Lincoln Zephyr


babychadwick

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After driving cross country in a couple hours I will finally get a chance to see the Lincoln that I drove to pick up.  I know the engine has a problem (believe there is a little water in the oil or so I was told) that was relayed to me from my deceased grandfather to my uncle to my mom approximately 15 years ago so its a bit of an unknown.  I believe the paint is original or an old respray with "Patina" as was relayed from someone else.  Anyways I hope my excitement is justified and hopefully wil have some pictures to share tonight.

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The paint isn't quite as perfect as I had hoped but appears to be original and I plan on touching up some of the little chips and keeping it that way.  The interior is in overall good useable condition and a good careful cleaning will go a long way.  In regards to the engine the information I now have is that my Grandfather was driving the car and found the oil float to be "high" and upon checking water was found.  There is a rumor that several friends were helping him to work on the car before he passed.  However, I see no evidence of anything being disturbed.  If you didn't know about the engine one would guess you could charge the battery and start it up.  Over the next few days I should be getting it out of the container and loaded on the trailer.

20190111_123753.jpg

20190111_123824.jpg

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She's a '38 only year with the horizontal grill and one of the bars is busted unfortunately.  We got her out of the container today and was great to be able to see her in the light and open all the doors.  Unfortunately the side of the container was scraped not enough to dent but enough to trade paint. 

 

Detroit, which body do you have?  I would like to find some paint that I can start to touch up all the chips and retain the original paint.

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Hi baby,
I have glued the odd snapped grill bar on my 38 LZ.   [ Don't tell the Judges]  If its all there it may just glue right back into place like my  three broken bars did.    Only meant to be temporary repair, [didnt think that type of metal  would weld, just burn up.]  Its still holding and looking  OK. today 20 years later. " Keep pursuing your dream."
  A boy named Roy.

Edited by 38ShortopConv. (see edit history)
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Your car looks great!  If you haven't done so yet, may I suggest you join the LZOC?  You'll thank yourself for doing so once you get into the details of bringing this beautiful car back to life.  And we'd all like to meet you and see your car at a future "Gathering oif the Faithful."

 

Simply go here for instructions -- https://www.lzoc.org/membership-process

 

The club's award-winning magazine is terrific.

 

Hoping to meet you soon.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I unloaded the car today to try to get an idea what kind of shape the engine is in.  There was about 2 tablespoons of water, sludge and black oil.  The engine does turn over, one waterpump was frozen but a slight tap freed it up.  Tomorrow I may try to start it with fresh fluids.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It is cleaning up very nice.

You are going to have a problem finding ready mixed paint to match your black. I painted my 40 Mercury black, just to see how straight it was and my wife liked it black. Every time I got a stone chip, I was sorry that I did not buy enough black paint to save some for touch up. Black is one of the hardest colors to match.

 

You might want to try the One Shot Lettering Enamel Black. It doesn't have as high a gloss as the automotive paints and is self leveling.

 

If that big smear over the wheel opening doesn't clean up using a little rubbing compound, you will probably have to use an airbrush to get a good cover without brush marks.

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Unfortunately my boy is already calling it "his" car.  As for matching the paint I've already had a bit mixed to match so I will be doing touchup on the million and 1chips.  The larger pieces I may try to fill in with a different black and cover the last bit with the matched paint.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well the zephyr is running and driving.  I have converted it to 12v negative ground and am in the process of rewiring everything.  The headlights are very bright as I found a set of LED bulbs that are direct replacement.  Unfortunately even though they will operate on 6-24v they require negative ground.  As I was not trusting the original gauges being converted to negative ground and running thru a converter (oil was pegged at 50) dropping the voltage to 6v I put in some small mechanical gauges.  Turns out that while I have not run her much that she is not overheating and the pressure has been around 40-60 when at a fast idle and 20-35 when she warms up and is idling.   There was some initial noise which has all smoothed out and she sounds good.  The real possible problem has not surfaced yet but may when I get her on the road.

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I did drop the voltage down but was unsure of how accurate they were, I just called it a converter.  I did find out that there is no working speedometer, probably why it was disconnected when I got the car.  Disconnecting it I determined that the cable was not turning so probably a broken cable or bad gear.

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