Amazon: 1964 Amazon 122S restoration project

[Juular]

I bought this last year as a non-running project. It's been stored at a relative's house while I finished off my hefty 240 GLT project (Thread here!)



It's a '64 122S. The bodywork is exceptionally straight and rust free, but the underside and engine bay need a fair amount of welding.

The car is a South African import. It was brought to the UK in the mid 70's I believe. As such there's a few extra details such as the different seats and flying boot handle trim.







The interior is pretty decent, with an intact headling, good seats, door cards and dash. The dashpad is, predictably, scrap.



It has a B18A single carb engine which is seized as the #4 spark plug has been left out.

A day or so after I bought this car another one came up a few miles away for low scrap value, but it had a working twin carb B18, an overdrive box, a good interior and pretty much everything else in it worked. I bought that and stripped it down as a donor car.





I stripped it clean.





And off it went.



So the project has sat in storage for about 6 months while I got the 240 back on the road. I managed to get a nice clean MOT for it in December.



With the 240 now back on the road, I got the Amazon moved to my place this weekend so that I could start work on it.



Stay tuned for a major weldathon, engine rebuild, etc!

[Burdekin]

All the best.

[Moomoo]

Nice to have a donor so good. Will look forward to seeing this thread!👍😎

[Laird Scooby]

Looking forward to this project too!

[Othen]

Wonderful!

A 240 and a 122 is a really good combination :-)

Alan

[Alf ista]

Nice project! Best of luck with it.

[Salop Farmer]

Best of luck with your rebuild. I’m coming to the final stages of a massive 544 restoration on a budget. Sadly total originality when replacing parts has proved very expensive so I had no choice but to compromise. My car was extremely rusty and the interior seating and panels scrap. I didn’t buy any replacement body parts but fabricated everything from sheet steel. Seats from a Ford Ka and all interior panels from hardboard covered in leatherette. Quite pleased with results so far. Of course if money’s no object then.........

[Juular]

Originally Posted by Salop Farmer

Best of luck with your rebuild. I’m coming to the final stages of a massive 544 restoration on a budget. Sadly total originality when replacing parts has proved very expensive so I had no choice but to compromise. My car was extremely rusty and the interior seating and panels scrap. I didn’t buy any replacement body parts but fabricated everything from sheet steel. Seats from a Ford Ka and all interior panels from hardboard covered in leatherette. Quite pleased with results so far. Of course if money’s no object then.........

There's nothing wrong with that approach at all. As these cars age, or disappear altogether, orginality becomes expensive and increasingly time consuming. I think it's better to have a car back on the road in whatever form than being banger raced or scrapped, or just left to rot because the parts are unobtainable.

Repair panels are OK but sometimes they can actually make the job more difficult, as often they have to be modified before they can fit. The only repair panels I find essential are full sills as it can be difficult to get the profile exactly right, especially if it's a combination of bends and curves.

On my 240 project it was often the case of just making do with what was available. For example I seam welded the inner and outer rear arches together instead of spot welding them at the flange. In theory the seam welded fix might actually be better, as spot welded double skins are rust magnets.

Do you have a thread for your 544?

[Juular]

I may as well start at the front and work my way back, its as good a strategy as any.



The engine had been left with the spark plug out of the #4 cylinder with predictable effects. I took the head off and filled #4 with ATF around 6 months ago. When I collected the car I'd hope the ATF would have drained down a bit but no joy whatsoever, which isn't a good sign.

I filled the bores with diesel again.



48 hours later



So that's going to require more than a bit of lube to put right. Good thing I have a spare engine. So the plan is to completely forget about this minor issue for now..

Next job is to start pulling panels off and stripping down the engine bay. The wiring is pretty rubbish, and all of the hydraulic lines are rotten through, so everything is coming out.









Next job is to go pick up the engine crane, and then lift the engine and box out.

Until then, a walk round to see what's going on.

I love the patina on this car, I actually really want to keep it like this.



There's plenty of holes, thankfully quite localised.







This is the worst bit of the car, the NS chassis rail. I'll make a new one.



The outer sills aren't too bad. The inners are a horror show, and have been patched up with bathroom sealant.



Boot floor is theoretical.



Here's the best bit though! A bit of plywood, bathroom sealant, and wood screws that screw into fresh air.





All in, it's not horrendous. The best part is there's no bodywork to do, as the exterior panels are all very sound.

So the next job will be getting that engine and box out, and then attacking the engine bay to get it back to metal.

[Burdekin]

You’ll be happy to know one good thing about the Amazon is the panels and repair panels are decent. Much better than the 240 quality. Inner wings, floor pressings (the good ones), inner and outer arches and sills etc are all excellent quality.