After my second year of college, and driving several junkers which were the only thing my wife and I could afford, we were looking for a better car. I had transferred from Iowa State College at Ames, Iowa to Drake University in Des Moines, and now had a much better paying part time job.

Years before, when I was just out of high school, I would occasionally help out at the corner filling station. One day, one that I will always remember, the station owner asked me to take a customer of his to her home in her car, and return the car for service. It was a new 1941 Lincoln Zephyr, with Navy Blue paint, wide white wall tires and fender skirts. A 12 cylinder engine made it as smooth as silk to drive, and it was beautiful.

It was now 1949, and I found out it was for sale. The same woman had owned it all those years, and it had only 12,000 miles on the odometer. She lived in an apartment hotel, and the car had been garaged year round, and I also learned that it had never been in snow or even in rain. Unbelievable but true, and the car looked exactly as I remembered it.

Sometimes however, limited driving doesn't help a used car. My wife Vinci's parents lived in a town 50 miles west of Des Moines, and our first trip there with the Lincoln proved that to be a fact. After about 25 miles, I noticed the oil pressure dropping, and slowly -- one by one -- the hydraulic valve lifters began clattering for lack of pressure. With a 12 cylinder engine, that meant that eventually 24 lifters were making so much noise the car sounded like an Allis Chalmers tractor.

We decided after that trip to limit our out of town trips until I got that corrected. I had the AAA driver training car (my job) for personal use, so in my spare time from college courses, driver training lessons and family responsibilities, I took the engine apart. I honed the cylinders; put in new main crankshaft and piston connecting rod bearings, piston rings, and I ground the valves.

Putting everything back together using new gaskets, and filling the crankcase with fresh oil, I started the engine. Much to my dismay, I couldn't see much difference in oil pressure readings, and a trip out of town 10 or 15 miles and back confirmed that my efforts were wasted.

My Dad had been in the automobile business most of his life, and had many contacts in the business. One of his friends had an auto parts store, and although Dad had passed away in 1942, the man remembered me, and gave me a good deal on a rebuilt 1948 Mercury V8 engine, complete except for the intake manifold.

I borrowed a block and tackle, and removed the Lincoln engine from the chassis. Since the V8 engine was about a foot shorter than the V12, I had to do some accurate measurements to determine where new motor mounts would have to be welded to the car's frame. Now the problem was to figure out a way to get the welding done. The car was inside a garage, but no electric power available in the building. Our friend, who owned a home in Ames where we had an apartment while attending Iowa State, had an electric welder and offered to do it.

What do we do with no electric power available? Friend Kenny had an idea that would work as long as we didn't get caught. He was studying to be an electrical engineer, so was comfortable around electric power. With several heavy duty 50 foot cables, he would climb the power pole nearest the building and make the connections to power his welder. We decided to wait until late at night to do this so as not to alarm curious neighbors. Then, while drawing arcs would create a lot of light inside the garage, we had our wives stand guard outside to alert us to "cool it" until the coast was clear. Believe it or not, it worked.

The big day arrived after all of the work of installing the new engine, attaching all the necessary parts such as generator, fuel pump, etc. Since the intake manifold had to be purchased separately, I chose one with two dual downdraft Holley carburetors, because I thought the big car would need more power than a regular V8 could deliver. The engine started, ran fine, but within minutes I could see that yet again there was an oil pressure problem. Talk about exasperation.

Sometimes it is so easy to overlook the obvious. I didn't learn until then that the oil filter on the V12 engine had been an after market (dealer rather than factory) installation. And this filter had been transferred to the engine just installed. It had never been a problem for the original owner because she had never driven it farther than Church or shopping. After taking the filter and its plumbing off the engine and comparing it to specifications, we found that an elbow fitting had an orifice many times larger than it should have been, allowing too much oil to be bypassed to the filter. This robbed the primary lubrication system, resulting in low oil pressure. All of this blood, sweat and tears because a mechanic had installed a wrong piece, worth 20 cents, on a brand new car.

But after all this, the car served us well for many years. I taught my wife how to drive using this car, as well as our oldest son, who was only 2 years old when we bought it. We took many trips in this big beautiful comfortable car, and have some great memories.

We ended up selling the car to a black minister from Oklahoma for $50, and for all I know he could still be driving it.

A footnote to this story: In surfing the web recently, I came across a website featuring antique cars for sale. It posted a picture of a 1941 Lincoln Zephyr Sedan which had just sold for $12,000.

Copyright 2000 H. Thomas Flanagan