Projects My 1951 Mercury Restoration

The mirrors on Bobs car are the ONLY ones I would consider for a Merc.

John, as long as you don't mess up anything from here on out, your 'ol McDonlalds Merc is gonna look killer.

-Abone.

 

Meh. Maybe I won't run mirrors.

 

you could find a passing mirror to be a little different, and on the 49, they are off of a 48 ford, shoebox ones are also pretty slick like Drefus posted

 

Dunno, peeps are pretty easy for now. I'll have to live with the car before I start drilling holes.

Anyone know if the '49 caddy side trim could be held on with adhesive/double-sided tape? I'm not kidding.

 

If you put peep's on....when you take them off to something else on,the paint will be fucked up where they were! Is that what you want? huh? huh? is it? is it? ANSWER ME!!!!!! haha!

 

I'm not sure if it can be held on with sticky back tape, but you could probably use magnetic tape.

 

You can run the small mirrors up high next to the top of your wing window and it wont fuck up your paint. I ran one for a long time and it did no damage.You dont need to drill holes in your body to run a mirror.

 

''49 Caddy side trim gives me a boner, who has some for sale, Ether?

 

I might have to get some of those,since someone broke my mirror of at the Merc gathering last year.

 

Update... We've slowed down a bit, mainly because of the trim. We have someone who is going to polish the rear window trim, hopefully will look nice. We're not exactly sure how the rear trim and the window go back in, ie. what you do first, second, etc. I'll be talking to Matt Townsend for his assistance. Am also looking for someone local to cut down and reweld the front window stainless. Is it typically tigged? Anyone know if HRCC could maybe do this?

 

I would say that yes it is normally tigged and that HRCC probably could do it judging from the level of work they put out.

 

John, Ahhhh yes!! The pinch weld stainless molding. Probably the most difficult thing to do on a chopped merc. Probably the reason most guys eliminate it or use the plastic door molding. As Terry Heggman once told me.....its like welding two razor blades together. If you can avoid burning through the metal, you then have to file and sand and polish the weld area without weakening it so that when it is installed, it does not buckel. Definately not for the novice to do.

I had two profesional shops attempt it on my car. Both highly recommended. They turned out like shit. I was fortunate to have Terry do most of mine. He is a superb craftsman. I have also seen the work of Don Lowe and it is nice as well.

My quarter windows I did myself. I mig welded them (yes it can be done) and polished them myself and they turned out very nice, after 40 hours of work. Not as perfect as the work that terry did but I am happy with them.

I've seen some Mercs with aluminum moldings or chrome plated brass moldings but they just don't look right. IMO


So be very careful who you have do yours. Make damn sure you see the work of the shop before you shell out the bucks for this work. Good luck.

 

love mercs,Actually like the 51 better than the 49. We just chopped a 51' at our shop and it turned out great. We have pictures of the entire chopping process on our website possumkillergarage.com We also extended the rear quarters 2 1/2 inches shaved the door handles,frenched the headlights and reshaped the lip on the hood. with the chop and the extended quarters it looks as long as a cruise ship.

 

John I have some 49 side trim but I need to see what I got into it. Hard to come by since its chromed steel rather than stainless and has a tendancy to rust out.
As for the stainless window molding, have the shop thats doing it use the wire of a 1LB spool wire and tig weld it. You can buy it in much smaller diameter than you can welding rod. Cut off 2 to 3 foor pieces. Trick is to weld trim and add filler, when the filler rod is too thick you have to put too much heat in it to get it to weld. The windshield trim pieces is much easier to weld than the side windows!!!!

 

Possum, Merc looks good and definitely and digging that dash.

Thanks guys on the trim questions, will keep you posted.

 

John- have 51Gringo do it. Sorry Max,-cheap plug for ya! But....It will come out CHERRY!

 

Good idea, he redid my hood hinges and they are awesome. I'm gonna talk to Matt first and go from there.

 

Update:
New (to me) steel rims showed up, Paul will bead blast them and then I'll paint them black and mount up the Diamondback Michelin II WW's that showed up.

Rear window trim is being polished, hope to have it back by Monday.

Front window trim, I might end up sending it to Matt Townsend if our local guys (a) don't want to shorten it or (b) cost a lot. Matt is a Merc expert so I'm personally wanting to send it now but we told a local place (Julian Welding and I need to ask HRCC too) that we'd show it to them.

I have to travel a lot for work next two weeks (Vegas next week, Dallas the week after) so we are shooting for two weeks from now which will give time to get the trim and windows in.

I hate drilling holes in the paint but the rear window trim apparently needs it... *sad sigh.*

 

I'm looking into this though I have those repop sombrero's coming from JJ.

 

Sent out last week I am surprised they did not come in today. Maybe monday.

I got my Lincoln Premiers though and even though 2 of them are pretty rough and none of them fit they look awesome!!! I am going to trim the teeth off, epoxy them to trim rings and run the shit out of them. Hope you enjoy the Sombreros!

 

They came in while I was gone for a few days... Thanks again.

Hopefully a week from now I will post pics of the car with new wheels, tires, and all the glass installed along window stainless. Exterior would be done except for I don't have the new grille started yet.

 

I've been traveling for work, I'll work on an update for next week.

 

Update - Glass should be going back in soon, that's the last big item for the car the rest is little stuff.

 

Some pics from this morning... Painted rims, white walls on. Might have bumper pics later. I'll be having the glass put in elsewhere...

 

That dark shiny paint is looking good John.

 

Nice save!

reminds me of this...

 

I was just wondering yesterday about where you were on this. I can't wait to see this finished it is going to be incredible!!

 

hahahahahaha

 

The interior is gonna look kinda crappy, I don't have the cheddah to finish that soon and I don't have a concrete plan of attack yet.

My guy's glass guy is not working out so I'm gonna take that over once I get the car back to my house next week. All we have left are the bumpers, putting the skirts on, a trans leak, and some very small stuff with the headlights.

 

I'd at least git rid of the Robospeaker box...