Heavens to mercatroids, seems there are so many different ways to do things, slanted b pillars,straight b pillars, lake pipes , no lake pipes, radical chop, mild chop, no chop,slamed, bagged , slightly lowered, stock tail lights , caddy taillights, other tail lights, rounded corners, pancaked hood, stock hood, stock frame, later frame clip, totally custom frame, louvers, no louvers, stock seats, buckets, decisions, decisions. When I do the next merc it will be quite different again,I used to have a glossy magazine of all different customized mercs and I would have liked to have one of each. Plain and simple 49-51 mercs do lend themselves quite well to customizing.
Well, I have put the tail lights and front signals on and thought I should get the head light buckets mounted. I had two sets of buckets, one set of aluminum and one set of steel buckets, I decided to go with the aluminumbecause they are lighter which seemed important to me because they have to mount on the backside of the fenders due to the fact that the 53 merc headlight rings are welded on and now they won't be able to go though the front of the fender anymore.So what I did was I made a pair of rings with nut welded on the back side and these go on the rear of the bucket like a large washer so that thebucket gets pinched between the steel fender and the manufactured ring. The reason I did this was so that the bucket wouldn't be dangling by 4 points and start to break as I didn't want my headlights falling out . Here are some pics.Hope all this makes sense as I sometimes don't come accross that well. First I flattened the edge of the buckets to wide the sealer surface and allow the bucket to gat as close to the fender as possible. Here is a pic of the ring I made, it fits over the back side of the buckets flange. I put some grease on the raised bumps on the bucket to allow for smoother movement when the headlight is being adjusted. Some sealer to stop to much road crap from coming of the front tires. Before I took the car in for paint I made sure I ground a V at the bottom so the water could escape. Read this on the HAMB a while back. Here the bucket is installed. And here is a backside shot of the bucket with the retainer ring.
Damn man that's lookin good. Nice work!! It's pretty cool when I can stumble upon another build that is using the the same grill choice as I am. Something different and looks cool I think.
Thanks restorex, sometimes I hope it will work as good as I thought it will but I am sending it in for chrome with the bumpers and then I'll know for sure.Well, I am waiting for the side trim to come back from the stainless finisher so I started putting some pieces on and got the front windshield in. The side glass is being done in tempered glass and I should have them in about a week.I have to find a source for the wire clips that hold the beltline mouldings on.
Well, I got my tempered side glass yesterday, I had it made in 5 mil cause it will bind less than 6 mil will in the channels when you roll the windows up and down, it also weighs slightly less and the 63 year old regulators will appreciate it.I went with tempered because they won't break as easily. The back edge of the vent window, the front, top, and rear edge of the door glass and the leading edge and top and bottom radius of the 1/4 windows have been polished giving them a factory look. Here are some pics, hope they make sense.
I also rounded up a whole whack of 2 1/2" stainless pipe and bends, as well as a pair of stainless thrush mufflers so I will try to get them together this week.
went with a regular factory tint so that it could be considered era correct,, not that everything on the car will be era correct, disc brakes , power steering,and a few other things, I didn't go with air bags because they are as traditional as a mullet, and my kids made me get a hair cut, darn kids anyway.
Welded up my exhaust using 2 1/2" 304 stainless pipe and the used bends I picked up at a scrap metal place, the pipe and bends came to about $150 dollars, the thrush SS mufflers $185 and about 2 days labor.I still have to make stainless hangers. here is a shot of the pipes coming off the headers. I had to open up the frame some more on the passenger side in the front xmember to get a better line for the pipe to pass through and did the job with the car on axle stands because my hoist is outdoors. It wasn`t to bad to work on but it is hard to get good pics which I forgot to start taking at thebeginning of the project. The left and right tailpipes are exactly the same so the symetry at the rear i=looks good. Here is a pic of one of the tailpipes, the last two bends I ran in to the local muffler shop and had them do a 10 degree and 15 degree bend on each, 304 stainless doesn`t bend real well but they will do for me. Here is a pic of the pipes coming out the rear, I won`t have to buy chrome tips and I`ll adjust the lenght once the rear bumper is mounted.
Well, I got my buick side trim back from the stainless finisher today.The door pieces were lenghtened using a section from the 1/4 piece and welded,now they are finished and you can only see a line where the stainless rod alloy left a slightly different colour just above my finger on two of the pics. .pass side. driver side http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj24/desotot_bucket/003-23.jpg[/IMG [IMG]http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj24/desotot_bucket/002-30.jpg
thanks guys, I have to finish a few things undernieth, about 2-3 days and paint the rims, then I'll pick up the www tires and have it back on the ground next week. Still have to decide on interior colours.
Great build, and great attention to details ! Very nice to see a Merc that is not hammered, and with a real stance ! Sent from my computer, with my keyboard
The Jalopy Journal
