1952-59 Ford 56 Mercury first drive

Drove my Mercury today after I finished up the build, most here probably seen it in the other post. But I noticed it was kinda long and wanted to say thanks for all the help from this group on getting it together and basically finished up.

 

Great job. Congrats on a first drive.

 

Thank you sir!

 

Looks great !

 

I appreciate that.

 

You did a nice job!

Enjoyed following along as you built it.

 

Excellent!

 

I’m glad you liked it. I had allot of fun. I thought about trying to be more in depth but I get in like a hurry sometimes.

thanks alot long roof

 

Reporting back that it seems to run a little hot. I think my 60s sw gauge reads a little hotter than it is but I also think the 90 dollar radiator and fan from eBay just ain’t gonna be prudent in this juncture.

 

Get an electronic temp gun before you do anything; check the top on the fitting (metal) where the coolant enter the radiator and the bottom on the metal of the suction. You need to see a difference. I’ve heard 10*. I personally do not like aluminum but they are in millions of cars. If it doesn’t have a shroud, one is easy to make from a kit made by Summit for Circle Track cars.

 

I will check that tomorrow for sure. I did use my infrared temp gun all over and it read 185-190 just about everywhere I checked and the gauge showed 200. It’s a very old gauge so I wasn’t exactly shocked. I will check that difference tomorrow.
You know I had another 55 ford once with a br*** radiator and it never got warm. So you may have a point on br***.

 

If the gauge does read hot when the engine isn't hot, you can put a resistor in-line to correct it. I had to do that with my S/W gauges and eventually got rid of them, the quality just isn't what it used to be.

 

Gauge is mechanical and it probably 50 years old. It’s sender is located in the water neck

 

Most of the problems today are with Yblocks not moving any water thru the radiator at idle which makes the if hard to correct in traffic which is easily fixed with a smaller pulley from a 289/302.

Later engines in our cars should not have a concern based on how small stock radiators were in early SBF’s in Falcons/Mustangs/etc. I can only blame the gasoline formulation today because it’s the only thing different.

I will say for me a shroud helps because our cars never had them. Good luck.

 

I agree it’sa 302 I have never had much issue with heating a 302

 

Looks Good,Kyle ! I hope my 56 comes out as good!

 

I chased an over heating issue in mine for several months. I kept finding ferrous material stuck in the ripples in the top of the radiator that prevented the water flow through the radiator. Turns out I had an air pocket somewhere in the cooling system that took forever to burp out. The ferrous material was rust from the air pocket. Would break loose when the thermostat would open.

 

How’d you get it to burp out?

 

Wound up backing down my sloped driveway so the radiator was the highest point. I opened the radiator cap, started the car and got it up to temperature and allowed the thermostat to open. It eventually burped out.

 

So I drove on the freeway. 2000rpm at 60 lol 4.56 gears in their rear have got to go. But it ran at 150 so I notice it just don’t like traffic. Wonder if a nicer fan would fix the issue.

but my wife washed it and cleaned the interior and I built a shift knob.

 

Try adding a shroud if it doesn't like traffic

 

It’s electric and has an aluminum shroud already. cheap Chinese 14” fan though.

 

Try a wide mouth thermostat like the NAPA THM6

 

And let's not forget to talk about that shift knob. How did you make that?

 

Well, I didn’t make it completely. I got a thing from flint stone studios and cut the face off. Then drilled and tapped it.

https://jimmyflintstonestudios.com/JFN128--Mercury-Man_p_561.html

 

I thought the face was just a little too much.

 

It all looks good.

 

So, today I got a nice SPAL fan and fired up the car waited until it reached 200 degrees and plugged in the fan relay. It sat idling and ended up cooling down to 140* and the fan shutoff. We then drove around a little bit and it maintained about 180.

I have a 180* fan on 140* off temperature switch in the intake.
160* thermostat

so all in all I think the overheating issue is fixed.

these cheap Chinese fans really are that cheap Chinese junk. The SPAL is like 100x more air flowing. Granted the spal was allot more expensive but cheaper than a motor.

 

Great to hear, now go cruising.