The following thread has been edited, re-***led and moved to the HAMB 1952 - 1956 Ford Social Group. Please use this link: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=2841 Thanks! In the process of listing my '51 shoebox for sale in the HAMB Cl***ifieds, I chanced to see the listing placed just before mine...for a '52 Victoria! I'd been looking for a '52 - '54 Ford or Mercury hardtop for quite some time, thanks to some very vivid memories of one a friend of mine owned in high school, late '50s. I can still remember the looooooow white-over-black Vicky with wide whites, white tuck 'n' roll interior, bad boy skirts and the sweetest flathead "burble" I'd ever heard. It was love at first sight, and still is 50-odd years later. The HAMB car sounded good in the listing, so I call the seller who lives in Missouri - about 600 miles away... Ring, ring... "Hello." "Yes, I'm calling about the Victoria you've got for sale on the HAMB. Do you still have it?" "Yes, I just listed it five minutes ago." "Oh, well is it as neat as the listing says it is?" "Better, and it's got a whole bunch of stuff that comes with it like two sets of skirts, two grilles, blue dots, extra hoods, fenders, dash...lots and lots of stuff..." "Rusty?" "Nope." "Price seems pretty reasonable..." "Yep, it is. I need the space, but my conscience won't let me make a profit on the car and that's exactly what I paid for it. The previous owner was a good friend of mine..." And so the call went on. So, to make a long story somewhat shorter, this weekend I found myself - and my friend Chuck who got pressed into service - on our way to Jefferson City, Missouri, to pick up my new Vicky! I ain't lyin'! Here she is! Ain't she somethin'!
LOOKS GOOD!!! is it cinched down on that trailer or does it sit that low? glad to hear your transaction went well. i bought a couple over the phone myself & was very pleased! now GET TO WORK!
congatulations on your great score,,,,i LOVE those,,,,,almost bought one myself a little while back,,but the timing wasn't right
Long story there...but to make it a lot shorter, yes, it sat that low when I picked it up. It was a struggle to get it up onto the trailer, especially considering that the HAMBer selling the car has a sloping gravel driveway that's durn near vertical! If we hadn't had a good winch on the trailer, we'd STILL be loading that car! New rear suspension is in the works. Flat Top Bob has already come up with a Maverick rear axle for the car, and I'll probably use Jamco lowering springs and rear anti-sway bar to replace the original springs and 4" blocks that were on the car. Don't know about the front suspension, though. Might go Jamco, or perhaps a Fatman MII stub frame. Any suggestions?
nice score,did ya get all the peices?i wouldnt stub it though,youll get a great ride with the right parts.maybe a disc kit also. was the continental breakfast more like a pinto ? lol
I have a 53 ford customline that Id like to do all that stuff to, too, I hope that double wheeled truck has a lot of parts in the back!
Actually, we brought two trucks, my doolie and Chuck's longbed...and stuffed 'em both chock full of all the parts that came with the car - and the car was stuffed full, too! The seller wasn't kidding when he said it came with lots and lots of extra stuff!
I just about got out the door to start work on the Vicky when I had this brilliant idea to take photos and share the process as I went along. Nothing new on the HAMB, I know, but perhaps I can be of some help by making as many mistakes as possible and writing about them... Here's a little background. I've posted some of it before so if it seems a little bit familiar, please bear with me... I was posting a "for sale" ad for my '51 sedan avitar several weeks ago and noticed that an ad for a '52 Victoria had been placed just moments before. The condition was stated as very good and the price seemed unbelievably low. I had been looking for a Merc hardtop of the same vintage and was interested, even though this was a Ford. So I called...and bought it before it could get away. Even if it isn't as good as the seller claimed, I thought, the low price would make it possible for me to put more into the rebuild process and I'd come out pretty much even. My buddy Chuck and I headed for Missouri the following weekend to pick the car up. It's a long drive from Texas, but we did it in a two-day turn-around with two trucks...my doolie with a trailer and his longbed to haul all the extra parts that came with it. Getting the car onto the trailer proved to be more like three monkeys with a football than an organized process. Rusty's gravel driveway slopes dramatically...and it had rained a couple days before. Thankfully, we'd just added a good electric winch to the trailer a couple weeks before. If we hadn't we'd still be there trying to get the car up onto the trailer. I posted photos on the HAMB as soon as I got back from Missouri with the car still on the trailer, purchased from Trailer-Ed (Rusty) who is well known here on the HAMB. He'd gotten it from the widow of a friend who p***ed, with the idea of finding it a good home where the work that had already been started would be finished. It's a very nice car. Much better than I expected when I purchased it from Rusty sight-unseen. He turned out to be a perfect seller: honest in all respects! The car was even better than he claimed...by a bunch! And he held the price even though he was offered more by other potential buyers after he'd agreed to sell it to me. That's the kind of guy you want to deal with again. It had been in the friend's family for quite some time, I understand, but got lightly wrecked and sat for a while before the rebuilding got underway in earnest. The friend p***ed away before he'd gotten very far, and the car sat again until the widow sold it to Rusty. It's got a tiny bit of rust in all the usual places, but far less than most. The floors are pristine except for a spot or two, and the main problems are in the rockers and rear quarters behind the rear wheels. The rest of the car has been partially dis***embled, as the photos show, but all the parts and fasteners came with it. Lots of extra parts too, including some Olds side trim and a neat-but-as-yet-unidentified grille with which the former owner was going to customize it. Though it came with a proper flathead, the Vicky had been modified to accept a Y-block, judging by the bite taken out of the front crossmember. This is what I'm working on today, cutting out the crude old reinforcements and welding in new material to make the crossmember both stronger and better looking. I thought about restoring the crossmember to original, but I just might want to put a Y-block back in it one day...but not today. So... Daylight's wasting! I'm off to the shop. Will post photos later in the day to show my progress. Here are some old photos of the Vicky when it was sitting after being wrecked. I have no idea when these photos were taken, but they came with the car when I got it from Rusty. Wish me luck!
Okay, well, I've about had it for today. The heat here in Texas is still pretty high even though it's less than it's been in recent days. Not exactly rocket science today. I finished cleaning up the butchered front crossmember where somebody had cut a big bite out for oil pan clearance...then changed their mind and scabbed the cut-out piece back in! Then they covered it with lots of bondo and primered it. So I cut the scabbed-in piece back out with my plasma cutter and discovered that the hole had been reinforced pretty well underneath. So I cleaned it up as best as I could, cut out most of the old bubblegum weldement and rewelded it. Now it's strong and at least somewhat neat looking even though I didn't spend a lot of time dressing the new welds. There's a big strap of steel across the front that I suppose was put on there for reinforcement. It's not in the way so I'm going to leave that where it is. Also, while I was at it I replaced the damaged original front radiator support crossmember with a straight one I got from Flat Top Bob at Owens Auto Salvage (a HAMB-O-Dex supplier who does mail-order and has great parts!). The original was bent from a light wreck in the car's past and, while it could have been "heat-n-beat" straight, I decided to replace it instead. (I still have the old one if anybody needs it) Replacing the crossmember was simply a matter of drilling out the old rivits and replacing them with 3/8 Grade 5 bolts. Saying it is sure a lot easier than doing it! Those rivits are tough to get out, even after they've been drilled! The next step will be to mount the new Chevy L82 Corvette engine and Muncie 4-speed transmission. (Please...save the Ford-in-Ford **** for somebody who cares!) I got the motor and transmission from a hard-wrecked '65 El Camino I bought off Craig's List. The car had sat for many years and seller had no idea what the motor was. When I got it home I found the motor was full of water! Man, was I heartbroken! But, I figured I might as well see how it ran. (They did that in Hot Rod Magazine one time with a Firebird engine that was full to the top with "chocolate milk". After draining it out and refilling with fresh oil the Firebird motor ran great!) So I did the same thing with the L82 and it runs absolutely perfect! Sometimes you just get lucky! I'll be using Jamco motor mounts for the engine swap. They're simple and they're cheap. My kind of stuff. Well, that's it for today. More later!
Nice score. I had a '53 Vicky sitting my back yard for about 10 years. One of those projects I never got around to. They sure make a fine ride.
okay so i found your build post... looks like you've got a lot to work with, and still a lot to do... very nice setup! how far are you on this at the moment? the last post was almost a year ago.... got any new photos and progress? xoxo denise
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