Hey y'all, I've been wanting to do***ent the work I've been doing to my car, even though I'm terrible at keeping up with those kind of things, and I'm always farting around on here, so I figure why not combine the two and make a build thread! I can't promise anything all that great, but I do promise to slap up a few pictures and we all like those. My short-term goal is to have this thing running bu Feb/March so I can do some shake down drives and (finally) get it to the Round Up. After that, everything else. The end goal is a very very very mild custom. Just some polish around the edges to make it look nice and run well. The '56 is a beautiful car as-is and I've always felt its way too easy to go over board with this car and make it....not so beautiful. Anyway... I picked this car up nearly 5 years ago after seeing it sitting out in a used car lot on the way to dinner. Only 56 I'd ever stumbled across for sale. I was maybe a little blinded by having finally found one and over looked a lot of potential worrisome mechanical and body issues. I drove the car home and around the block a few times before realizing what seemed like a simple oil leak was actually a clogged block that left the heads oil starved and caused so much pressure build up that it was blowing out oil filter seals left and right. So I yanked out that motor and that's where everything sat until about April of this year. I'd decided that it was time to **** or get off the pot. I went down to the ole Lone Star Round Up and if I came home with a fire in me for that car, I'd fix her up. And if I didn't....down the road she'd go. Well, I decided to take a big ole steamer and get her going again. I called up a buddy of mine and told him I was looking for a 302. He said he had a 'good, running 302' sitting around he was going to put in one of his cars but he'd be willing to sell to me instead. Score! Turns out the motor was an oily, rusty, gross mess. So it sat until September when I, once again, decided enough was enough and it was time to go to work...
Ah, but before getting started on the motor, I also knew I didn't want to run the old transmission in the car either. If I was going to go the 302 route, I was also going to slap an AODE behind it as well. One day, I was sweeping out the garage and just got a wild hair to pull the ******. So I did. I didn't really think too much before starting that I needed to get the car up high enough to slide the trans out and I got really really really lucky.....
Before I go into what a sludged up, worn out, definitely-not-running, motor this is, let me say car guy buddies are what make this worth doing. The friends that hang out in the garage with you at all hours of the day while putting these together, the guys that go cruising around with you helping you out of just as much trouble as they help you get in, are the best friends you got. I am definitely NOT dragging my buddy here. He did exactly what I would have done when I found a junkyard 302 with "Running" written on the windshield. He grabbed it and, without opening it up, p***ed it along to me. I really wanted as "plug and play" as I could get with this thing and definitely did not have the desire or time for a full rebuild but, after tearing it down, that's exactly what I have. I cracked this thing open and....yuck. Lots of sludgy build up. I wanted to pull the heads to see what the pistons looked like and found those covered and caked with carbon build up. After failing miserably to clean the heads without dis***embly (I don't know what I was thinking), I started taking the heads apart. The intake valves were so gunked up with crud and varnish, I damn near had to pound them out. Looking back, I wish I had just sprayed brake clean down the intake runners, but, hey, live and learn. I will say, with a bit of elbow grease, the valves did clean up nice.
With the heads off, the motor actually spun pretty smooth and I had just about decided to leave it all intact, when one cylinder bore at the back of the block jumped out at me. While there was definitely carbon deposit on the cylinder walls, they felt perfectly smooth and got me thinking, I could maybe squeak by without touching the bottom end for at least a little while. But, unfortunately, the bore in cylinder 4 had some surface rust on it that was concerning. I decided I should pull that piston and take a look at the rings. When I did that, I found the rod bearing was totally worn and the rings were caked just as bad with crud as everything else. Why wouldn't they be? So I pulled all the pistons and each one is just as gunky. Some rings are stuck in the crud and you can see where they failed to do their job of sealing. After measuring the bores and figuring out that, while far from perfect, they are just barely within spec. If it weren't for the time crunch and the fact that I also need to do the transmission, drive shaft, gas tank, front suspension, and brakes, I'd send this thing off to a machine shop and bore it out. I don't have that luxury, so this'll be a *******, I guess. New rings, all new bearings, new lifters, new pushrods (I damaged one during dis***embly), new oil pump, and new gaskets. Keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. This weekend, I tore down the whole block and it's ready for cleaning, save for pulling the toasted cam bearings.
Like your idea. I really like the drop side Sporty Merc more doors. If you take a little more time in "yanking" and "slapping in" you will end up with a much better ride..
You are absolutely right and I'm probably just overly critical of my own work. The reality is, even though the tolerances of what I have measured so far are within spec, I would just PREFER to have the block machined, move to oversized pistons, etc etc. I am taking my time with the cleaning and the re-inspecting, and the cleaning some more and with new rings and fresh bearings (at least at this point) I'm sure it will run like a champ. I am a firm believer in doing it right and doing it once. I think what I'm doing here IS right..... It could just be MORE right haha
In for a penny.. yikes! A lot of work but worth it. Those 4-door HT Mercs are rare indeed, good to see one on the road again.
Tell me about it, man! Every rock I've over turned on this thing has had a nightmare underneath. But it's ok, I keep reminding myself I'll be better for it when it's all done.....and also that I'll know what to run away from in the future haha.
Still here. Still plugging away for a few hours after work every night. I wish I had taken a better picture of the fully sludged up pistons but after soaking in my redneck parts washer, they've cleaned up really nice! I left the old rings in there just to remind myself I've got to really get in and dig the crud out of the lands before installing the new rings. I also left in the old bearings because.....I don't know why. They're worn pretty badly, but they're smooth. Doesn't seem to have marred the crank any. The block is cleaning up nicely as well-the cross hatching on the bores is still there! I've given it 2 full scrub downs with degreaser and water and flushed out the coolant p***ages and it's getting there. I'm down to the last caked on/baked on layer of old oil that'll just ruin a good paint job. ***uming the weather cooperates this weekend, I'll give the block one more good scrub with the hard stuff, then a soap and water bath, then it should be good. Then I'll clean up the crank and the cam and we should be ready to go back together....
The Jalopy Journal
