1952-59 Ford Missysdad1's '54 Monterey Mild Custom Build-Up

Hey Rev!

I'll be at the Roundup, but in my Kermit-green Buick again this year. Perhaps the Merc will be ready for next year. See you there!

 

The Merc went to the car wash today, something it's badly needed ever since I brought it home.

I power washed the motor, which was dusty and dirty from sitting in the barn for so long, but not greasy. To my surprise, this Lincoln MKVII 5.0 HO has little bits of chrome here and there to accent the argent powder coated cast aluminum valve covers and plenum. It's also got a little rubber thingie over the distributor, which to my great surprise is on the actual front of the motor! Who'da thunk to put it there where you can actually get at it?




This is a very good looking engine. The previous owner had installed an aftermarket cold air intake with high efficiency air cleaner which really sets off the engine compartment. I think I'll polish up the Ford 5.0 HO name plate on the top of the plenum, do a bunch of detailing of the firewall and leave the rest alone.

I also power washed the lower portions of the interior including the floors, inner quarters and the insides of the doors. This flushed out all the **** which collects in these places and left the interior much cleaner and better smelling than before.



I will take the rocker panel scuff plates off, cut some bigger access holes and bigger drains, and then power wash them again. They didn't drain well enough to get all the **** out of them this time, but I'll fix that!

I will also s****e and wire brush the floor, cut some new drain holes and remove the loose scale and remaining seam sealer before I take it back for a second douche. It is so much easier to work on the car when it's nice and clean.

I also started the decking process by removing the rear emblem, grinding the heavy rust that was underneath it and metal finishing the warpage in the area that was probably caused by being bumped at some time in the past. When I get a chance I'll weld up the holes and finish it up properly. But for the time being at least the deck lid is aligned properly and the key latch works as it should.



That's about it for now. The next step is to get the gas tank boiled out, sealed and reinstalled along with the in-tank pump adapter from Bob Drake. Then we'll see if it'll fire up.



More later...

 

sweet. Nothing cleans an interior better than a power washer haha. great pics

 

Just a quick update: I finally got the parts I needed to complete the install of the '54 Chevy steering wheel in the Merc to replace the ugly late model wheel that was in it when I bought it. USPS managed to loose the parts I'd bought on eBay for three weeks, but they finally arrived.

As you may remember I needed to adapt a more "vintage" steering wheel to the '67-'72 Chevy pickup tilt column already in the car in order to preserve the period look of the dash area.

Well, it worked. A complete bolt-in swap, including a working horn and turn signals that operate just like stock. Everything below the wheel is from the pickup, everything above the wheel is '54 Chevy.



The '54 Chevy wheel is drilled just like the pickup wheel and, once the '54 turn signal canceller plate is removed from the bottom of the wheel, the pickup turn signal canceller ***embly slips right into place. The rest of it ***embles just like original.

Mission accomplished!

 

WOW that merc is cool ! When I was a kid my pap had a buddy who delivered hooch in one that looked pretty much the same.

 

Nice weather today, so I knocked off work early and spent a couple hours working on the Merc.

My first project was to get rid of the 6-volt power front seat in favor of a standard manual seat. The yellow Victoria parts car had a seat that I'd long ago removed which was completely rusted out except for the tracks. So I spent some time taking the rusted remains of the springs and frame off the tracks, which I lubricated and found to be completely functional.



Then I took the electric seat tracks and mechanism off the Merc seat - it will work, I'm sure, but it's 6-volt and draws too many amps to use a voltage drop. The Merc seat is in really nice shape under the red diamond-s***ch naugahyde and will fit the Ford tracks just fine.



I may cut the seat down later to lower the seating position - an easy task with these seats - but will hold off for now until I can sit in it for a "trial fit". The Victoria's seat is a little high. We'll see.

Took the fuel tank to Metal Rehabs, an outfit which uses an environmentally friendly process to strip metal of paint, rust, etc. by immersing them in heated tanks. They've got tanks big enough for complete auto bodies, which is their specialty. Here's a link to their website: http://www.metalrehabinc.com/ Very interesting!

I also changed out the master cylinder - the one that was in it was leaking and full of old brake fluid crystals. I hope the booster is okay. I have my doubts. Won't know until I get it fired up.

I also pulled all the insulation, old wiring, brackets, hoses, ducts, etc. out from under the dash. Dirty work, but somebody's got to do it. The guy who did the engine swap didn't bother to clean anything up, he just ran the new wires around all the obstructions. Shoddy. So far, no major problems but I'm going to have to use a smaller heater because the computer electronics take up a lot of the available space. I'll use a New Port Engineering electric wiper system. The original radio doesn't work, so I'll use just the face plate to fill the holes in the dash.

S****ed all the old tar seam sealer out and discovered a couple more tiny rust holes. Tomorrow I'll plasma-cut some new access holes in the rockers and see what's going on down in there. It's always something...

 

Glad to see progress! Jealous that I don't have that kind of weather here!

 

Eric, if you replace the six volt seat motors with twelve volt motors will it work? I sold the power seat from my 56 Fairlane for $1100 on eBay and it had one motor that didn't work.

 

Not any more.

I carefully removed and bagged all the electric seat parts, bolts, brackets, etc. and will offer them on eBay. With this stuff it will be possible to convert a manual seat to electric operation with all factory parts - the opposet of what I did.

I have no desire for an electric seat. I'm the only one to drive my cars and once the seat is set it stays in one spot. The electric seat mechanism would also make lowering the seat more difficult as it takes up much of the room between the seat frame and the floor.

Thanks for the input. Nice weather today. I feel a plasma cutter coming on...

 

The car had been lowered with 2" blocks and cut springs at some point back in the past - see the photos early in this thread which were taken long before I bought the car - but had been returned to stock height by the PO, a sorely misguided soul. It is my desire, while waiting for the fuel tank to be returned from being boiled out, to return the Merc to it's former stance...or some stance which enhances its truly sleek styling. Looks like a 4x4 the way it is now.

I took an hour last evening and installed the 3" lowering blocks in the Merc. The blocks came from Speedway Motors, are of excellent quality and installed very easily. They are a little wider than the springs so I had to leave out the upper rubber pads, but I don't think that's going to be an issue.



BEFORE:



AFTER:



3" is about the maximum drop possible with lowering blocks with the springs on this car without running into clearance problems.

The rear springs are new, but I don't know if they are dearched or not. I suspect not, just from the way the car sat before I installed the blocks.

The front end will get attention next. It's already got dropped spindles and disc brakes, along with new coil springs of some sort, but it needs to go a taste lower, probably so that the fender lip just touches the top of the whitewall. An inch or so...maybe more. We'll see.

Trouble is, I want the car to look low...but not squashed. There's a fine line where it becomes too low, visually, and I don't want to cross that line.

I've scoured the little books for examples of '52 - '54 Mercurys (which respond to lowering very differently than Fords of the same years, as I discovered, when it comes to the "ideal" visual height) and have found that most were over the fine line of visual perfection. In other words, too low. (I know, I know... Wash my mouth out with soap for even thinking such a thing!)

The other big factor is skirts. I've got five sets of skirts of five different styles that I've collected over the years. Each design gives the car a different personality. (Keep in mind that I'm old, and come from a time when cars weren't just modified, they were given a new personality by their owner. Looks had meanings, and you had to be hip to that fact or you'd prove to everybody how square you were.)

So...which skirts to use? I don't know yet, and since the visual stance is greatly affected by the skirts, I won't know exactly where I want the car to ride until I get the skirt dilemma resolved.

Right now I'm tending towards the '57 - '59 California "Kustomland" look...without the scallops and goofy lakes pipes...which featured open fenders, low with a tiny forward tilt. Tony's (50Fraud) '50 and '56 are very good examples of new-built cars with this look and stance. Here's another example of the "look", taken back in '57...stolen from somewhere on the net. Rik, if it's one of yours, thanks!



I'll put it there first, and see how it looks. I'm thinkin' it'll be good...but then what the heck am I going to do with all these skirts?

Maybe I'm over-thinking it all...

 

i really like the stance now, i agree about the front bering a tad lower. The skirts is a tough one, its almost like what cereal do you like, everyone likes someone else. Im debating the same thing, i have the 53 skirts that attach to the outside and ive been thinking about flush mounts but i have to buy them and see them on first. its looking really good.

 

i like all the low buck mods you are doing. im curious about the parking brake in the after photo tho. when you pull the release lever, where does it go? more serious tho, its looking really nice.

 

dwayners, I would think the parking brake retracts up under the hood and doubles as a hood prop.

 

IMO, and this is a worthless one, save the skirts for another car. Thats again, just my opinion, but skirts were become p***e in socal in the late 50's, and I like the shape of the wheel openings on these cars, but that's my perspective.

I do agree that Mercuries can look too low, but thats just because they're longer, you can slam a ford into the dirt and have it look proper (see slmlord).

I dunno, I'm biased with this one (and its a bad shot), but I think this car looks proper (aside from the silly lakes pipes, but I might put some on my car even though I know that they're silly)



I'll browse around to see if there are any side-shots of the car. It looked killer, and was completely static and rides like a log truck. For reference, it was about a full inch lower than my car.

 

stig... that would be sweet. 2 mods in one. just that much faster til it can be driven and enjoyed.

 

You guys are brutal...

* * * * * * * * * * * *​

CC:



I'll browse around to see if there are any side-shots of the car. It looked killer, and was completely static and rides like a log truck. For reference, it was about a full inch lower than my car.

You make a very good point, that many heavily lowered cars ride poorly and, because of limited suspension travel, corner dangerously on uneven pavement.

The main trick is to use lowering methods which allow plenty of suspension travel, but at a lower al***ude. Dropped spindles and rear c-notches are two very important ones.

The other trick is to lower the car only to the point that it is at its visual best. Contrary to popular practice, this usually involves a relatively modest drop.

A third trick is to use heavy duty gas-filled shock absorbers to slow suspension movement. The car still has reduced suspension travel, but the travel it has is used up more slowly.

Thanks!

 

I wasn't trying to be! More agreeing with you on a lot of things than anything. That green merc used to reside at my house, thats why I'm biased towards it on a lot of things. I know you've got good taste, I was just throwing what I think out there.


Edit:

Didn't see the rest of your post.

Yeah, that car just got big blocks and worn out springs. It definitely needed a c-notch and drop spindles, I'm actually really considering those both for my car (It doesn't ride bad, I just wanna make some room to go a little lower).

That merc rode baaaaaaaaaad, and it had air shocks in the rear that were pumped up. It was low though!

 

is this the same car you have

 

No, that one is a '54 Ford Victoria and belongs to guitarist Jimmy Vaughan...the late Stevie Ray's brother. He's a Texas boy and usually shows up at the Lone Star Round Up. Very approachable...and very talented as well. Nice guy!

 

Well, today was the day to install the Aerostar front coils. I got mine from O'Reilly's for $80 including taxes. They are genuine Moog coils, which I specified as they are a brand I trust for quality.

The coils that were in the car were recent replacements, from the fresh paint on them, but I have no idea from what application they came. The car had a noticeable sag on the driver's side, due to the poor quality of the previous coils, which is now gone.



The new Moog coils, #CC850 as recommended in several places on this site, were 1 1/2" shorter with .050" larger wire size than the previous coils, and approximately .075" larger than the originals. This may not seem like much, but in spring terms it's quite a bit. This is why our cars ride better, handle better and don't bottom on the snubbers quite as often even though the spring itself is shorter than stock.

The result was a drop of 1 1/2" from the previous al***ude...just right! No problems were encountered in installing them. Keep in mind that this car has Fatman Fabrications dropped spindles already installed, which accounts for the really low stance. There is approximately two fingers of clearance between the unaltered original lower control arm snubbers and the frame as it sits now. I will probably shorten the snubbers by an inch or so to increase the suspension travel...or not, as the ride quality dictates.



The car sits just where I want it now...low, but not too low, with a slight forward tilt, just as they were in the "olden days". I'm very pleased.

 

That has a nice stance!

 

i think you got the perfect stance.

 

Very nice.

 

love the stance, and with no bags!...cool!

 

Perfecto!

 

Took the day today to do some of the small tasks that I'd been putting off.

First was s****ing, wire brushing, scotch briting and painting the floor under the seat, in anticipation of reinstalling the seat. It was in really good shape with only some light surface rust, so it didn't take much work.

I'm a low-tech kind of guy so I used what I've been using for many, many years - Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Primer applied with a brush. Works great.



Then I serviced and re***embled the seat, using the old manual seat frame from the yellow Victoria parts car combined with the original seat cushion from the Mercury. Again, not rocket science.



With the floor painted, I reinstalled the seat using the rear-most mounting holes. This positions the seat frame as far forward as possible.

Why? To get the lowest seating position possible.

How? The frame slopes down to the rear - the farther back the seat the lower it is. By mounting the frame forward on the floor, the seat is at its farthest rearward position when it's comfortable for me, even though I've got short legs. Being at the farthest rearward position, it's also at its lowest position.



This little trick puts my shoulders just below the side window opening but still allows me to reach the pedals with no problems. The tilt column keeps the big ol' steering wheel below eye level. I be stylin'.

Note: Sitting low in the car was considered cool long before it became "ethnic". Not stupid low, just low enough to look like the driver was slouching in the seat. Insouciant...like James Dean in "Rebel Without A Cause". This photo of Ronnie Dragoo is a great example.


(Ronnie Dragoo's '54 Mercury, built by Barris)

I also replaced the master cylinder today. The one on the car was toast. While I was at it I discovered a potentially dangerous routing of one of the front caliper hose banjo fittings. It was hitting the spindle and acting as a steering stop! Sloppy workmanship. Only took a few minutes to reposition it, but now it's safely out of the way as it should be.



So, as the sun sinks slowly in the West...

Later...

 

Dammn ! I like this thing a little more every time you post more pics

 

I'm really liking how this looks, nice work!

 

you seemk to be very motivated on this build as its only been a couple of months since your first post. at this rate it seems like it will be painted and cruising by, i dont know, next week? ok, maybe the week after. lots of inspiration for those who get burnt out after a while.

 

Man that merc is looking great luv the stance. Oh hey picked up a copy of Auto trader American Icons. Was pleasantly surprised to see your Buick in there Eric. It looks Great what a neat article the photos look like the real deal 1950s