Projects My 1951 Mercury Restoration Part II

Mr48, actually the builder shaved the safety catch because he welded in roundtube inside the nose....

 

FWIW, I drive Miss Mercury last weekend, drove fine but the hood thing makes me nervous so I never went above like 40 mph.

Hopefully can add the safety latch sometime in the next 30 days. And hopefully the hood will adjust down without needing anything replaced.

 

Quick shot to show the differences in the two sets of Lyon's hubcaps I bought...

 

Love those Lyons caps...

 

An Ex is a former and a Spert is a drip under pressure but I think I could qualify as experienced or something there abouts. The front hinge is pretty much straight while observing from the front. From a side profile, it doesn't straiten out before stop contact. It still has a slight V to the rear. From what happed to your car I'd figure that the very bottom of the front hinges could have bent a bit toe in due to the upward force it they took. When the fender bolt location bowed up it would let the lower tip bend just a bit. The up stops on the upper hinge parts may be deformed from the force they sustained. The fender & inner panel areas affected by that jolt may be a real bear to get back into the correct position. That is likely what is holding the rear of the hood up so much or at least a good part of the problem. The hood reinforcement panels where the upper arm attaches might be a little misshapen too. The upper points stressed down and the lower points stressed up equal hood high at rear in the hood down position.

Kerby

 

Thanks for the help Kerby, I have some concerns about the same stuff, but I have to wait on this stuff a bit I had a small accident in my daily driver (hit by huge truck tread on the highway).

 

Good gravy John, you need to be more careful out there.

I think many of my hood issues are similar to yours. I think my front hinges are bowed and I know for sure my fenders are pulled up at the hinge bolts. Reading through the other merc hood alignment thread, it might be possible that new hinges and bumping the fenders back down may get us most of the way home. I have new hinges already, but have not put them on. The other thing suggested on that thread was the rear hood spreader being tweaked out of place. Mine was all cut to goof to make room for the really sweet "portholes" in my hood, so I have a new spreader, too. Your hood doesn't look bent all up like mine does, so hopefully new hinges and getting those fenders back down will get you all squared away.

 

The accident was not my fault, a giant tread from an 18 wheeler came off and split the front bumper of my car in half. I've never been at fault in a car accident in my whole life, and this doesn't count either. I was out in Detroit, so I had to fix it myself to get home.



Haven't used a sawzall in a while, the guy at the Citgo enjoyed helping me cut the bumper off (it was dragging and unsafe):


Anyway, yeah, Paul adjusted my rebuilt hinges a few years ago as well as prepped what is hood #2, so I'll get the car over to him once I catch up on all these outgoings.

 

At least this one didn't affect the hood but Yikes! All that will get the adrenaline going either way. One thing flying up and another flying down.

 

I was pretty calm this time, as I had a practice run with the Merc on emergency stops in heavy traffic a little while ago.

 

i like the black/blue caps

 

Those are the ones that are almost ready to put on the car, the others need some dent/ding work.

 

If bad things really do come in three's you better keep the Merc off the road for a while and wait for number three.

 

Actually my wife's MDX was hit a few weeks ago. I think this was #3, I was just thinking that yesterday.

 

My DD got attacked by an 18 wheeler tire strip, DD lost:



As I was 4 hours from home in Detroit, I performed some surgery borrowing an electric saw from a shop:



$500 deductible + 200 rental car and $3500 for the insurance company to fix, back on the road.

Back the Mercury. I haven't had a chance to bring it to Paul who painted to adjust the hinges, but I need to as well as add in some sort of safety catch cuz I'm scared to death of that happening again.

My current fan/radiator setup is not going to cut it as it gets hotter. Maybe some folks don't mind to see the temps sitting at 200-210F, but I get nervous. Once I pay off some window stuff my next stop is to change the radiator and maybe go to a bigger fan.

 

I know how you feel, John. I am always scared driving fast in the wind.. I always think my hood will fly up again.

I just have a thick rubber cable holding the hood down, and it has proved to work, but im still scared haha

Have you made any progress on the wing windows or grille?

 

Matt modified a second set, and I need to send him the balance this week and then I'll install them.

Grille no, IMO I have to change the radiator first.

 

Are you still planning on the Sam style grill?

 

Sure am Ian.

 

John, my hood is whacked almost identical to yours. I just got a set of good hinges back from ChromePlaterJosh and plan on installing them shortly as well as trying to tweak the fenders down a bit to see how close I can get to being back right. I'll keep you posted on how it works. Hopefully we can fix our hoods with minimally invasive intervention.

 

I had my car out yesterday to see how it would run in 90F temps.

Risky. In traffic it got hot, and a bit hotter. Never spluttered or anything but current setup is not really adequate for summer. I'll add back in the safety catch and then decide on a new aluminum radiator for the car, that's my next item to do on the car. Will have to adjust the hinges before taking it on the highway too.

 

When I'm on your side of Chicago, I'll have to cross paths with you so I can see your car in person.

 

Sure no prob, I'm on the North side 1.5 miles West of Wrigley Field.

I really want to fit a dual electric fan setup.

 

Next time we come to Chicago to see my wifes son, I'll have to get in touch with you. He lives a couple of blocks east of Portage park, so not that far away

 

Yep, close to Portage Park.

 

I'm just like everyone else at the hardware store, except I drove a custom.

Q: John why isn't your grille done yet.

A: I still have to finish my door windows, had a second of wing windows modified because the first set by ____ _____ were ruined.

Q: What's your next move?

A: New radiator and rebuild the front end.

Q: So the car will look the same until you get a grill whittled before the end of the year?

A: Yes.

 

Hey John, have you gotten your hood straightened out yet? I just walked in the house from messing with mine and I am happy to say I finally have a hood that is in the ballpark. It's not 100%, but I'm 75-80% there, which is pretty good considering how out of whack it was. It now closes flat, although my gaps are still pretty off and there is still some straightening that will need to be done, but I'm not in a position to mess with a bunch of sorting out bodywork at the moment.

I took pics of what I did so I can show you, but they are still on my phone at the moment. I'll get them up in the next few days, but quickly, here is what I did. First, we removed the hood and the hinges then we set the hood back on so we could see where things might be bent. As expected, the fenders were bowed up a good bit where the front hinges attach. At the advise of a collision repair friend of mine, I used a chunk of 2x4 and hammered the goof on the fender flange in that area with a bfh against the 2x4. I really wailed on it to bring the flange back down...mine was up 1/2 of an inch or so on each side. While a fair amount of under coating dropped out of the inner fender, I didn't really hurt the fender paint any (not that my paint is anything to be too worried about...but it might be encouraging to know this may not hurt yours) except right on the flange itself where I had the 2x4.This really dropped the bow in the fender back down. We used the hood and the reflections in the paint as a guide to see how we were doing.

Also, knew the the hood was sprung a bit, the hinges were bent and the brace that goes across the back of the hood had been "clearanced" for the sweet portholes that were cut into my hood, so I assumed the brace was bent up pretty good to since it had been severely compromised strength wise with the chunks chewed out of it. I had acquired a new brace (it didn't hurt that it had been chromed at some point ), so we removed the hood and used it to get the hood back close to in line. It had been pulled in on both sides at the front of the brace. I used a piece of 1/4 inch plate to hammer inside the hood lip to get it back out. I'm not all the way there, but a whole lot better. Finally, I replaced the hinges with a fresh set I just got back from Chrome Plater Josh. In the end, I think only my front hinges are bent...the rears look to be ok when I compare them to the new ones. There is a bit of adjusting to finagle with the back hinges and I need to do a bit more, but for 3 hours work, things are looking a whole lot better.

Like I said, I'll post up some pics, but I wanted to post quick to give you some ideas about how to look at yours and see where you are at and what might help.

 

Thanks Dave. My passenger side fender is the one that is the most damaged, it's bent up enough that a car guy would notice but not most folks. The paint has flaked off in that area. The other side might survive some bending the paint has not cracked on that side.

Reason I've chilled one that was the wing windows are coming from Matt, and I can't wait to put those on, will really lift my spirits and not make me think about the tweaked stuff up front.

That said I want to replace my radiator before I do bodywork, but pretty soon once I get a free moment I'm just going to have my bodyguy Paul add the factory safety latch back in and adjust everything. But definitely interested in any tips you have.

 

Today was a good day. Big huge shout out to Matt Townsend, you are the MERC MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!

My new wing windows from Matt. They looked like new assemblies from some mysterious bizzaro world factory where they make chopped down Merc wing windows. So f'g awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

















NEXT STOP: Add that damn safety catch and do some reliability work on the Mercury and then the grille. If I get lucky I'll try to fab the grille in time for a local car show next month but I don't trust any one to work on my car any more for custom stuff around here so I have to figure out if one of my friends can fab it while I'm there.

Thank you again Matt. The quality is absolutely perfect. They are show quality.

 

I saw a couple pic's on FunnyBone,and figured he finished them up. They look really great,John. Really finish off the profile. Make sure you pull the rubber over the window trim. Happy for you buddy...