Technical Y-Block in a Merc (49-51) & build-up, chop, etc

Didn't really try to bend the Landrover channel. Did look like it would kink for my sudden change in door pillar angle. I just cut a slot in the sides of the channel where it needed to bend.

 

This post is not so much of a ‘How to …’, but more a ‘How not to…’. – I put my hands up to the fact I’ve cocked up a bit. But if you look at the following photos you’ll probably get the gist of what I was ‘trying to do’.
So here’s a few notes on my attempt at sewing a cool cat tuck’n’roll interior…… on the cheap.

It really hasn’t gone so well. Thought it would be easier but I guess it’s like picking up a welder for the first time and expecting to lay perfect beads from the outset, or using a Potter’s wheel. It all comes down to experience, experience I don’t have.
If you took a peek inside the Merc it was a bit of a let-down, with tired and torn front seat, no headliner, no door panels, blankets covering the minging junkyard rear seat and a bare metal floor.

So I got the other half’s old sewing machine out and had a go at doing a period interior. (Note this is not an industrial machine and this hasn’t helped matters.) Not having much dosh I knew this would all have to be done on a shoe string. Basically I was going to have to do this on a tight budget, or not at all.
I knew exactly what I wanted. Keep it a dark colour, mainly aubergine to match the dash, with some contrasting lighter colour tuck’n’roll panels. Cream would be an obvious choice but unfortunately it doesn’t suit my grubby personae.
Not wanting to be thought of as ‘a man of a lavender persuasion’, I settled on Aubergine and Lilac for the colour scheme. What with the interior sun-visors I’ve whittled from Violet Perspex, and matching ‘Wisteria’ seatbelts it all started getting a bit florally purpley. – What a Pansy!
Bought some material off the net that turned out to be a bit too flimsy. Instead of listening to good advice of others to cut my losses and buy something better, (difficult when you’ve already spent the budget), I carried on regardless. This was mistake 1.
I started with the most difficult bit first – doing a headliner. Mistake 2! – In hindsight I should have done the easiest bits first to get a feel of how the fabric would behave, or not behave. Its not like metal is it? You measure a gap, cut a piece to fit it, and guess what, the bloody stuff stretches. Apparently professional upholsterers use a stretchy tape measure.
Fitting a headlining with no pattern to work from filled me with utter terror. Headlining defies the laws of physics – Like making a bed that is suspended up-side-down from the ceiling…..it’s just not meant to be.
Therefore I had to think what might work for me. My proposed solution – Velcro!
(Velcro first came into use in the 1950’s, so one could argue that it is as period correct as Pat Boone’s white buck ‘Velcro’ shoes!)

First thing I did was weld tabs on the original cross-bows.
I had to widen the rear cross-bows, as the chop had splayed the roof wider where they fitted. Then using countersunk fasteners I bolted slim wooden battens to the tabs running front to back. These battens have Velcro attached with adhesive and staples. This initial stage of the operation was far more involved and time-consuming than I had ever imagined. Stop me if you’ve heard this before…..!



Velcro was on the upper surfaces of most battens, requiring the material to be rolled round them. Some battens were ‘deeper’ than the adjoining ones to hide where I had to put velcro on the lower surfaces for the last bits fitted. I worked from the centre outwards and fitted the lighter colour pleated inserts last.
There is probably some mathematical equation to be factored in regarding elasticy of fabric over a given distance. I redid the headlining three times but unfortunately I have still ended up with some ruckles and wrinkles. Luckily, I have a bunch of fabric left over so can revisit this when I’m feeling up to it. (Which could be a very long time from now).
Its pretty depressing when you realise you don’t have the expertise to carry out a job to the standard you want, or the money to buy proper materials and tools, or to pay someone-else to do it properly. I feel the interior has ended up looking amateur and home-made which is exactly what it is! My eyes are constantly drawn to the imperfections. Guess it the same with all of us with our cars. However, on the plus side, it was a learning experience and I now know what not to do next time. I think the Velcro principle works, but the stretchiness of the material is a big factor in knowing exactly where to sew it on. Cheaper materials in hindsight spoilt the finished article, which shouldn’t really have come as a surprize.
I actually e-mailed some photos of the interior of the Hirohata Merc to my Dad trying to explain what I was aspiring to. He got the wrong end of the stick and thought that was what I had done. Bless him.

Anyway, going back to the Velcro, I figured it would be possible to make relatively small and manageable panels to attach in strips. This also means that I can replace bits that went wrong without pulling out the whole lot – though that is still perhaps a necessary option.
If I can’t get to grips on the pleated headlining, there’s always Plan B – Hunt down a few of these critters for their pelts! –

I initially tried using padded pleats in the headlining using a traditional construction method, but this came out bad, I think mainly due to the poor quality fabric.
At this point it was decided that the headlining, door panels and parcel shelf inserts, would all be done with a flatter pleat. (Bit more headroom in a chopped car being my excuse).
I’m guessing professional upholsterers don’t have the same sort of challenges as us home-builder?


Being a novice and not really knowing what I’m doing, I’ve had to ‘wing it’ with regard to construction technique, foam density and stuff like that.

It’s very important to work in clinical conditions when doing upholstery, apparently.

Below is the material to do just one seat insert, (there are 4). It takes a fair bit of marking up to help guide the sewing so that it follows straight and parallel lines.


The pleats were then padded using cut down plumber’s foam pipe insulation, though I did consider stuffing them with black and white fur.
One thing that became clear early on was planning ahead. - For example, where the piping was round the door I had to fill it with a piece of a different colour, so that the colour of the inserts flowed without interruption.

Also, ensuring the pleats stretched over the inserts were the same on both sides so the seams are in symmetrical locations.
I considered doing the sun visors in a Rose-tinted hue for a more happy nostalgic view of the road, but Violet seemed to suit better.

Picked up a nice big off-cut of new purple carpet that goes with the other colours. It was cheap. (Did I mention I am trying to do all this on the cheap!) There’s enough carpet to do the car twice over.
My first attempt at making piping ended up with it looking like a 4 year old had rolled a plastercine sausage. Found instead of pinning it, it was better to first loosely sewing it together and then sew again close to the internal ‘washing line’. Again, cheap stretchy material really didn’t help as one side tended to gather up quicker than the other giving a barley twist effect.

I tried to get the side panel inserts to flow at the same angle as the seats and with curves rather than hard angles. (These photos are kinder to it than actually seeing it close up in the flesh as I’ve avoided highlighting the ruckles!)











Anyway, all in all the interior has ended costing in the region of £400 to £500, ($520 to $650?) all of that being materials, including, adhesive, foam, hardboard, battens, and fabric, washing line, etc.
Despite biting off much more than I could chew with this, and my negative vibes about some of it, I’m actually not too disappointed overall. I know there’s some unsightly bulges and wrinkles, (you could say I created it in my own image!), but it still looks a hundred times better than what I started with – which was basically no interior.

There’s been 3 important lessons learnt –
1. Don’t go with cheap material bought off the internet without seeing and feeling it first. (Something to be said for ‘Never mind the width, feel the quality’).
2. As a complete novice don’t over-estimate your own capabilities. Professionals have learnt from much experience. It really isn’t as easy as it looks.
3. When using the largest raised flat surface in the house, (the bed), to cut material, make sure the bed spread is not caught up with the material when you cut it. Sorry Karen.

 

I think it looks pretty good! I'd be happy with it. Especially for the crazy low price. I like the velcro idea for the headliner, that's something I had never considered.

My '52 Ford has a white, fake fur headliner in it that the previous owner installed. At first I wasn't real sure I liked it, but when you think about it, this is exactly what an upholstery job would have looked like in the 50's and 60's. No molded foam with fabric glued on, no plastic snap-on trim, everything made out of vinyl and fabric attached to some kind of backer board. It feels very authentic that way.

 

Finally got round to pulling the rear end out of the Merc to change the gearing.

The 4.27 gears were great around town with neck-breaking acceleration, but not so good on long motorway journeys.

I am lucky enough to have flown in a number of WW2 aircraft, and cruising at motorway speeds in the Merc, the sound of the engine was incredibly similar. I’ll kind of miss that, though a trip to a distant hotrod event had felt like I’d been on a mission to Berlin and back! I’m sure it will feel far more comfortable with the 3.54 replacement gears I have. These gears were made in Italy I believe, but I got them from the USA, so I’ve pretty much paid for them to go on a world cruise before they turned up at my door.

With the rear end out, it was a good opportunity to address some other matters, including the prop shaft kissing the floor at full suspension travel. (Not helped by my gearbox sitting a bit high in the chassis, together with 2” lowering blocks).

I initially thought I’d massage the floor with a club hammer, but that’s a bit of a crude way of doing things even by my standards. Instead, I used a trolley jack and a chunk of wood to finely adjust the clearance.

As an added precaution I also put a spacer on the diff bump stop, so it should now hit that well before the prop hits the floor. (If I was doing it properly I’d cut the floor out and make a more pronounced tunnel, but I’m not.)


With the rear end, (a DANA 41), in bits, I compared it with a DANA 44 I had stored in the bushes in my garden. I was pleased to see they shared the same size 19 spline half shafts, so I now know I have some spares. Not that skinny crossplies through a Ford-o-matic box are going to hook up too aggressively. But having said that, I once snapped a halfshaft on a 103e Ford Popular with its stock 997cc engine on even skinnier crossplies, so you never know.)

The Merc’s diff’s drain plug was sheared off. Pain to change the oil as you’d needed to drain it through the cover, which involved undoing and doing up loads of nuts, and fitting a new gasket. I did intend to drill and tap the plug when the casing was empty and put a bolt through from the inside to try and unscrew by tightening the bolt. However, the local Diff shop, (Hardy Engineering, who are less than ½ a mile from me), suggested a solution less likely to end in tears, and that was to have another local engineering shop use spark erosion to get it out. So that’s what happened.

Hardy’s found a Jaguar Diff plug was the same size thread, so provided me with one. I like Hardy Engineering – a proper old school British firm. They’ve always done good work for me in the past and the main man owns a WW2 Jeep and an Austin Healey, so has an appreciation of old stuff.



I had some concerns about the flange for the seal on the front of the diff as it had very slight damage that effected the seal. I had installed a new seal when I first put the Merc on the road, but a constant irritating weep meant there was an opportunity for an ice-skater’s pirouette every time I walked across the EP90 soaked linoleum covered floor. - Remember this car had once been dragged round a junkyard with no wheels on it, so likely that the damage to the flange and plug might have happened then. Anyway, Hardys repaired the flange for me which necessitated losing the stock front seal and replacing it with a larger one, again from a Jag.

With the axle out I also looked at the worn bush on one of the leaf springs.



Who at Mercury thought it a good idea to install a bolt that has a thread and a nut at one end, and a smooth round domed head at the other?



Jamco are supplying me with a replacement bolt and bushes, and it will be a case of me welding a nut on the end before installing it.

So, hopefully, in the near future I’ll be able to afford the petrol for longer journeys out.