Projects 1962 lincoln continental build "the green mile"

Ok most of this is going to be copy and paste from another forum of this build as Ive been working on this for the past 3-4 years but have been doing the major work in just the past year with about a year absence from working on it.


as I found the car: and part of other threads destcription


always seen this car from the road, in the last 2 1/2 years I never stoped! simply becouse I know that most people know that these cars can be worth quite a bit. Well this last friday I bit the bullet and stoped to find out. After only a 5 min conversation, I bought a 1962 Continental for the stagering amount of $300 dollars!!! I almost cried! here are some pics of my newest aquisition, and dont worry this is my dream car, I wont ever let this one go!







surprisingly this car is very solid, the interior is in tatters, and also someone put a late 60's 460 running gear in, witch I plan to take out and sell for a more modern drivetrain, Plans for this car include full metal resto and custom paint (think smooth custom) air bags to lay it down low and period perfect astro supreme wheels with wide white walls

 

now I found that car like that in early 08 heres the description of the pickup:

picked her up today! put some knockoff wires on it so I could get it out of the dirt and load it up, while it was jacked up I got a good look of the underside, wich is very solid, no rust through, full exhuast still intack and no driveshaft wich is another thing im not worried about. Got it rolling and my freind came and helped me out (hes the REPO man) he used his snatch truck to pick it up and push it up onto my trailer with the greatest of ease, the next 2 1/2 hrs was spent trailering this beast back to the shop wich was only 70 miles away, but we had stupid torrential monsoon craazy storm today and it stuck with me all the way there, 45 mph tops....IKK! so here are some pics of today, more will follow durring teardown and work!

 

oh yea the date/time stamp is wrong on the photos

 

an early rendition of what I was going for, super metalflake silver top and black bottom

 

That is one hell of a score!!!

 

skipping the removal of the engine someone tried to wedge a 460 into it wich DONT FIT, was going to put a HO 302 in it but plans changed onto the body work

 

well I have a lull in customer projects this weekend thanx to some custom paint NOT showing up....so...My little cuz helped me get my linc into the shop for some much needed attention!


first things first....lets take care of that redneck bite mark in my frame....



I have a bad habbit of not taking pictures when I need to.... I did smooth out all the edges first.... then came my next problem...someone bogart'd my metal! so I had to peice the patch together, no biggie, it will be just as strong, just not as perfect...but oh well its a driver! 8)



so next.... onto the ac! and wiring box!! got those ripped out and a good thing to... MAN the inside of the ac box was NASTY! omg like influfreakinenzablackplauqe up in there! ewww city! :dpuke: then I got the elec box off... horry for lincoln enginers!! who decided that putting plug ins on the back of the box instead of having every wire in the whole car made into the fuse panel!! :smt006 Also the ac box is not going back in, going nice smooth firewall right there.....Vintage air or southern air for AC later.





then I busted out my mini mite 3 inch side grinder with 36 gritt roloc pads!! and got crazy! :shock:

 

more work done to it as you can see most of it was tore to just a rolling shell by then.




got the front end in poly today, after doing some body work to it, the left fender had a bunch of scrape areas in the metal that I woked out, ending up sand almost most of the filler off, then onto the poly, I put half gallon up front equivalent to about 10 coats for primer other wise. Im done til the next opportunity arises to work on it! 8)

 

then after nearly a two year haitus I dropped the bomb


well....most can understand how much is involved in rebuilding these cars.... I bet nearly none can understand what im allready halfway accomplished under your noses to my car... as all plans nothing ever goes right with them... mostly time.. But I'm sticking to my guns. And by september my car will once again drive... not finished but partialy. What are the mods? very extensive to say the least, like what? try new suspension, drivetrain, interior, wiring the list goes on and on... did I rebuild the original? did I add new one off parts...neither. How about everything except the outside will be manufactured from 1999 up :shock: thats right EVERYTHING from the drivetrain, suspension, interior to the frame that these cars were never equiped with.
let your imaginations run wild with this pic

 

this started quite a stirr with the purrists....hehehehehehe

 

Nice find. I'm curious to see the rest of the build.

Err... nevermind.

 

here it is on the body dolly I quicly constructed to take it to the shop so I can prep the inside to fit

 

since this build is going into the stratosphere I changed my mind on the original paint



I like the original silver and black but thought it was probably done to death allready, and I wanted some kolor! plus I have nearly all these colors sitting on a shelf allready so why not?! I like it any way and thats all that matters. Some pinstriping and light leafing and I think it will be sic!





compaired to the original concept drawing

 

heres a teaser + im having trouble getting my pics off my jump drive to upload....grrrrrrr if I loose all the pics from the work done im going to muder someone :evil:


on four wheels again...




awesome

 

thats quite the accomplishment I beleive from what I started from !

 

iv been to that point. You should channel it! =P

 

then the donor car had to be cut I know alot of you here would rather see it fixed up in and out oldschool, but I want to go 80mph at 28 mpg with the ac on and still looking old school! cut me some slack homies!


ok back to my 99 many hours of dismantling it and cutting metal off making sure parts were still usuable later if needed on anything else, all the while taking measurments and going between both cars to make sure I cut enough and not to much off the 99 to make the 62 shell fit Ill let the pics do the esplaining how much material was taken off to work













:wow:


basicaly all metal from the inner rocker panel out had to be removed the wheel houses I decided to remove as it would be easier to make new ones then try to make each line up as the measurments in height were way off between the two plus the depth was way off.

 

and now getting ready to mate the two halves


got the 62 up on the open lift and welded the outer rocker together as its in two peices





the 99 waiting patiently to be unloaded

 

and he we are working on putting the the halves together, we had to finish up grinding the surfaces on the 99 and trimming some metal out around the A piller and the top of the cowl so the windsheild will sit flush.

all and all we had it up and down about 20 times it took us only about 5 hours to get from two parts to one











here is where we used a porta power to stretch the 62 wider to fit over the top of te 99 inner rocker as it did a .90 out and a .90 up once stretched open we could set it down all the way and when the pressure was released it snapped tight under the edge and fit perfect





here it is sitting together all on its own

 

uh...

 

now heres the kicker ive been working on this car ONLY on my lunch breaks for about a year.




well I only have my lunch break and a hour or two after work to do alittle work to this doll im by no means rushing this job but things seem to be pluggin along quite nicely.

here is the rear body panel area the 62 lapped the 99 body panel reinforcement perfectly enought to punch in some spot weld holes and firmly weld up the rear body panel, there is a few welds needed to be completed on it but for the most part its done.



this is the body panel trimmed over the 99 panel notice the frame reinforcement of the 99 below overything. went ahead and welded it up after spraying weld through primer between the panels.



had a bit of left over primer from a job so I sprayed it to cover it up right now but the back is nearly finished except for some good seam sealer





now it was onto the back deck trunk reinforcments I only have a small amount of 16 gauge for the heavier stuff I need for this car



bent up my brakets with my little trusty sheet metal break



hole punched my spot weld holes, weld through primed them down both sides and welded it up







solid as ever!


for something crazy here is the planned area were Im putting my hydro pump! this is just moked up of course, im going to make it remote fill and the dumps wont be located on the pump. The reason behind all this is to keep the trunk as open as much as possible and just to be differnt as well, this car isnt going to be doing any hoppin just lift and lay.

also note this isnt the actually pump ill be using either




and there is room for the pump to be there as well I measured it all out once I box the A piller in I will make a mount setup to mount he pump where its removable from behind the wheel house.

 

uh......what?


any way


I had a hour after work friday and decided to see how bad the front end will have to be modded to make work so I went to town on the front of my car. Now this by no means is nothing more then just a mock up right now I want to get the main body and the suspension doen before I get to the front.

first I had to cut the front cross reinforcement off the 99 frame and notch alittle bit of the frame to make the front of the 62 slide in.,

heat saw at work



then I slid the front end on and clamped everything together to see how everything fit






I got tons of room to put my radiator/condensor and fans back infront of the motor, plus some other stuff...lol





and this is where my car sits for this weekend :happysad:
but on a good note I picked up my sheet of 18 gauge metal so I can start boxing and tubbin in my main body

 

awesome

 

Impressive work, but I can´t help wondering why you´d put yourself through all this, when you said the original Lincoln was pretty solid? The only cars that have popped up on here that were done like this were total rust outs. Not to take away from what you´ve done BTW, I`m sure will be great when it´s finished, and I do like the looks of these cars.

 

I'm digging the build. It's cool to see somebody really get into their work. Hope all goes well.

 

man what a bad a$$ car your building.
keep up the good work

 

becouse parts are obsolete for the most part for the early 60's continentals, plus I didnt want to worry about the miles and miles of vacume line that was old and decrepid and a host of other things. Plus I wanted the efeciency and realiability of a newer car to keep this thing going forever near about.


AND I JUST WANTED TO DO IT SINCE IT HANT EVER BEEN DONE OT A CONTINENTAL





not much to show just pluggin along Ive been working on cleaning up the A piller and boxing them in, I plan on getting all the welding done to the car then Ill seam it all in so everything looks clean and factory fresh



got my sheet of 18 guage to do everything with! :biggrin:



putting the panels in

 

still working on the trunk making the filler panels came out looking good and everythign fitting tight






here is the inside tubs, I dont have a metal shrinker so I had to do the next best thing but since it will be all seam sealed up the finished product will look like anly factory job






here is the rear seat BOLTED in to test fit the front tubs wich cant be straight up and down but curved so that presented a problem first here is the seat

ahhhhh yeaaaa beutifull!




and after thinking and thinking....I happened to look at one of my racing engines and nocticed the sectional pipe on it (2-stroke) and it hit me do the front tubes in sections and walla! works great and the seat fits perfect to it!

 

had a chance to work on this saturday for a few hours I wanted mainly to finish up the welding on the rear of the car (trunk/rear wheelhouse) and clean up a few things





underside welded and seamed in



I know alot of you guys will hate me for this but oh well im hated allready anyway lol

 

had to finaly do it:







gooooooooiiinnnnnnnggggg DOWN........... :twisted:








now started on cutting everything out and mounting the hydraulic cylinders





once I get all this mounted the way I want it to be ill get rolling on putting the front sheet metal on ;-)