I would suggest you tear down one at a time. It would suck not having anything kool to drive. Driving a Kustom is Purrfect therapy. I would put in the back glass, this way you will be pleased with the improved profile. Just my opinion. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Oops!!! Looks like the snowball is starting to roll. Sorry Mick and John, I could't help myself. The good news is I can do a lot of the work before removing the windshield, so it's still drivable for now (it's sitting outside the office right now, actually). I was surprised to find that the headliner did not go under the gasket like it did at the back window. Although, I was prepared to cut it at the gasket if I needed to so I could keep the glass in for now. Thanks for the vote of confidence, you are too kind…and give me too much credit. I don't see myself as a man of many talents so much as a man who is not afraid to screw something up in the process. I too often find myself saying, "how hard can it be?" LOL Good news is that while there is surface rust under the headliner, it's not too bad. It is worse around the edges. It's almost as if the spray adhesive that got used corroded the metal. I may find on closer inspection as I start to clean it all up that it's not as corroded as it appears and just glue mess. Odd that the glue turned brown like it did. All the staining on the headliner is only where there is adhesive. There are no water leaks around the windshield or the back glass (my windwings fit poorly and leak, but that is a problem for another day), so I don't think I am really dealing with any sort of moisture problem. I'm also going to make a new package tray as the vinyl is stained and faded on this one and I'm really no fan of the way the speakers were done. When I removed it, I was greated with this big honkin' hole that someone cut into the deck, presumably for clearance for the speakers. Since I don't own a bead roller, I've already talked to slddnmatt about making me a patch panel. I have some of his floor boards that will go in eventually and he does great work, so obviously he was my go to guy. My big plan is pretty much to clean everything up, address the surface rust, paint everything in POR15, put in new insulation, sew a new headliner and package tray, new windshield (with stainless) and then finally to put in the new flatter back glass that started this whole thing (putting the stainless around it as well). Funny, it was the first piece out and it will pretty much be the last piece in. I also have a few other related things on my project list that I may roll into this round. I've often thought (as I drive in the rain) that I should move the wiper arms outboard a few inches so the sweep of the wipers is centered in my field of view. I also have a nice set of real Appletons to put in place of the dummys I have now. If I did these two things now, I could do them with the old windshield in, which would help protect the interior from the weld spatter without worrying about burning the glass or the rubber. Of course, waiting to do them at some other point in the future would require additional work to protect the new glass and rubber from getting burned or require removing those items all together. See how my brain works and the snowball starts rolling and gaining size pretty quick? LOL
I need to either have my factory rear glass shaved a bit in the corners or need to shave the corners of some aftermarket glass. Too tight in the bottom corners.
I remember you saying that. I don't recall if I've seen anything about shaving tempered glass like the factory window. I would think if you were careful and maybe used a lot of water, it could be sanded a bit at the corners. Be my luck I'd blow it into a million pieces trying it though. But, then again, I wouldn't be out anything cuz I'd have to buy an aftermarket laminated glass that could be trimmed anyhow. See what I mean by not being afraid to screw something up? LOL Of course, that often requires I have to do things two, three or even four times to get it right, but hey, I had fun…. LOL
No progress to report, unfortunately. I had thought I would have some time over the Thanksgiving weekend, but it didn't come to pass. I did find a couple of pictures that show the staining on the headliner better, though. It wasn't really bad when I got the car and I thought it would clean up. It didn't of course and got much worse over time. You can see the backside of the headliner there and the browning adhesive. I don't recall having seen that happen before, not on any of my cars anyway. Hopefully I will get to work on it here shortly and at least get everything cleaned up and some paint in there. I do have a funny story to share from about a month ago. I had dropped the car off at a shop to chase down an intermittent vibration at highway speed I had been unable to find. The guy that owns the shop is a successful dirt track racer and hot rodder. I figured the guy makes his living making sure his race cars are dialed in right, he's probably the guy to find the problem since I had tried everything I knew to do. Anyhoo, it's not uncommon for us to run into each other at lunch occasionally, so it was no big thing when he and his wife walked into a restaurant the staff and I were at one day. We chatted a bit and then I continued on with lunch. I could overhear some folks talking about his car….he has a cool '32 roaster and a wicked '58 Ford F-100 painted up like an old Sinclair station truck…so again, no big shock there. Finally, the waitress tells him she loves his car and he points to me and says it's mine. I couldn't have laughed harder. He happened to be ready to test drive it a bit and check it out right when it was lunch time, so hopped in the Merc and drove it to town. Sure enough, I walk out and there is my car out in the lot. Sadly, I had to leave it there and get into a boring car and head back to the office. LOL. It appears he discovered the problem however. Turns out the spring pads on the rear axle were 1.5 degrees rotated from each other and putting the springs into a bind. Crazy thing is, near as we can figure is those are factory welds on the pads, so I guess the axle got a twist in it at some point. He chucked the lowering blocks into the mill and angle cut them. Problem solved….I hope.
my first car was a 1951 Merc coupe. going to school one winter morning(I was 14) I missed a corner on an icy road and went into a deep ditch. wrecked the Merc(I could fix it now if I had it) and the big chrome bullet in the middle of the steering wheel almost broke my ribs. I sure miss that Merc. You are doing great on yours, keep up the good work.
Haha nice. Are those Buick style ports stick-ons or thru the hood? Mine is sitting might get driven this weekend to charge battery. But my next move is front suspension and plan for the engine swap. Then will come back to cosmetics
Well, John I wish they were stick ons, cuz they woulda been gone about 6 minutes after I got it home from buying it. LOL Unfortunately, they are through the hood. If you go back in the thread a bit to where I worked on trying to fix the bent hood and fenders, you can see them a little better. They are actually the snap in trim rings that go in the slots of semi truck wheels. I have another front cap I will be putting on the car at some point that will take care of multiple issues, but not until I am ready to do some other body work and shoot some paint. I'm too far into redoing my dad's '69 Mustang at the moment to get that far into the Merc right now.
Update time. Progress has been slow with the holidays, etc. But I have eeked a little time here and there to make some headway. First step was to clean the rust and yuck from inside the roof and get it painted. I have finished the messy part of the job….even with blankets covering everything, that mess gets everywhere! Messy job no matter when you do it, but really a federal clean up zone in an upholstered car. No one ever said I was smart. Anyhoo, the inside of the roof is de-rusted, cleaned and prepped for a coat of POR15. While I was at it, I scraped all the old undercoating under the 1/4 windows and will paint that as well and put in some now sound deadener. Hoping to start splorking paint in the next few day. Yeehaw! Before: After:
Looking good. Your picture brings back old memories when I scraped the crap off of my roof. Its a nasty job. Being kool is not always glamorous....
Thanks guys! Hate to think of the stuff that ended up in my lungs over this deal even with a respirator. Well, ya gotta die of something. John, I used one of those woven 3M stripping wheels on a sander. You can find them with a shaft for a drill, but I used the ones with just a hole in the middle and just mounted in one of my sanders. I have been using them to strip all the paint off my '69 Mustang and had it handy so just drug it inside the Merc. Before this vinyl headliner was in, there was a velour one and there were still bits of it stuck in glue around edges along with lots of the glue from this headliner. It did a good job on the glue and velour bits, so might be a good choice for you to try.
LOL. The first day I was working on it I just used a dust mask and my nose was chuck full of stuff. So, yesterday, I thought to myself, "self, maybe the respirator will be a better idea." I guess it was a better idea as my nose was not quite as full as last time, but some still got through. I guess some of those rust particles can get pretty small with that stripping wheel.
LOL. Well, the funny thing is, that much like my last round of work on the car, it will turn out to be a whole lot of work for not much visible change. But, I'm slowly dialing in the foundation and one of these days the big changes will start to show up.
Got the painting done this weekend. Big difference. It gets hard for me to accept the limits of the job I'm doing knowing you can't reach every nook and cranny to clean, prep and paint and I'm just not at a place to take the whole thing apart and have it dipped and electrostatically primed. That's likely overkill anyhow and I just have to move forward and recognize the car has made it 60+ years up to this point and getting 90% of the mess will likely be good enough to get it through the rest of my life anyway. So, now it's painted and ready for sound deadener and insulation. Just as a tip, when the can of POR15 says nothing gets it off your skin except time, they aren't kidding. I had learned that lesson earlier, so was smart enough to wear gloves. I also tried to make sure I never painted directly over my head so as to not drip on my face. However, when you are doing something over your head, invariably, some part of your body will come into contact with the paint above you. Got a little in my hair which was fun to comb out, but then later noticed that somehow the top of my ear touched wet paint and had a nice black spot….and we had a wedding to go to. My wife tells me the red ear from the rubbing and scraping to get the paint off looked better than the paint. LOL Next, I wanted to remove the dash to begin working on the placement of the wipers, but I realized it would be a good idea to work out the mounting of the functional Appletons first, so I started on that while the paint was drying. Didn't get that job finished, but shouldn't be a huge deal….once the big hole is drilled. Making sure I get that all lined up and on the money so I only have to do that one once.
After much more finagling than I expected, the Appletons are mounted. I studied piles and piles of pictures of early custom Mercs to plan the placement of the spots. I found the location of the bracket generally put the spotlight shaft pretty close to the level of the bottom of the windshield, the bottom of the side windows and towards the outside of the c pillar. I made a sharpie mark of those two lines and marked the tentative spot of the bracket near their intersection. Kurt McCormick gave me a tip a few years ago to use a large C clamp to help line up where to drill and this proved to be a big help. Clamping the bracket to the c pillar in the area where I thought I wanted it, I was able to tweak the bracket placement so the inside of the clamp hit the target of where I wanted the shaft to come out….for me I was shooting for the bottom outside corner of the garnish molding. The brown you see on the inside of the pillar isn't rust, surprisingly….it's the aged spray adhesive that stained the headliner that prompted me to replace it and prompted me into this round of undorkifying. I've never seen adhesive discolor to that extent before. Crazy. Anyhoo, the C clamp helped visualize where the shaft would hopefully be and I liked where it lined up, clearing the dash and being nearly horizontal with the belt line, which was the goal. I drilled the screw holes for the bracket and mounted it to the car. Reading all I could about spot light mounting, it was obvious that a drill guide that fit in the bracket would be most helpful. Not owning a lathe, making a "nice" one from scratch wasn't going to happen. So, off I went to the hardware store with bracket in hand looking to see what I could find that would serve the purpose. The plumbing aisle seemed the logical place to start and I quickly found that a copper 1/2" male adapter screwed into the bracket with enough thread to be stable. I then found that a copper 3/8" coupling had a 1/2" id and fit the drill bit perfectly (I had to file the little stop dimples out of the inside). Now the perfect thing about these two pieces is that od the coupling was just a hair too big to fit the id of the adapter. So, a few minutes with a rat tail file inside the adapter and I could tap the coupling tightly inside and viola….drill guide.
The inside of the roof looks good, and I like the thought you,ve put into the fitting of the Appleton.
Nice work, and good idea...using "ordinary parts" to make a drill guide. And, if you have some concerns about the thickness of the pillar being able to anchor the attachment screws....might want to take a look at these "weld nuts" http://www.mcmaster.com/#weld-nuts/=vs0nlm
Time to take a big breath, pull up my big girl panties and drill the hole. While the guide does help line up the bit, it's important to note, the bit is hitting the pillar at an angle….especially when it hits the inside of the pillar and will want to wander. So, don't go hog wild with a ton of pressure and speed, cuz the bit will want to wander and if it does, it will grab hold of the guide and want to spin it further into the bracket…..which is NOT 1/2" pipe thread. Not sure which would win the cross thread contest, the pot metal bracket or the copper fitting, but best not to find out. A sharp bit, easy on the speed and pressure is the way this deal best goes down. When it was all said and done, the hole came out on the inside right where I wanted it. Yeehaw!! Time for the moment I had been waiting for since I first got the spots several years ago. My excitement dwindled greatly as soon as I slid the light in and saw the angle of the shaft. My intention was for it to be nearly parallel to the belt line, but it was clear I was way off. Hours of going back over my reference photos and a few sleepless nights ensued. The handles cleared everything and I was able to move the spot as it should and I appreciate it's a silly detail to get all worked up about, but it was not what I was shooting for. Rather than accept it, I set about to remedy it, knowing I would have to hog out the holes and weld back the extra when I was done. The conclusion I came to is that once upon a time when a fella could just go the to parts store and buy a new set of 552's and the specific brackets for a '51 Merc rather than the universal brackets most of us are stuck with these days, the "real" Merc brackets must have had a greater angle so the shaft would be horizontal. No matter, those days are gone and not having any hen's teeth on hand (original Appleton brackets left and right 990 for 49-51 Merc), out came the die grinder and the holes got bigger. I also trimmed on the brackets to help change their angle to the post. I ended up moving the bracket down and to the outside a bit more and was able to improve things quite a bit, but I'm still not all the way there. Not sure I'll be able to get them exactly, but I'm happier. Made a pattern to transfer to the other side, wash, rinse, repeat. Aren't the cat prints cute? :/
Thanks! I tend to lose a fair amount of sleep over details like this….I have a problem. LOL Thanks Gatz. So far, things seem OK, but I do know the dummy spots that were on it would get loose from time to time, so I will keep these in mind for sure.
Looks great Dave! I can feel your pain on it not initially coming out as intended. You recovered well!
Thanks Jeff! It always helps that I'm never afraid to mess something up and do it over…which in my case often results in having to weld over something. LOL
Maybe you said where you got it (I haven't read all the posts in this thread), but I think you should feel very lucky to have found a right side mounting bracket for your Appleton. I have collected a couple dozen Appletons over the years (all sold now) and ran across maybe four true right side brackets. I think if a guy was to make new Appleton brackets for Mercs, he'd make a killing. Could be cast and chromed, or maybe CNCed from stainless.
I agree with you. There has to be a market for those things. I guess the trick would be coming up with original right and left brackets to copy. Lol. My spots came with right and left brackets, but the more I've looked at them, I suspect they are actually brackets off a set of currently available dummy spots. I've read that the brackets that come with the dummy spots now are the same thread as real Appletons and are copies of universal appleton brackets. Although....the brackets off the Kustom Kraft dummy Appletons that I took off the car do not thread into the real ones.... Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
The Jalopy Journal
