Greetings from South Florida! I'm restoring a 1951 Mercury Coupe

Hello everyone!

Wanted to introduce myself. My name's Gabe and I live in Margate, Florida. My dad and I have done amateur restorations on 50s American cars (and 1 British car) since I was about 8 (I'm 42). Cars are a HUGE hobby of mine. I love everything about cars and can talk about them for hours. I am mostly familiar with 50s American cars; that's my favorite era, but I love 'em all.

I have a stock 1951 Mercury Coupe that has been in the family for a long time. I am beginning the restoration where dad left off. In searching for parts, I am sometimes asked if I have an EARLY or LATE 1951 model. How do I tell? Does the VIN or body tag indicate? Even if it said the car was made in April 1951, is that an early or late model? I would imagine the serial number would be more accurate. For example serial numbers from XXX10500 - 12499 are early models, and then XXX12500 - on are late models.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Cheers,
Gabe

 

Gabe,

I have been working on a 1951 Mercury 2 door for the last four years, I hope to complete it during 2017. I have many 1951 Mercury parts.
Give me a call if you are still looking for parts.

Fred Kiesel
772-321-1559

 

Hello and Happy Holidays!

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated. I'm keeping the car as stock and original as possible. I just pulled the engine today and will begin to clean out the engine bay. I bought the car in 1996 as a project. Back in 1998, I had the engine, tranny and radiator professionally rebuilt. The engine was bored out .30 over. The car has never been on the road since I've owned it. I would start it every now and then and just let the car idle a while. The windows and interior are out of her in preparation to be sent out for some inner and outer rocker replacements, and then paint. I'm going to be putting everything back to together myself, I just don't have a spray booth or any experience spraying a car - and I want it to come out really nice.

I've purchased OEM style wiring harnesses for everything and I'm anxious to get going on it.

I know that flatheads have a tendency of running hot, and I've been searching for a fan shroud to help in cooling. I also need the plenum that attaches to the heater box on the firewall behind the dash. I recently found out that the plenums were originally made out of a card-board like material which deteriorated over time - which explains why they are hard to find today. The original dash has some rust holes in it, so I bought a replacement from Shoebox Central, but it came out of a '50, and has the tiny emblem holes above the glovebox for the Mercury emblem; so I'm going to need one of those emblems also.

Sorry for the long message... I didn't think anyone would reply to my original post and I was excited to hear from a fellow '51 Merc owner. I'll give you a call soon. It would be great to meet up and take a peak at each other's projects. Are you customizing yours? Stock?

Take care,
Gabe

 

This is a sister site, it's for original/resto Fords and Mercs:

http://www.fordbarn.com/

You might find it useful.