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

Carrying on from the '49 50 51 merc what motor' thread, anthony myrick asked for some more photos of my Y-block installation.
Before I started I checked out another excellent HAMB thread to see what I was in for -
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...engine-transmission-mount-fabrication.383227/
As I didn’t want my engine sitting at a jaunty angle, I have too cut away the front cross-member to accommodate the front of the sump. I also wanted to have the generator down low, use a mechanical fuel pump and mechanical fan and some space around it to get the bottom radiator hose past.
Pictured is the original chunky cross-member which was used to mount the flathead from. Y-Block will instead be mounted off the side of the frame rails just behind the cross-member.

The Merc’s cross-member was a nice curved shape and unfortunately with cutting it I have had to put some angles in the top of it. (I don’t have the equipment to cut and bend thick plate accurately). I realise there is a reason why aircraft have round windows and not square, as stresses are focused on the corners. I have therefore strengthened the angled areas by adding some internal structure. Maybe overkill but I like peace of mind.
I shaped a couple of pieces of metal strap and bolted them in, running against the inside of the front and rear wall of the cross-member from one suspension turret to the other. Then welded them.

I then put some more thick cross-bracing running in the other direction.

Also made a strong internal structure in the centre of the cross-member tying it all together, as this is the bit you normally jack the front up by. Was careful not to make any water traps with all this internal superstructure.
At the same time I added a modified front engine steady rest (not really an engine mount as such). Ford realised these ‘rests’ were overkill and dropped them from later Y-Block cars but I figure I would take the belt and braces approach. Also helps locate the engine centrally.
Using just parts of the engine as datum points was a lot easier than keep trial fitting the whole lump.

The engine steady at the front meant some thick rubber blocks were necessary to isolate any vibration.
The dropped steering arm was fitted when I got the car. I do worry about welding on steering parts after a friend had the welded pitman arm on his rod snap, fortunately while he was doing donuts on a wide open piece of empty runway. The welding looks OK, but it doesn’t actually need such a deep drop now, so more of that later.

One problem I’ve had with my Y-Block powered rods is setting the engine too close to the firewall. This makes it difficult to see what you’re doing when fiddling around trying to clip the dizzy cap on. Once your hands are in there, you can’t actually see anything. With the Merc I’ve got a bit more clearance but without putting the fan into the rad. Might even have room for the enormous Spalding Flamerthrower, though it’s tight!

Added side mounts that are un-boltable from the frame rails to make life easier getting the engine in and out. The less protrusions to catch things on the better. Likewise, I have made a removable gearbox cross-member. Not particularly pretty but functional and will hopefully be lost in the shadows when everything under there is painted black. Some creative bracketry for the generator should see it fit …….just. Idler pulley will be needed.
Original exhaust manifolds turn upwards, so help clear everything nicely on the steering side.


Could have saved a whole lot of work just dropping a 350 Chevy straight in! However, happy to have a Merc that takes my favourite engine.
In the distant past this car was obviously fitted with a different engine and a home-made dropped steering arm that was fitted.

I’m not really comfortable with a steering component welded together by persons unknown. My Y-Block sump fouls a normal straight steering arm, so either I had another ‘dropped’ steering arm made by someone competent, or I modified the sump. Even if I only had a small drop put in a steering, it’s still going to alter the relationship of the track rod end mounts and the pivot point of the lower A-Arms, and thus there’s the potential for bump steer. That decided then – the sump was going to get the chop.



I carefully measured how much I could take out of the oil pan, allowing for the room the crank needs. Fortunately the Y-Block, as its name implies, has a deep skirt at the bottom of the block that the crank sits quite deep inside, so with the shallower sump there’s no danger of the crank hitting the pan or even dipping in the oil. Also made sure I allowed for the settling of engine mounts and then some.
Obviously I’d lost some oil capacity so I needed to extend the sump somewhere-else. Didn’t want to go downwards behind the steering link as there are a million sleeping police men where I live (speed bumps), many where your wheels go either side and designed to bash anything hanging down in the middle. Luckily there’s room to extend out sideways. It involved some maths to ensure the modified oil pan has the same capacity, working out the volume of different size boxes.
Y-Blocks have either a front or side dip sticks. While there was a hole in the bottom of the sump I took the opportunity to modify the dip stick so I could see where it just touches the bottom of the pan midway along.

Once all welded up, and painted black to lose it in the shadows, I tested my maths by filling another stock sump until it reached the hole in the side for the oil pipe. Then tipped the contents from that into the modified sump. The level, thankfully, was the same.
Another job ticked off.
The Fordomatic originally had rod linkages to shift it into gear. Having done a couple of hotrods with these transmissions I’ve decided to use a previously tried and tested method and bought a Summit Racing shifter cable. They come in various lengths, end fittings and stoke, which is handy. Some more bracketry bolted to the bellhousing sorted the transmission end. Other end of the cable is aJag shifter.
I want the Merc to have a hotrod feel, so I’ve welded on a Hurst lever I had sitting around.

The Jag shifter has switches attached to the mechanism for a safety cut-out in Park and Neutral, a reverse light, and some other switch activated when in Drive, so I will wire in the warning lights on my home-made shifter housing as indicators as to which gear I'm in.

Still got a long way to go as the engine I'm putting in is currently stripped down.
Anyway, hope this might be of use to anyone-else contemplating fitting a Y-Block. Note - its not a quick Sunday afternoon job!

 

that helped to answer a few ?s I had
I figured the x member would need modified
I was hoping to be able to run some stock rams horn manifolds
that may be an issue with the steering

and just picked up some mercury y block valve covers

 

Engine install looks good, any pics of the rest of the build?

 

I've had the Merc two years now - This is the story so far. -

Its all being done on a budget. The body was pretty banged up and really needs a new upper rear wing, boot lid, front wings, sills, etc, etc.
Decided to ‘tart up’ the back until such time I am, hopefully, in a position to do it properly with better panels.
Here are some then and now photos - Craftsmen look away now.
Boot had a hole in it where I think someone had found it was locked and just cut the whole lock out. I do not have an English wheel or the ability to use one so had to form the curve, which goes in both directions, by welding in strips rather than one big piece. Could have tried to find a similar curve in a scrap yard I suppose.

It’s not until I started rubbing down the boot lid that I realised just how many dings it had. Looks like someone’s gone at it with a hammer and an ice pick! You can see a few of the craters in the picture.



Gave the hood a make-over and welded up all the trim holes and welded up some holes in the grille surround.
The front valence some would describe as looking ‘a bit distressed’. To me it looked positively suicidal! (It is up-side down in the photo – appearing very much like it’s already rolled over and died and is now in the advanced stages of decomposition!)

Thought about getting a fibreglass repro but that’s not really in the spirit of fixing up an old Merc. Like other bodywork on this car I will hopefully at a later date find a better original piece.
No amount of staring at it and wringing of hands was going to fix this, so it was time to ‘embrace the challenge’ I'd treat this as a good learning experience, or indeed, a bad one.
I gathered up the contorted dangly bits and tacked them together in a rough approximation of where I thought they should be. Then took a template off the front wing’s bolt holes and replaced the bolt holes on the valence that had been previously torn off.
A decision was then made to lose the bit of twisted up valence centre bottom. Well it’s hidden by bumper and number plate anyway so no-one would miss it – especially me.

I also cut out the bit with the square shaped mount for the centre piece of the original grille. (Don’t want square shaped anything on this Merc). The metal around this mount was all dinged up anyway so good opportunity to add some flatness. I intend to use a Corvette tooth grille, so the original grille mounting point would be obsolete and would stand out like the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square – so instead there’s now a big hole that needed filling.
Bits of angled metal were welded to the underneath to give it some ‘structural integrity’.
Had a go at the front wings too. I had got one from the States but this needed more work too.
The remaining one that came with the car still needed a fair bit of TLC. I used a scissor jack off the wall of the garage and another inside the wheel well to straighten a kink in the wheel arch. The arches are a pig to straighten on Mercs as they are rolled – imagine half a tube that follows the line of the arch.
The doyly bits hanging from the bottom edge were dealt with by bending up some small patches to weld in, and cutting out the rot a bit at a time so I didn’t lose the original shape.

View attachment 4405508
Cut out some lacy bits and replaced with new metal. Also banged out some of the numerous dents and creases. Welded up the trim holes too.


Well, the underneath is as bashed up as the top. - Looks like it’s been moved round a junkyard with a forklift/bulldozer. From the state of the front drums, with their badly chipped rims, I’d hazard a guess that the car has been dragged about without any wheels fitted.
One of the rear wings in the past has been folded under, which had the effect of concertinaing up the support piece that bolts the fender to the floor of the boot. This in turn had pushed the boot floor up a bit.
I straightened the support piece best I could and made a bracket that I could bolt on. Then used a scissor jack against the bracket to push everything back to where it should be.

Counted a total of six cracks in the chassis, most of which were easy to deal with. However, at the back there were cracks on both sides where the rear suspension is mounted and where access with a welder is nigh on impossible.

Mercury had the strange idea to mount the rear spring where the boxed part of the chassis turns into just C section. The last part of the boxing peters out with the side wall at an angle. I’m assuming this lack of support has meant there has been a bit of flexing and a crack has appeared as a result.
Because of the closeness of the floor and the spare wheel well, it was necessary to lift the body off the chassis to get a bit of elbow room with the welder. Rather than lift the body, I lowered the chassis to give me the room to work.
To avoid problems in the future, after zipping the cracks back up, I’ve welded some boxing and gussets to re-inforce the areas.


Painted everything underneath satin black and put sealant on all the seams.
Treated the body to some new mounts before bolting the chassis back up again.
Once chassis and body were one, I tidied up some of the previous poor body repairs on the rear wing. There were four badly welded lap joints on each rear wing, including ones made over the top of a rib that attaches the wing to the body (three visible in the photo below). Also reworked another patch at the bottom of the wing that had been put on atrociously by a previous owner.

Apparently this car many years ago was fitted with tail-fins that were then cut off and stock fenders welded back on (badly!). To cut off what is basically the complete rear of the car, and then cut those bits into smaller bits… and then butt-weld it all back together again, is frankly beyond my capabilities as a body-man. ( I work in an office – the only metal I regularly have to deal with is paperclips!). By removing all the old shoddy workmanship, I would be cutting off all the datum-points for fitting the rear wings/trunk/valence back on. Some jobs it’s better to walk away from and hopefully down the line I’ll get some more body panels that have not been previously messed with, making replacement by myself much easier. Then I would happily consign this patchwork lot to the bin.
So….for the time being I’ve just made the best of a bad job and ground down the welds and redid them front and backs of the panels and made sure they were all well sealed. Eventually I’m sure rust will form in these lap joints despite my best efforts. By that time maybe I’ll be in a better position to do the job properly.
That bit done I fitted a new sill. - The car came with some cheap replacement ‘folded’ sills as opposed to the nice expensive stamped ones. They required a lot of cutting and welding to get them to fit. I managed to keep the distinctive stock drain holes underneath and a slither of the brackets that once held lake-pipes on. Could have easily ground them off but wanted to preserve a little bit of the Merc’s ‘custom’ heritage.
View attachment 4405516

It was missing inside door handles and mechanisms, so I adapted ones from a ‘53 Merc, so now the door no longer requires a bungee strap to hold it shut.
Left enough trim holes to fit some ‘56 Ford side spears to the door and rear fender.
Intention is to have it looking sinister and shark like (I know, I've spent too much time on my own in the garage!) I want to use some spare '56 Ford park lights I have, as they have a Dagmar/viper fang quality about them.
Only seen these lights used on one Merc before and because the profile of the wings is very different that bloke had them both pointing inwards. It gave his Merc a boss-eyed look that was really not good, added to the fact he molded his to the wings and painted them body-colour.
So with nothing to lose but a slightly pitted set of lights I have had a go with the grinder at re-profiling and think I may have got them to sit better than his. I think they'll work but I'll have to make a small insert to fill a gap at the sides.

I made a piece I can bolt to the wing before fitting the light and will get it chromed.

Notice the use of the period correct hacksaw!


With the bracing I know I went a bit OTT but I had some concerns when I took the body off the chassis as the car had some very poor repairs done before I had the car. I just left it in there as I knew I'd be chopping it anyway. The bracing is nearly all bolted in with only a couple of bits welded.


From the outset I was concerned as to how I would deal with the sharp edge on the belt line below the rear window as I was not sure if I could weld it back on and still keeping a nice uniform curve after all that welding and grinding. Decided to go the easy route and do away with it. Instead I have pinched someone-else's idea and cut up an old Ford Pilot spring I had lying about and clamped the pieces together to pull the two areas together in a nice gentle curve. Added a piece of new metal to fill the gap.


I have never professed to be particularly competent at bodywork, and I am only half way to being a sh*t hot welder (you can guess which half of sh*t-hot!), so this chop has been somewhat of a challenge constantly working at the far outer reaches of my abilities!
I've danced about in the garage making a zillion spot welds, positioned well apart to avoid the chances of warpage.
I’ve had my welder turned up to 'KILL' to ensure good penetration. The down side is that I have often made a bigger gap than what I started with, necessitating even more welding. Anyway, the situation after all this welding is that I had a chopped Merc at this point with a roof that resembled the slopes of Vesuvius, nicely tanned arms, and a bloody huge electricity bill!

At times I’ve actually surprised myself using hammer and dollies (a new experience for me), and managed to keep everything ‘reasonably’ straight and even successfully recovered the situation when oil-canning looked like it might be on the cards.

Fortunately when I bought the car it came with the tops of the rear doors from a 4-Door that have some ‘acute’ curves to cannibalise and use.
Of course they needed a fair bit of fettling. –


An article on chopping Mercs in a 1958 ‘Rod & Custom’ says - “Top chopping should not be attempted by novices – a word of warning!”
Never one to listen to good advice, it was after I bought the Merc some 2 years ago, that I acquired my first Mig welder. (Only ever done arc welding before that). I therefore only had some naive enthusiasm and a copy of 'Mig Welding for Beginners' to see me through. I don’t think it turned out too bad considering. (Note - the photos are being rather kind to it).


Despite the finish of the chop not being a perfect job, I am very happy with the proportions, symmetry, and profile. I’m particularly pleased that the rear screen doesn't look like a sunroof over the back seat, or like it’s trying to get in the trunk having had an argument with the side windows. (If you have delicate sensibilities that are easily upset by 'characterful' door gaps, look away now.)



If I ever paint the Merc my colour of choice would be a delicious dark plummy blackcurrant with hints of beetroot and aubergine.
…….Pause to wipe off saliva dribbled on keyboard.
In anticipation I’ve painted the interior trim in ‘Ford Dark Aubergine Pearl’. Of course I couldn’t paint over George Barris’s signature.

Later, I’ll address the over-elevated stance.

That's it for now!

 

great thread and engine swap details thanks

 

Very cool, thanks for posting.

 

Work on the Merc stalled for a bit because of a house move and the need to build a second garage at the new place.

But getting back on it now and have been messing with the rear end.
The axle on this Merc had some brake parts missing, but a ‘spare’ axle came with it, so the intension was to make one good one from the two.
Getting the drums off the spare axle was challenging! The debris on the floor was a sign that it was not going to be a pretty sight when I finally got it off.

It wasn’t. Brake shoes just didn’t want to be parted from the drums.

Once off, the half shafts were kind off notchy to turn. The prop end would only do half a turn before locking up. Taking the cover off the diff showed that, despite its age, it still had all its own teeth – which is nice. However, like yours truly, the ones at the back were rotten. Seems this axle had sat for a while and the top half of the diff had been starved of oil and rusted up. The gears were not happy to mesh when turned.

Other issues with the spare axle included the casing that had been messed with previously.

Oh well – half shafts might be usable for spares. (Note – green garden-string laces are all the style on the Paris catwalks this season).
The rear universal joints was also a fight. – The quality ‘Snap-off’ spanner was ditched in favour of an angle grinder.

Anyway – I now have an axle with a reasonable condition diff, new oil seals, brakes, wheel bearings, etc.
I’m using two inch lowering blocks to get the rear down a bit. However, I needed some angled steel shims to go in there so that the diff and transmission are in the right alignment. (Engine and box are where they are, and not easy to alter their angle.)
Because the stud on the lowering block is not long enough to go safely through both the shim and axle’s spring mount, I decided I’d weld the shim to the mount. However, I found there are some convenient holes on the mount, so bolted them on instead. - So no need to put any heat near the axle casing.
This is a help because I can’t really remember which way the axle had to tip, but the shims could be unbolted and turned round 180 degrees if I’ve remembered wrong.

I had to make some angled tube spacers to go under the bolt heads so they all bolt up square. All that is hidden inside the lowering block.
Now need to look at getting the front down a tadge.

 

You've got a lot of skill and determination, that's for sure. Looks fantastic considering what you started with, you should be proud of your accomplishments. Nice job.

 

Started taking the front suspension to bits.

Though the front end already has had some lowering blocks fitted in the distant past, I’m going to get rid of them and I have some new Jamco springs and shocks to get the desired ride height. Kingpins are shot so it all needed going through anyway.

I had fitted similar lowering blocks to my 56 Ford and you have to drill out six rivets holding the lower spring plate to the A arms and replace with bolts through the blocks. I managed to carefully drill them out when I did it. However, it is obvious that the person that took the Merc rivets out did it with a grinder and a blindfold!

Using threaded bar to replace the bolts he’d used one by one, I could then lower the ‘sprung loaded’ plate down gently in a controlled manner. (Rather than using the dodgy trolley jack and the big spring twang in the face method.)


Just look at the state of the top edge of the A arm where it looks like the rivets must have been levered out with a scaffold pole, and the no longer round rivet holes.


The razor sharp sliver of metal left hanging off the corner of the plate, (a bit of history from back in the day), had to be bent out of the way to get a spanner on the bolt’s head.

Then I take off the hub to start on replacing the kingpins. Oh look – there’s a bloody great saw mark across the spindle where someone must have cut off a seized bearing or something.


I could pretend I hadn’t seen that, or fill it with JB weld and dress it up a little. However, hitting a pot hole on a fast road might cause some 3 wheeled driving discomfort. So best not.

Time for a cup of tea and a search of the internet for replacement spindles and A arms.

 

Just catching this for the first time. Good save I'd have to say!

 

Great job. The 56 parking lights and Covette grille are killer...

 

Love the car and progress.
Humour is great also.

 

Looks great! The cut pictures on the roof are helpful.

 

A few more things ticked off the to-do list.

New fuel line throughout. Merc came with a new gas tank, and I’ve a new fuel pump and carb… so fuel delivery is all good!

I’ve run all new brake lines/hoses, fitted new handbrake cable, shoes, wheel cylinders, master cylinder, etc. I must say it is very satisfying to be at the stage where I’m bolting on new parts to other freshly painted clean components, hopefully for the last time!



Replaced the old chipped up front drums with some that are in better shape. I had to get a local engineering shop to press out the wheel studs and hubs. Then once the replacement drums were on the hubs they gave them a skim to make sure everything is running true. The firm I used have been in this building since 1940!


They’ve also managed to remove my old seized kingpins, after I gave up on the big hammer approach. They also fitted and reamed the new bushes.

In addition I’ve spent a fair bit of time lying under the car getting to grips with making up a dual exhaust system.

With the manifolds, someone in the past had braised on the downpipes. I’ve had to grind all that mess off, and drill out the studs before I could even start!



I’m doing all the pipework in stainless so hopefully I can fit and forget it.

Gets a bit tight in places as the exhaust gently meanders abruptly zigzags its way through to the back of the car. Because I don’t have a pipe bender I bought a bunch of miscellaneous bends off the net, and joined them all together. One might describe the system as ‘Konvoluted’, almost art, (Think Tracey Emin’s unmade bed, or the sort of art that gallery cleaners accidently put out with the rubbish.)


So it not exactly pleasing to the eye, (unless you’re the type of person who is emotionally ‘moved’ at the sight of a theme park waterslide), with lots of joins, and some pretty globby looking welds. However, it is functional and tucked nicely up out of sight and harm’s way. It’s mounted with lots of those rubber cotton reel mounts, so it won’t be rattling around on England’s pot-holed roads.


I’m using some British made steel pack ‘Speedtone’ mufflers. (I now have these on the Y-Block in my rod and they sound great! )

I’m afraid at the back it’s all gone a bit gooky Kustom. Apologetically peeping out from under the bumper, are the exhaust tips, self-consciously displaying their be-jewelled clamshell doo-dahs.


Though up front, I’m staying true to the hot roddy theme of this Merc, and added some exhaust dumps into the front fender wells.


Going to get me a couple of them O’Brien Truckers finned lake-pipe blank off plates to finish them off. Shame the only people who might appreciate this attention to detail will be, myself, and anyone I happen to run over during my travels.

Thanks to Shoebox Central in Oklahoma I now have some lower A arms and another spindle to replace the dodgy stuff referred to earlier in this thread.


Taken the opportunity to replace some of the worn out bits while the front end is all apart. (Don’t think a grease gun has been near the Merc since the ‘50’s!)


Lastly I have been considering what exterior mirror to use. They always spoil the lines, but living very close to what is officially Europe’s busiest road, London’s infamous M25 ring road, a mirror on the driver’s side is a necessary evil.

I see some folks with Mercs that fit a modern mirror, painted body colour to try and camouflage it, while others use a peep mirror so small it would not look out of place in the hand of a dentist. Well, I got to thinking if I’m going to have a door mirror, it’s got to be a statement piece – a mirror that shouts ‘Look at me! - I am the epitome of over the top jet-age automotive styling!’ So after a bit of searching, I decided I needed a ’57 Merc mirror. (The pointy Dagmar feature swung it!). They are not that common, and as a result they cost a bit more than your average Chinese catalogue piece, even the manky ones. Luckily I managed to get one that is in ‘reasonable’ nick.




Maybe it’s not everyone’s taste, but at least I should see the idiots that try to get in front of me by charging up on the inside at motorway junctions, until they’re door handle to shaved door handle, before running out of slip-road.

Anyway, I can almost see light at the end of the tunnel with this build! (Speaking of ‘light’, I still need to wire it up…. And buy another fire extinguisher.)


Onwards….

 

Nicely done.


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

I’ve mentioned before I live close to Europe’s busiest ‘freeway’ – London’s orbital M25.

Well, now on some of it the emergency lane is to be driven on, to reduce congestion. As a result I thought the Merc better be fitted with some hazard lights in case of a breakdown.

I’ve fitted some nice bright amber LED indicators inside the front park-light housings, and where the reflectors were originally fitted at the rear, all hidden behind white lenses. - So you’ll only see them when they’re working.

Have you noticed that when you’re in crawling traffic, lots of other drivers pretend not to be looking at the phone on their lap?

To try and prevent being hit up the arse by one of these idiots I’ve also decided to have a third brake light mounted on the parcel shelf.

I know they didn’t have these back in the ‘50’s, and this feature doesn’t really fit my build criteria. However, I reluctantly have to venture out into the modern world sometimes.

Not wanting to come across as some sort of Str**t Rodder, I wanted to avoid off the shelf units and thought I might be a bit creative using a nice period light.

Initially I thought of having one of those lights with “STOP” cut into the light’s casing, but these aren’t really the nice atomic type design I’m wanting.

Then I thought I’d use a ‘50’s autronic eye with a red bulb inside –



But the parcel shelf is pretty low compared to the rear screen and it might look a bit odd on a tall plinth. They’re also of a non-symmetrical design that doesn’t really sit right if it’s located centrally in the window.

So then I thought I’d use something like this tail light from a late ‘50’s Merc mounted on the parcel shelf on a couple of tubular stilts.



Only trouble with this is, it’s a bit long, and on a hard launch from the traffic lights, anyone sitting in the middle of the rear seat is likely to be speared in the back of the head. Perhaps that’s a price worth paying, as I really love the cool ray gun design. I even thought of having a pair of these protruding from scoops in the roof above the rear screen, but that means revisiting the roof and I have my doubts as it might just spoil the lines.

Finally I thought, ‘F*** it! - If I’m ‘gravitating’ towards something that looks like a ray gun, why not just use a ray gun mounted on the parcel shelf pointing at the drivers behind’. (Something Freudian going on there!)

So ‘Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before’, I decided to use a well-played with (broken) early ‘50’s Buck Rogers ‘Disintegrator’. (I wouldn’t want to mess with a ‘nice’ original one.)



For the anoraks it is actually a ‘U-235 Atomic Pistol’, which is basically the same as the 1935 version of the ‘XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol’, just marketed under the new name in the post war atomic era.

I’ve re-worked it a bit. - Being of ‘Saff London’ stock, I felt obliged to shorten the barrel slightly to a more convenient length - a ‘Sawn off’ or ‘snub nose’ if you like!

I’ve mounted it on ‘War of the Worlds’ inspired tripedal legs that the wiring runs down inside. (Ok – some bent old pipe and some ping-pong balls!)

The interior of my Merc has a lot of satin black/dark aubergine pearl at present, so with that in mind, I’ve painted this ‘feature’ in rather subdued purple-ish-gun-metal tones. Hopefully it’s not too in your face from outside the car.



Of course with a couple of half ping-pong balls I was ‘having fun as usual’, coming in from the garage as a bug-eyed body-snatcher from another planet!



I don’t think the other half, (or the neighbours!), were too impressed with the anal probing!



Funny to think LEDs release energy in the form of photons – So now I have a genuine ‘Photon ray gun’! (The light is fitted in place of the ‘Tri-thermal convergence unit’ - I kid you not!)



I’ll have a switch on the dash so I can isolate it from the other brake lights if I want, as I’ve read that rear visibility can sometimes be impaired, when the third brake light ‘reds out’ the rear screen.

It’s very easy to spoil a car using novelty items like this. Like a spider web grille on a ’32, or the over use of skulls and iron crosses, there is a balance to be taken into consideration. Sometimes less is more, and all that. So, being ‘Highly Illogical’ and ignoring my own good advice, I have surrounded the ray gun with a couple of vintage molecular engineering models because there’s a lot of ‘space’ on the parcel shelf to get ‘lost in’, and I want to ‘Klingon’ to the ‘50’s space-age theme.

The old model kit uses spring connectors, rather than solid links, so I have been able to make a couple of nodding atomic dogs!

I’ve also dug out a Roswell car dealer’s plaque from back in the day that I may, or may not, use as a license plate topper. The jury is still out too on using the rocket-ship port-holes.





However, I have added some monster tentacles coming up from behind the back seat, to compliment the ‘50’s Sci-fi B-movie vibe. I’m going to give them a little green paint later to keep them ‘traditional’.


With any luck, if anyone looks inside the Merc, this galaxy of strange, out of this world stuff will be distracting from the rest of the unfinished interior. (For the foreseeable future there’ll be no door cards, no carpet, no headliner, and just a purple blanket covering the ‘Ming’ing rear seat).



Anyway, hopefully this brake light will prevent knob-heads creating their own ‘big bang’ by running into me at warped speed.

………and I’m still milky-weighing up the options for fitting one of those strobe/pulsating flash modules to the third brake light, for added visibility/ray gun realism. But perhaps that’s too much of a ‘giant leap’ into the modern world!

Admittedly it’s very Marmite, and the thought of using a ray gun for a brake light is probably ‘alien’ to many of you, but as one of my friends told me, ‘sometimes you have to Dan Dare to be different’!

I make no Apollo-gies for all the space puns!

Anyway, if you do like ray guns together with old cars checkout this clip -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLO6jFxIcTg

Beam me up Scotty!

 

Update – Seems I’ve caught van-aerial disease, as for some time I have been obsessing with fitting a radio aerial to the Merc.

I know what you are probably all thinking…….


What I want is a futuristic looking ‘Jetson’s’ style radio antenna, something that would compliment my ray gun third brake light, and that looks a little similar to the ones that were once fitted to the Hirohata Merc.

(See – https://www.customcarchronicle.com/cc-builders/barris-kustom-shop/hirohata-merc-mystery-antenna/ for an excellent write up on them.)
Trouble with those is they don’t look very robust, - just a little too fragile for me.
There are old after-market attachments to be found, but not really what I am after.

So, instead of using a period accessory, I decided to customise a stock ’59 Mercury antenna, as they have a strong looking streamlined chrome base with a plastic lens.
The base is quite contoured but fortunately it fits the rear fender of the Merc pretty well, so no need to take a grinder to it. …..And by a happy coincidence the shape of it mirrors the dip in the swage-line on the door. (It’s all about the detail!)

First thing to do was put a small LED light inside that lens to give the radio antenna a faint ‘radio-active’ glow. (Why would Mercury have a lens, but not fit a light in them?)
I found a company that makes Perspex discs to any size, any colour, and with optional hole in the middle, that meant I didn’t have to whittle some myself. I bought a few of these discs, and they are now simply held in place on the antenna with some tight fitting rubber ‘O’ rings. I was going to use purple Perspex but that was too ‘in your face’, clear ones being slightly more subtle.
So anyway, here’s the finished article looking suitably Robbie Robotesque. –



I did think about adding some sort of Sputnik at the top, like this accessory, but again it might be too in your face, literally! - It could have someone’s eye out!

Played it safe and used another ‘atom’ from the molecular engineering kit, mentioned earlier in my build thread.
I also have an original pennant/flag from the TV series ‘Planet Patrol’ that came on American TV in the early ‘50’s. However, even though it’s ‘period correct’, attaching this might also push things even more over the top. (It’s also a bit childish, as it was meant for a kid’s pushbike. Maybe I’ll still use it on days when I’m feeling particularly childish!)

So that’s going to be the last of the do-dah add-ons for this car.
At the other end of the Merc…... The battery had a big modern looking orange ‘Halfords’ sticker right across the front of it, that detracted somewhat from the look of the engine bay. To cure that I covered the battery with an atomic design sticker, and used some more of my molecular engineering model atop the hold-down clamp. (This might also stop me poking my eye out as I lean into the engine bay!)

Other stuff - Brakes bled.
For ease of checking the fluid, I fitted an ‘in-period’ remote filler up where the battery used to be. This remote filler is an old power steering reservoir that is connected to the new master cylinder nestled deep down in the engine bay. This reservoir has the added benefit of providing a few more presses of the brake pedal in the event of a leak.

I’ve now also completed all the re-wiring, as the Merc had no wiring what-so-ever when I got it. Not an enjoyable task for me, spending a lot of time upside-down and uncomfortably contorted up behind the dash.
I used an American Autowire ‘Route 9’ kit and can recommend them. It had plenty of wire to play with and all labelled for idiots like me, taking the worry out of which gauge wire to use.
So now the Merc is beginning to feel like a real car. I can now sit in it and turn things on and off, including the newly fitted electric wipers, for which I shortened the arms and used smaller Triumph TR2 wiper blades. Somehow having the lights turned on for the first time feels similar to the awakening of Frankenstein! – The beast comes to life!

(I’ve put a purple down-lighter behind the dash to give it a bit of added ‘theatre’. It’ll look better when I eventually get round to putting some carpet in there.)
Have taken it off the jack stands for the first time after re-doing the suspension and it now sits a lot better –

Also got me a prop shaft from the States. (I was never going to find a suitable one in the UK.) It was too big to post here, so the vender very helpfully shortened it.

So the next job is to have that put back together!

 

I'm on board for the spaceship vibe, I love it.

 

Me, too. We must be related to each other.

 

Summer seems to be upon us early, so time to get to the heart of the matter!

Got a complete together engine as a supposed runner from a guy relatively locally who was upgrading to a more modern power plant.
For peace of mind I felt I needed to take it apart and look inside.
I know it would have made sense to have had the engine dipped, or steam cleaned or something, but being on a budget I got all the crud off it in the traditional way, using a wire brush, petrol soaked rags and a screwdriver.
Anyway, it was obvious once stripped that it had been rebuilt sometime in the past, as it already had over-sized pistons. Seen worse wear and all major components appeared ‘usable’.

(As you can see, I like to work in a very clinical environment, that is to say, an environment similar to that of a Field Dressing Station at the Battle of the Somme!).

After spending my evenings cleaning the pistons and fitting new rings, I gave the bores a clean up.
It was only after I did this that I noticed a mark in the bore that had not been just a stain, but was a bl**dy crack!

Block has already been bored to the max, so options –
A. Put it all together and hope, with the intention of swapping out the engine over next winter. (Maybe it might get me to a couple of events and give me the chance to shakedown the car generally. What the worst that can happen? - It would overheat, or go bang!)
B. Sleeve it. (This is likely to escalate into a more expensive rebuild than I can afford right now).
C. Start again from scratch and strip down another engine I have lurking at the back of the garage as a back up.


D. Take the engine out of my A Coupe and put it in the Merc, and possible end up with two non-runners for a while.


Need to sleep on it, having first consumed large amounts of rum.

The course of true love never did run smooth!

 

Could always do E) combine your 2 engines into one good one.

 

Actually E is looking the best option right now.
And here's a useful tip. -
Even though you may be sure in your own mind that you've drained an engine of oil, always double check before you turn it up-side-down in your garage.
(It's been one of those weekends!)

 

Could always just sleeve that one cylinder if that's the only problem.

 

Sleeving the cracked cylinder would work, though the engine had been bored out plenty already, so if one cylinder had gone, others are probably near the limit.
So I’ve put the cracked engine trauma behind me now, and using the best parts from four engines I’ve now broken up!
So basically I now have my ‘spare’ 1955 block with ’57 heads.
Another cracked one I used as a ‘mock-up’ engine, came out and was consigned to the garden.

One good transmission has now also been put together by a 1950’s transmission specialist on the outskirts of London utilising parts from two I’ve had sitting in my garage for the last few years.

Back to the engine rebuild - Well it has not been without issues.
Having been supplied with a wrong set of rod bearings, and a wrong set of crank bearings, I finally got the right ones and started assembling it all.
Though the crank pulley looked fine when I put it on, as I tightened it up I noticed that the harmonic balancer was slightly p*ssed.
Unfortunately the ‘vulcanised’ rubber holding the balancer to the pulley had lost its ‘Spock like grip’, and the thing was actually in two pieces! – Probably something to do with the marks on it that look like someone had previously tried to lever/hammer it off a crank. (I use a home-made puller myself, made from a bolt on power steering pulley - so not guilty.) Good job I hadn’t attempted timing the engine using this, as the timing marks could rotate willy-nilly on the crankshaft.

Another pulley now fitted.
Then when I went to fit the brand new oil pump it fouled the lip of the sump. Only by a smidgeon that meant the mounting bolts struggled to find their holes.
It was either ‘modify’ the lip on the sump, (which would involve undoing the 126 bolts that I’d only just done up to hold it on, and the fitting of a new gasket), or take a slither of metal off the oil pump casing. Sorted that with some conservative hacksawing and filling.

Then I offer up the Edmunds tri-power intake I’ve had sitting in my garage for years. Sat it on the engine and it rocked! I mean it literally rocked. - Some ham-fisted hot-rodder in days gone by had over-tightened this, cracked it in numerous places, then welded it up. Stupidly, they hadn’t ensured that the mounting surfaces were straight.
Sitting it on the engine without a gasket I could see daylight through the mating area where the coolant is suppose to run under pressure!
Not having access to a machine shop, or the cash to go to one, or to go get another manifold, I opted to employ some files, emery cloth, a straight edge, a keen eye, and some bottles of beer, to sort the problem.
The danger here is treating it like a bad haircut where you lop a bit off one side, then the other, and then carry on ‘correcting it’ until you’ve well and truly f*cked it all up!
And the more you take away, the deeper into the engine valley the intake is going to sit, with the knock on effect that none of the holes will want to line up without using fifteen sets of gaskets to act as spacers.

Though fairly time consuming, it fortunately didn’t need much to sort it, just lots of trial fitting and delicate whittling.
I bought this engine knowing it had an issue with the rockers not getting oil.
This was not an uncommon problem with Y-Blocks and was usually due to the internal oil pipes from a cam journal that feeds them, being sludged up through lack of oil changes back in the days of crap oil.
Whilst apart I had used pipe cleaners and carb cleaner on all the oil ways.
The other reason for oil not getting to the top of the block was wrongly installed cam bearings where the holes in them don’t line up right. I checked these and they were fine.
A worn cam bearing was another cause. A groove in the journal of the cam carries the oil, but when worn, the groove in effect gets shallower and not enough oil can get through.
As a precaution I did carefully hacksaw the centre of the groove in the cam journal just a tad deeper.
The cam bearings actually looked OK – no groove wear and the end float was fine.
Being over-stretched budget-wise I opted not to replace the cam bearings as I felt they still had life left in them. Silly maybe, but stuff for this engine is not as cheap as Chevy’s. (On this side of the Atlantic spares can be hard to find so you have to pay for shipping and then customs duty paid on both the items and the shipping costs!) I would have also needed a machine shop to install them - a lack of cash at the time certainly helped sway the decision.
Using an old dizzy with the gear drive removed, and having primed the new oil pump, I turned the pump using a drill. Though oil was now getting to the top of the heads I was disappointed to see it was less like a fire boat, with gushing hoses, but more akin to an old man with prostate problems, displaying a less than spectacular series of spurts and dribbles!
Options –
1. Go indoors and pursue a different hobby, cursing the day I ever got involved with old cars.
2. Take the engine out of my A and put it in the Merc.
3. Strip the engine back down and install a new set of cam bearings, new gasket set. (more money/time wasted).
4. Get creative and employ an engineering solution used back in the day that would cost me nothing but a bit of garage time.
Went for number 4.
To get round the issue of lack of oil at the rockers, a kit was once marketed that used an external oil pipe connected to the side of the block that took the oil up and in through the valve covers, and into the rocker shaft. This could be fitted without stripping the engine.
I had some bits of one of these kits so dug them out and this band-aid fix commenced, fabricating the missing parts, and using brake fittings for a good seal.
The stud that holds the valve covers down is replaced with a hollow one. The oil is fed down it and out through a small hole and channelled through a plate with a slot, (covered by another plate to make a tunnel), and directed into a hole in the rocker shaft that was originally used to fit an excess oil return pipe.

Cobbled this together. I drilled the rocker shafts so that the feed could go in from either end of the rocker cover. (The oil return pipes were only fitted at one end). Drilling holes both ends meant the lines could be made less visible tucked behind the engine. A test of this visual abomination with a black and decker showed plenty of oil now getting to the top of the heads.

I then decided to try it again without this exterior feed, as I had by now fitted the rockers using the old Y-block trick of crimping shut the excess oil return pipe from the rocker shaft. This has the effect of pressurizing the oil within the shaft.

These oil return pipes fit into the shaft and stop it from turning, so if I did use the external feed, the crimped oil return at the other end of the shaft would stop it from rotating and moving the oil holes that feed the rockers.
I had also tightened the nut, (that the manual warns never to over-tighten), that seals the pickup pipe into the oil pump, in case I was losing pressure by sucking in air.
Low and behold the engine now, without the external oil pipe, appeared to oil normally using the drill. – Perhaps I had just been paranoid before? Anyway, all that exterior oil feed I made turns out to have been a bit of a waste of time and I’ll not now be using it. (hopefully!) Posted the details here anyway, as folk can see how it works.

I will keep it in reserve and I’ll keep a regular check on the rockers once its running, listening out for noisy tappets, as I’ve not had the engine turning in anger and the oil has not got hot and thin yet.
Speaking of hot - All this was work has been done in a garage that in the recent hot snap has got up to over 100 degrees inside. Doesn’t help that the garage has a tin roof and large steel door, - a sort of scaled up version of the ‘oven’ Alec Guinness staggers out from in the film ‘Bridge over the River Kwai’. (Bet he didn’t have to work on a bloody Y-block while he was in there!)

So – fitting the engine back in soon. It may leak, knock-knock-rattle, or go bang, but at least I know I’ve done the best I could with the bits I have. Fingers crossed.

 

Milestone reached this weekend - Actually ‘drove’ the Merc out of the garage!
First time it has moved under its own power for many, many, years.
OK – it only moved a few feet, but now it’s no longer just garage art and is technically a car.
However, I nearly had a disaster reversing it back in, as I have found that the rather spongy brake pedal and the accelerator are placed a little too close together.

So those issues will now have to be addressed!

I know I must be close to getting it out on the road because I have fitted one of the last bolt-on’s - the flying eyeball emergency hood catch. I need that to cope with England’s potholed roads!

Still some other jobs to be done before I venture out into the big wide world. It’s taken 5 years to get to this point so now in mid-winter, (being a bit of a woose), I’m not in any great rush. Happy to have it out on the road once all the salt has gone. (A lack of heater and windscreen de-mister is also a factor in waiting a bit longer).

 

Great write up, loved the descriptions of your issues from across the pond. And the lingo, wing, de-mister, boot, etc.

 

i think the man who just got the 37 zephyr in another thread should get you to come and help.....wonderful job there!!

 

Been driving the Merc for a few months now, and being England, it’s rained quite a few times when I’ve been out and about. –


So about time to fit some door glass.

I’d looked for any useful tips on line for making templates but couldn’t see any, so this is how I went about it.

So the doors - When I got the Merc it had no interior door handle mechanism, so I found some mid 50’s Merc ones that fitted the same bolt holes. Had to extend the arms – hence I welded the join visible in the photo below. (Maybe they were from a 4-door with shorter doors?)

I also had no interior arm rest so used some ‘56 Ford ones I already had lying around. Had to weld a plate to the door to screw these to.

These door latch mechanisms have a splined shaft for the handle, whereas the original Merc one had a square boss. Not a problem as I had ‘56 Ford handles that fitted the splines.

Now I wanted to fit windows I found that I would have miss-matched interior handles. So I bought some Ford pickup spline repair pieces, which fortunately share the same spline as 56 Ford passenger car handles. Easiest option was to cut the end off and weld it on the original cut off Merc winder.

Easier said than done, as the original Merc square boss appears to be made of an alloy type metal that doesn’t want to weld nicely. I had to grind the rivets off holding this on and remove it, then weld the splined shaft to the cog mechanism and then weld the riveted plate back on. – All more involved than I wanted it to be.

The Merc came with its original window winder mechanisms but one side was missing the piece that holds the bottom of the window. Luckily I had some shorter 4-Door Merc winder parts for spares. (This is the good one - As you can see I’m working with only the best quality components.) –


Notice these are all different lengths and different spacing’s on the mounting holes.

I realised also, when I did the chop I made the quarter-light windows smaller to enhance the shape of the main window, making it a more pronounced ‘letter box slot’.

You can see the dimple in the garnish moulding where the front runner was originally located.

Making the wind-window smaller has the effect of making the measurement between the main window tracks longer, so I figured I also need to lengthen the pieces holding the glass. Out came the welder. (Had to cobble together one piece from numerous little bits of the 4-door part.) –

The main problem was the runner at the back of the door. Because of the chop the glass has to wind up at more of an angle. The front runner is spaced out where it bolts onto the door at the bottom. The back runner obviously has to mirror this precisely as glass is not so flexible.

The original rear metal runner was toast and I only had the one anyway, so I bought a Land Rover Defender 90 110 runner that uses the same thickness of glass. This was more than long enough to do both doors. It has a metal U channel with the rubber/flock bit bonded to it. This sat nicely in the lock protector, bolted in there using tiny countersunk bolts. Because I now have a slanted door pillar, I pie cut the very top of the channel to point it in the right direction where the door post angles forward.

I bolted on the lock protector piece, (that the back runner sits in), back in its stock location with the new flocked rubber window channel fitted in both channels. I used this flexi stuff for the front and top channel. - https://www.carbuildersolutions.com/uk/flocked-window-u-channel-per-metre).
(This is the lock protector plate and original channel.)
I now had an accurate measurement as to how wide my glass template had to be at its widest point.
Initially I got a piece spare Perspex cut to the required width to be sure that it ran up and down the runners OK before I started concerning myself with shaping a full size template.

Once I had made a template for the window I inserted this into the bottom of the runners. The rear runner, (latch protector), was only bolted at the top at this point, so the template would force the rear runner to pivot to the same angle to the front runner. Once the template was connected to the winder mechanism and I was happy with the way it went up and down I marked where the rear runner was. Then drilled another hole to attach the lower end of the lock protector. (See the lower shiny bolt has now been relocated to get the correct angle for the runner.)


(With the door open you can see where this Merc was lifted by a chain through the doors back in its junk yard days.)

To make templates for the glass I used card to start with but it was too flimsy, so then some thicker sheet to get in the ballpark and then 5mm thick Perspex to be as close to glass as possible. I drilled the piece that holds the bottom of the glass, so when I used the Perspex I could bolt it to stop it moving about, but get it out easy when it was time to replace it with glass.

This is it with the Perspex template.

Now I just need to get the garnish moulding off and attach a fuzzy to it.
Using this – https://www.carbuildersolutions.com/uk/inner-window-trim-draught-seal-1-metre

And going to glue/bolt a piece of weather strip to the inside of the door just below the window trim.
https://www.carbuildersolutions.com/uk/flocked-window-trim-drip-seal-per-metre

I don’t want this to stand above the exterior window trim as it would look wrong, and I like to rest my elbow there.

So that’s pretty much it.

Must remember not to shut the doors with the windows up, as not yet fitted the door solenoids!

 

Great work! I'm currently doing similar hassles on a '57 Chevy 2 door sedan conversion car, welding up old window bottom sashes and making new felt glass channels and I know what a pain that can be. I could just order new stuff but I'm trying to keep a budget and use up what's laying around. Your Land Rover sourced window channels look like they fit really good, are they easy to bend into shape? That might be a good junkyard sourced item for future builds.