Customs My '59 Edsel Wagon Custom

I just wanted to finally share my project with y'all on here:

In December 2009 when I was 23 I scored this 1959 Edsel Villager off eBay for the bargain of $750, pulled from the woods in Arkansas and brought down to me in Florida. The car was essentially 98% complete, really only missing a back-up lens and a chrome piece for the hood. The interior was 100% there, save for a couple fist-sized rust holes in the floor. The worst part was decades of rat poop and nests under the hood and throughout the car. The original 332 V8 was frozen solid, even after a month of soaking in acetone and tranny fluid. Luckily my dad was able to trade some carb work on a buddy's Mustang for a running and driving '69 Marquis with a 429 2V and C6.

I've got three years of pics to catch up on, but I'll post the highlights. I'm shooting to have it ready in hte Spring for BilletProof FL. I'll keep adding on as I make progress.

The first pic is from the original eBay auction, the rest are in my driveway.

 

The first priority was gutting and hosing off the interior, as all the rat poop was quickly growing mold in the Florida humidity.

 

Hi
Another one cool Villager is saved... Great car, hope to see more!

 

Well now it's 1:20 in the AM here in Alberta so you should have been at it for at least an hour this morning. Come on now get going, LOL, No I mean it !!! I want to see this puppy running by lunch

 

Great find ! Any poisonous insects found yet ?

 

awesome i love the edsel,is the engine made of wood?..haha

 

Cool car, there's a motor mount which will let you bolt that 429 in! Good luck!

 

Wow! That engine shot is something else. Woods fresh.

 

At least the engine is organic.

 

The previous owner was a real packrat!

 

I will really be looking forward to another Villager build!

 

Cool!!

 

Gotta love that longroof, good luck with the build.

 

I always loved the Twin-Pod Instrument Panel on the Dash. Super-Cool !!

Good luck with it: Rare, Smooth Riding, Great Body Lines !

Jonnie www.legends.thewwbc.net

 

Love them Edsels.. Can't wait to see what you do with this one.

 

Thanks for all the positive feedback already guys! (Sorry I was over visiting the girlfriend for a day)
I was seriously cautious when I started digging thru this thing, much to my surprise, no nasty critters of skeletons were found. I actually had a little fun making a photo comic strip of getting attacked by a varmit (it's an antique one of those "Fancy Nuts" cans with the springy snakes, only it's a fox skin wrapped around a spring). Also here is the majority of the debris under the hood.
(And, Spoiler Alert: I had the car running and driving around the yard this last Memorial Day). It's just not fully assembled or street legal yet. My dad had the idea of using late-'70s F-250 motor mounts and the 429 fit like a charm. (Pics of that coming soon)

 

Oh, I also found this in the spare tire well. I thought it was a dead coon or oppossum. It turned out to be a mop head. Hahaha

 

So next I cleaned out under the hood, dropped the gas tank, and got all the crusty gross stuff out of the interior.
Then came tearing down the front end to prep for the new motor.
My best friend of 12 years came over to help give one last shot at barring over the old 332, which was a no-go. So he helped me pull the engine, a fun day of hanging out, just like back in high school.

 

Nice!

 

Just so you know the gas tank sending unit is Station wagon/Ranchero only and is not available repop...

 

That was over August/September 2010. The Marquis hadn't been shipped yet from NY. So to kill some time I thought I'd try my hand at body work and tackle the quarter panels and tailgate. I smoothed some seams in the tailgate jamb. There's a before n after of the tailgate. On the gate you can see the outline of the original "Hope Auto Co., Hope, Ark" dealer badge, now safely kept in my tool chest. Also I experimented with paint options. My first choice was Duplicolor Grabber Green and Whimbleton White rattle cans, not bad. However the Grabber Green faded in the sun, and then I found the Sublime Green Pearl Metallic and Champion White premixed laquers in the auto stores. Those are the keepers. Haha

 

Yeah sadly I discovered that. But the wrapping inside the sending unit looked intact, so I just cleaned it and reassembled it. I haven't tested it yet tho.

 

In late August the Marquis arrived. The great thing about the car was that the engine purred, but the frame was a rusted husk and totally unsafe. One of my dad's buddies restores Mercs, so they saved the hood, fenders, deck lid, bumpers, interior, and dash, basically leaving me a ginormous go-kart, which was A BLAST to tear around doing donuts!
So I transplanted the motor, tranny, drive shaft (shortened), limited slip rear, power brake goodies, brake rotors (12"!!!), power steering (maybe for another time), and the whole wiring harness from the Merc to the Edsel.
Here's the Merc as delivered, and post-swap. Nothing went to waste!
(You may notice the pass. quarter panel got spray painted camo green... I had to hide the car in the bushes for 3 months from my mom. True story. Haha)

 

Now for the fun part: Cherry picking that 429 and getting it nestled in the Edsel's frame rails! Pretty straight forward. I used obsolete '78 F250 motor mounts (junkyard sourced) to bolt the engine in, and it sits low (but not below the cross member) and back close to the firewall. There was a slight gap where the "V" of the motor didn't match the mounting plates of the crossmember, but I used a couple galvanized plates from Lowe's lumber dept, and it fit perfect.
For the transmission I used the Edsel's original mount, which only needed a little modification. The transmission crossmember needed to be notched and boxed to clear the pan, and a plate welded on the back to extend the position for the mount.

 

After getting the fit right, I cleaned and painted the engine a dark green metalflake. I used the Edsel's air cleaner lid to help camoflage the 429. Eventually the valve covers will be gold also.

With the engine and transmission in place, and having made new transmission cooling lines to the radiator, I started reassembling the front end. I cut the lower corners of the Edsel's original core support slightly sharper to fit the bigger 429 radiator. I also welded the lower radiator mounting tabs to the core support, with the upper ones being bolted in place, to make removing the radiator in the future easier. The upper radiator hose is stock to the Merc, and the lower hose was $10 at Autozone that I picked off the shelf because it looked right. I replaced the control arm bushings and shocks as I reassembled the front suspension. I also replaced the rear shocks while I had the tools out.

One obstacle was getting the Edsel's bellcrank setup to work with the 429's carb linkage. I made custom rods with all-thread and heim joints.

 

A quick side note:
Making the transmission, fuel, and brake lines was tricky because of the long lengths involved. I bought coils of line of the appropriate diameters at the auto store. To straighten them, I thought I'd get fancy and, instead of tapping the coils straight with a rubber mallet in the driveway, I made a tubing straightener out of scrap metal and a few small hardware bits.

A 1"x1" piece of square tubing, a 1"x2 or 3" piece, some nuts, bolts, and washers, and 5 sliding door bearings, and VOILA! For less than $20 in hardware, I saved myself $200-$300 for a tubing straightener.

 

For the power brake booster, I used a 7" dual diaphragm Ford unit from Napa. It was the biggest I could go, just barely clearing the valve cover and hood hinge.

Originally I was going to use small brackets by Tuff Stuff that matched the bolt patterns of the booster and the Edsel's firewall. However I decided I didn't like the extra couple inches it stuck out from the firewall, so I drilled two new holes to bolt the booster directly to the firewall.

I reused the Marquis' proportioning valve setup, bolting it to the frame right in front of the firewall. I made new lines going from the master cylinder to the prop valve, making the tight colis by wrapping the tubing around a Tabasco bottle.

 

With the major underhood stuff figured out, I had the inner fenders and core support sand blasted, then painted and reassembled the front end. It's creeping back to look like an Edsel!

 

Really enjoying the pics. Looks good!
Your wagon is much better than mine was starting out. actually its still better

Did you put the front springs back in or buy new?

 

Thanks, Greg!
Yeah the body is pretty solid, save for a few pinholes in the quarters and a couple large rust spots in the floor that I haven't gotten to yet. If there was any trace of the original white paint left and if the original motor ran, I would have rocked it "as is." Haha

I tried putting the Merc's springs in, thinking since they were tuned for the 429. But they were just too tall to compress and bolt the spindles back on. But I did some research and there wasn't much weight difference between the 332 and 429. So I put the originals back in. I've read on here about the Aerostar spring swap, we'll see how it sits, maybe that will happen one day.