Customs How are everyone's Mercury projects coming along?

No big progress, this winter is tough! -2 Farenheit today (-19 Celcius) and 20 inch more of snow to shovel today, took me four hours to get the road to my house driveable again...
After that a few hours in the garage is a must ! These are the latest photos of the progress this year: Trunk shaved and 4d doors removed for the two door conversion.

 

I finally brought my 1951 mercury home last week. Its a 2 door monterey,partially apart, sitting in my back yard covered up with a tarp. On the weekends i take the tarp off and walk around the car and try to figure out where i am going to start first. I need to sell my 47 chevy first so i can begin on this new project. Can't wait.

 

I'm going over to see my car and take some pics tomorrow, it's in final primer. I have pic so far but I can't seem to upload it, so I'll try to attach it right now.

 

That's real good news John.
I bet you are getting excited now.

 

It's looking good John. Can't wait to see it in color - bet you can't either!

 

Man he's wizzing right along now.
Goood for you, be on the road soon

 

I'm thinking it will get cranked out because they won't want to be stumbling over the parts, the doors and hood are primed too.

 

That 39' Merc is in amazing shape. It'll be way cool when it's done. That was the first time a ever saw soup up magazine. Very nice pictures in there!!

 

Kongrats John, I can't wait to see it on the street.

 

Gold! Gold! Gold!

May have some lettering or the car's drag name on the top of the rear quarters, just under the fins.

Gonna get some paint mixed into cans and give the car the rattle can special. I want to apply the paint from a can, but do it in a way that makes the car look professional.

Been kicking around ideas like a highlight gold shade and pinstriping. Nevertheless, should be impressive.

 

Thats a good sign, having it rolled it the booth all taped up... I'm excited for ya!

 

Looks great John, Are the quarter panels welded and the seams filled? Your Merc is going to be awesome with the new paint

 

Fantastic John! The light at the end of the tunnel....and it might not be a train.

 

ace, yes they are, they were from before the renovation.

I'm going over there for sure tomorrow am, will snap some pics with my DSLR and the wide angle.

 

John
I thought I would throw my project up here to take some pressure off of your painter; I've been there too. It sucks, but youll forget all about it some day. This is at slddnmatts shop; a true gent. I like your tail light idea; I may run some off of my 53 desoto. You are gettin close now! Cheers, Nick

 

Mine is waiting for the engine I sent to engine shop...

 

I hung out with the car and the shop for an hour took a bunch of pics. Car looks great, Paul fixed a million various issues that the car had, including bracing the hood since it was missing a cross bar. He also added some bracing to get it to work better. I noticed about 4 small things on the car that need a little work. Three of them were little dingers in the drip rails.

We looked at colors and picked one as our front runner (a very dark blue). Only one setback, it was a communication error on one thing - head light bezels.

 

Here's mine...I am putting in all new cloth wrapped wiring and converting it to 12 volt. I hope to be done by spring.

 

Drove around a couple hours and worked out a few minor transmission program issues. Its Race weekend here in Atlanta, got alot of thumbs up as well as a few wierd looks. I guess they were wondering what the hell we were doing messing with a laptop in an old 51 Merc custom!!!!

 

You gotta explain this....

 

Aight.... So a few folks pointed out to me a while back that my headlights looked funny, they looked small and tunneled in:



So I bought some '52 style headlight bezels with a stainless inner ring. Paul for some reason though I was just going to paint them and bolt them on, not french/weld them on. It had been so long since we had met that we never talked about this.

So this will add a little time to put french the bezels.

 

Pro Stock,
Be sure your guy does not rush the welding of the headlight rims to the fender. Those Ford rings don't quite match the curve of the Merc fender. There is a dip in the shape right where the two parts are welded together. Most people fill in the dip with some plates or lead.

From Ether's thread about his '51 Merc build.

 

Sigh. I'll talk to my guy about that on Monday. Thanks for the info Mike.

 

Pro Stock, well, if it's a choice between getting out of paint jail or having frenched headlights, I say get out of jail. Looks like stock 49 to 51 rings would bolt on if you had to . You can always french the lights later, maybe do some trick with scallops to avoid repainting the whole car.

 

Here's what it looks like before being filled. Mine is going to be filled with some sheet metal, but I don't think they stick out as much as Ether's do.

 

I'm just going to have Paul french them in, it's really key for me to have those. It would bug me to sell those unattached bezels after all the work that has gone into the car.

 

Ace-k I started out by welding the ring to the fender as you did. When you get done filling the fender in to transition with the Ford/Merc ring it will look like this.

 

Ether,
Thanks for the pictures, I guess it just looks like it sticks out further. Your workmanship is awesome.

 

Thanks and let me know if you need any help. I have a good template to make the filler if you need one.

 

Love your Merc. I'm in Chicago too. Love to see it on the road some day.