The dash came out great!! Your disciplined well to not take it apart further, I would have gutted it. Matranga side windows and buick side trim will be great. What tailights are you gonna run?
I do intend to gut it, just one step at a time. I already have three cars torn down to nothing....I'm trying desperately to keep something half drivable. LOL But, eventually over time, yes, the entire interior will be redone, buckets and console removed and a Merc bench put back in. So far as the side windows goes, yes, I intend to make it a hardtop ala Matranga/Hirohata. I would also like to slide the rear window back when I mess with that...I prefer the rear window simply laid down rather than slid forward like mine is. I like the 54 Chevy Lee lenses that are on it now, but I do have a really nice pair of 53 Lincoln tail lights I collected nearly 10 years before I even had a Merc....along with the 53 Buick trim. Like I said earlier, eventually, it will be a mostly right on Hirohata clone...although it will probably take me another 20 years to get there. LOL
Nice I have to do a rear-view mirror swap too, I'm running without one right now since mine was newer like your old one too.
DrDave Can you or anybody else tell me if the stock speedo cable connection is just a standard 5/8"? I need to hook up between it and a 700R4. I'll worry about accuracy later if I have to. Thanks. 1950merc
Hey 1950merc, I do not know the answer to your question, but I might still have the parts around to check tomorrow for you. Well, Dustin, I am still keeping my fingers crossed....I still don't have a brake pedal arm, so thus still no brakes. Tracking number says it will be here Monday, so hopefully will have it installed and brakes bled out Monday/Tues and will be on my way down the road.
That there is funny................. I just put one in today..... 700r4 to stock gauge. I just bought a 70s Chev cable. Pretty standard. It works but I haven't driven it yet to see how accurate it is (or isn't)
Got my fingers crossed for you!!Hopefully I'll be driving mine tomorrow.Looks like I'm going to have the same hood issue you had.I'm at the point of not even caring,just want to drive it.
Hardly worth dicking around with. You can buy a GPS unit for $79 or so and use it as a speedometer. I've ben doing that in all my cars with non working speedo's. Even passes inspection.
Ok. I drove it over the weekend. Stock Merc speedo and a 700r4. It reads slow by about 20%. Speedo reads about 45mph - 48mph on the hiway.
Well, I had it, then I didn't. Finished final assembly at 1:30am this morning and got up nice and early to bleed the brakes. In record time, the brakes bled out and had awesome pedal feel. Put the tires on it and ran it down the drive and everything worked great...I was totally stoked...a year and half, too many hours to count and it was finally back together. I was so stoked, I drove it a mile or so to Home Depot to pick up a few things and it drove super. Came out and it started right up, but as I was pulling away, it coughed, sputtered then quit, as if out of gas. I knew for a fact it had at least a 1/4 tank but whatever. Dumped some gas in it and it started right up, idled fine until I started to pull out again then did the same thing and quit. Went home for the trailer and came back to load it up and thought I would try to drive it on. Once again, started right up but as soon as I stepped on it to pull it up the trailer same mess. I have one vote for a dead fuel pump diaphram from sitting for 18 months with fuel in it. Picked up a new pump to put on tonight and hope that fixes it.....otherwise I guess I'm bringing a push toy to the Stray Kat. LOL
Well, I think I have it fixed. I have had similar symptoms with a fuel filter before, but this one was "looking" ok. As soon as I started messing with it last night, brittle hoses started cracking, the filter split open and gas was leaking everywhere. LOL. I replaced the pump, filter and all the rubber hoses from the steel line at the frame up. Tried to make it puke afterwords and all went well. Too chicken to drive it today to make sure tho. Since I had already committed to trailer it (sold some parts I need to haul to the SK in the truck and it also gives the Mrs some peace of mind.....and I owe her that after all the time I have taken from her the last 6-8 weeks putting this together. ), rather than risk something going wrong today I didn't have time to fix, I just loaded it up while I knew it was running well enough to get it on and back off. SK500 here we come!
I'm not hung up on the trailer thing. The most important thing, you are gonna be here in the Merc and having a blast. That is whats important. Just got mine out of the shop this morning, maybe a little bit too shinny for primer but It looks good. Looking forward to hanging out with ya. Happy Trails, Mick
Well, I made it to the Stray Kat without a hitch. The fuel pump was the problem I guess, cuz it has run fine and dandy since. I dropped it off the trailer in Dewey and promptly drove it however many miles on the reliability run out to Wooloroc and back without a single hiccup. Friday evening everyone was at the feed before I got there, so as I cruised around looking for a parking place, Krober saw me and waved me in to a spot in front of Travis' shop. I guess the secret to power parking is sometimes being late, not excessively early. LOL. Had a great time hanging out and seeing everyone again. Got to put a few more faces with names and that's always a good thing. Travisfromkansas (Roy Boy Productions) was there all weekend and had a few pics of the Merc in his collection from the weekend. This one was taken at Wooloroc and I think really made the car look good....way better than it is actually. But I think this pic is a great bookend to the last go around here and the final scramble to get to the show. And yes...I did clear it with Mick before I ordered that custom plate...but as the only sled in Conway, I thought it was fitting. Thanks for the awesome pic of my car Travis...and my new desktop. On Saturday afternoon after stopping by Ron Myers' tent a few times and yacking, I decided it would be cool to have him tattoo my trunk lid. Again, another fitting end and momento of the last 18 months of lots of work with very few visual changes. My wife lamented that such good striping will get painted over when I repaint the car, but I suspect that will be a while...besides, the clear was peeling on the trunk when I got it, so it has already been painted once in the last few years. So, maybe when I do a scuff and shoot in the future, I can skip the deck lid and Ron's handy work will hang around for a bit longer. If not, it's just another opportunity to hang out with a friend while he does something new....and there's never anything wrong with that. End of this round for the most part now. I have a few odds and ends to finish up and sort out. As soon as I get my stuff back from ChromePlaterJosh, I will get all that installed as well as fit the top of the new column to the Merc accessory wheel when that gets back from the recaster. The trans is not staying in overdrive like it should, but hopefully that is just an adjustment of the control module. I think the carb needs a proper tuning. I'd also like to mess with the hood fitment and see if I can get it where it should be without a whole lot of rework. But mostly, it's time for some miles and start wearing some stuff out.
Is it a 700R-4...? I've heard that the cable on a overdrive trans is the culprit for not staying in over...perhaps that needs a slight adjustment. Oh, the real secret to "power parking" is to know the owner of the shop (or his close pals)...or getting there at 4:45 AM when no one is around... Thanx for the pix... R-
Yes Roger, it is a 700R4. The column that was in the car was cable shift before and we could never get it adjusted. When I put the Flaming River column in it now, I changed the shifter to a traditional solid linkage set up as per the recommendations of the trans shop I use. So, yes, hopefully it's just an adjustment on either the linkage or the little magic box that controls this thing now. It has a screw inside that controls the timing of the lockup. My new speedometer is also off by a fair bit, so maybe that contributes to the problem some since all that stuff is tied together. Surely some fiddling will take care of it...I can't bear the thought of a trans rebuild right now. LOL
If any of you had seen in person how much drdave had to get finished on his Merc, you would have been amazed he it got it together in time for the Stray Kat. Wow is all I can say! That guy knows how to work! Travis' photo of the car going down the road on the Woolaroc tour is way cool, too!
I agree with Duncan, I thought you had no chance to make it in time. You sure proved me wrong. The Merc looked good driving around all over town. I'm glad that you made it up and we actualy had time to visit. Love the plate, I was gonna steal it but you were always too close. LOL! Keep up the good work. Happy Trails, Mick
LOL you guys are funny! I wasn't sure I was gonna make it either. Every night when I would go in after 12, I would walk by my list on the white board and think, "OK, if I get this done by tomorrow and that done by Thursday, this weekend I will be able to knock out a big chunk." Of course, tomorrow's and Thursday's things wouldn't get done even by the end of the weekend and the list never seemed to get much shorter very quickly. When I had that thing rolling down the driveway last Tuesday and thought I had it, I literally nearly cried...I'm sure it was the lack of sleep. When it quit not an hour later, I was spent and couldn't even think through the problem to start figuring it out. Thank goodness one of my friends was very confident it was the fuel pump...which it appears it was. I prayed all the way to Wooloroc, "don't quit, don't quit, please let me make it back to Dewey...it can quit there and still be a great weekend....I just don't want to have to spend the afternoon going back into town for the trailer and coming back out here to pick it up." It all turned out great. Really, the hero in all of this is my wife and all the hours she gave up to let me get this thing back on the road....nearly 200 since I started this thread 6 or 8 weeks ago. I'd hate to think what it woulda cost to pay a shop to put in those kind of hours.
The Jalopy Journal
