Ians new project.
- This topic has 287 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 1 month ago by
.
-
Posts
-
So my truck is nearing completion. I had a friend of mine do a tune up on it so it is running much better but needs to be driven for a while and then some little stuff sorted out but winter hit here at the beginning of November so it is kind of on hold for 5-6 months. With being pretty much stuck at home due to Covid I figured it was time to do some work on my next project.
I bought this 1950 Mercury quite a few years ago. It is a bit of a mess and is going to be a pretty major undertaking. It started out as a four door that someone had previously, veryĀ poorly, started attempting to turn into a Carson topped car. I am not a huge fan of Carson topped Merc’s so I left the fiberglass top that the previous owner had with the car and have been collecting parts to turn it into a coupe over the ensuing years. When I bought the car the guy selling it had a basket case 4 door as well so I cut the roof off of that to use.
When I first brought it home I did some quick fitting of the 4 door top to the body just to make it easier to store so this is basically what I brought home.
The car has a lot of filler on it which will have to be remedied. It is hard to see but the tops of all the doors had been cut off and a sheet of steel welded over the top to make it a roadster with no side glass so I will have to fabricate all of those parts. I do have the door tops from a 4 door that I will use for the upper section. All the other typical Merc issues like rockers exist and will have to be dealt with as well but I figured I should try and give the body some sort of stability before I tackle any of those and decided to press on with the top.
So I bought some quarter windows and proceeded to start working at adding them to the car. I was a little lax at picture taking when I first started but this gives an idea of what was involved on the drives side.
Exciting new project Ian. Looking forward to see progress on this rescued Merc..
Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
If it doesnāt nearly kill you it aināt worth having.
Looking forward to seeing what you do Ian. Remember… itās the journey, not the destination. Grant McLean bought a 49? Merc sedan off my mate Paul only a few hundred metres away and heās doing a superb 4 door to 2 door conversion. I should ask him to do a thread.Good on you, Ian.Ā Like Torchie and Quentin, Tony and so many others sharing their “journey”Ā in our CCC “Dreamtime”, you are focusing on that one step at a time and sorting it out nicely.Ā With the Covid thing, the CCC has become a real “go-to” place for all of us rust inhibitors.
Thanks guys. Haha Tony so true. So I wanted to get the passenger side going before I finished all the welding on the other side of the car just in case. This will give a bit better idea of how the driver side went.
I figured now that I knew the basic lay out I would weld up as much of it as I could on the bench rather than in the car so it was easier to access all the sides than once in the car. One advantage of piecing things together from 5 different cars. š
And attached to the car. This is where I am at currently but things should progress a little more rapidly than my truck did.Ā Although my son’s class got sent home this week due to a covid case so he is learning from home/Christmas break until mid January which might cut into some of my free time.
I am going to do the front like the Bettancourt Merc with a second grill surround flipped upside down so I had found one of those as well (in keeping with Tony’s theme is was a rusty piece of shit as well lol) so I had to rebuild a bunch of it a while ago. Didn’t take as many pictures as I should have but this….
became this although most of the above pieces were just used for patterns and I made new pieces. I didn’t worry about the rusty mess on the bottom as it is just getting cut off anyways.
Sorry about the multiple posts but the site will only post one picture at a time without bugging Rik to approve my posts every time so I figured this was easier than that. If it’s better the other way Rik just let me know.
As you can see in the last picture of the rear quarter window assembly there is a huge gap in the upper inner roof door frame from where I cut out the b pillar from the 4 door top. To fill that I cut a straight section out of the section I removed that would have been over the rear doors and fit it into the gap to fill the void. Needed a bit of a slice and opening up at the back and I am going to have to thin out the part that was still attached to the roof as it flared out as it approached the b pillarĀ so it’s a bit too wide. I cut some out but it needs a bit more.Ā All of this takes forever because the inside of everything is covered in some sort of tar like substance which all has to be cleaned off or it gasses through the welds leaving a mess. It was clearly designed o stay on forever. At this point everything is just tacked in place. Oh and this picture shows you the crappy job the guy did turning this into a roadster.
-
This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by .
-
This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by .
Then I wanted to fit the rest of the quarter window so I cut it down to size, removed the drip rail and got it fit up. I need to make a filler piece to complete fitting it but the homemade brake I have is at my moms so I will have to tackle that tomorrow. I am wanting to get a 4′ box and pan brake so I can do the door tops, rockers etc without having to weld things together like I did on the running boards for my truck but I need to figure out where I can put it and how to get it home.Ā Anyways hopefully some more updates tomorrow.
. -
This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.