I have a bit of a 292 paint mystery. During tear-down I came across green paint on my block which appears to be the original color under several other completely wrong colors. I recall seeing this green on a Merc Y-block somewhere in the past. Seems to be a fair amount of opinion and controversy surrounding some of the Y colors. Was green only used by Mercury in '56, and if so, any detectable pattern to the vehicles the greens went in? ECK-6015B.

I bought a pretty wasted '54 Ford for $200 to get this engine. The owner said the engine was "just a 239". A quick peek at the casting #s told me it was a '56 292 with later G heads (turns out posted). castings are all Cleveland. The valve covers were standard overtightened Ford tin.
A couple examples of the green at the block # and behind the bell housing:
 

Any idea what the dial numbers indicate next to the distributor hole?
 
I happen to have a set of these merc valve covers I found at a swap years ago. Might be time to use 'em.


... and speaking of Mercury flavored candy, ran across this recently in a neglected box in my attic:


Cheers and thanks,

Bill C

Drag it home, figure it out.

I’m currently working on a 1955 Ford P code 292 which has the ECK block casting number.  This particular engine is the 198 HP version and is a restoration project for an original ’55 Ford 4 door Police car.  In reverse engineering the actual static compression ratio, it’s coming up quite a bit short from the factory 8.5:1 advertised rating.  The plan is to mill the heads and deck the block in which to restore the compression ratio back to the advertised values.  Using current technology composition head gaskets and replacement pistons that have a reduced compression height simply adds to the amount of milling that must be performed in which to achieve that.  The factory pistons had a compression height of 1.783” while the replacement pistons have a compression height of 1.760”.  The original head gaskets were 0.025” compressed while the replacement head gaskets are 0.046” compressed.

As far as green for the engine color goes, I’m familiar with the 1957 Mercury 312 engines being gold but not sure what the colors were for for the preceding 3 years of Y production in the Mercury cars.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Interesting project Ted - the '55 police car. Head specs sure do get busy when considering all those variables - great info. I'll work on coming up with a definitive plan for the heads once they've been given a thorough inspection. Probably be pestering yunz again.

Yanked my block and heads from the local shop who was going to clean and magnaflux. After a month of "I'll get to it next week", and "just like a scruby" when I discussed details, I decided this was the wrong shop for any simple task on my hardware. Have to make a trip to Seatle monday so the goods will be going down to Gary at Pacific Auto Machine in Renton. I'm confident that with a good plan and good parts he can supply a worthy short block.

Great help guys... and great forum. Seldom is heard a discouraging word (rare on forums).
Thanks for your insight MercMark. I'll see you and your beautiful Merc Monday.




Bill C

Drag it home, figure it out.