yep... I know what you mean about being 16 and willing to "kill" for a certain car... but for some of us, when we were 16, we were riding around in a car that we thought was dull, but today we would "kill" for... like my Mom's sweet green and white 2 dr hardtop 56 Mercury!  At 16, all I thought was how terrible it was to have to ride around in an "old lady's car" like that Merc!   Wow... if only I had it now!

good thing about Daniel is, he appreciates what most of us consider "classic" cars!  Every one of his school friends who have seen this car have been knocked over with how "cool" it is... guess some things transcend fads and such!

Just took receipt of my sample kit from KBS Coatings yesterday afterrnoon, so by this weekend, I should have some pics to post of the treated trunk area... its really bad!  I'm just hoping to halt the rust for the time being until we have the money and sheet metal to do it right!

thanks again for the interest and suggestions; Daniel reads every post and just smiles at the input from the Y-block family!

Mark

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

Most people find old cars to be cool. That's not a problem. The problem is that most people are brainwashed into believing that old cars are terribly unsafe unreliable and expensive and this for the most part is completely untrue. Now, safety, the older it is, the more unsafe it tends to be. You have an significantly increased chance of survival in a newer car. That is an area where technology simply comes out ahead.


Lawrenceville, GA

safety first.

on the positive, affordable, easy to fix, cheap tags, simple. there's a reason why quality and simplicity keeps it going.



helps to look cool too!




This ain't no L-Kamino!

yep... I won't even describe how the seatbelts are secured in this thing!

on a more expensive note, my body/paint guy came by the house this afternoon to have a look-see and will give me an estimate for the body/paint work... that will hopefully be done sometime in the distant future... looking at prob $3-4K in body repair work and into primer... then prob $2K more to get it all the way done.  Same guy who helped me do my 57 Fairlane, so I know and like his work.  It'll just take some time for Daniel to come up with that kind of money.

in the meantime, temp repairs/mitigation on rust and getting it safe enough to drive to school and back will be the day's order.

more pics day after tomorrow if all goes according to plan!

Mark

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

a few pics of the mundane steps: doing some rust treatment in the trunk area (KBS Coatings 3 step product), attacking years of grease and road gunk and some elbow grease on the front drums...

 small area cleaned with a wire wheel on my drill...

 step one: Aqua Kleen: it really does take off a lot of rust!

 RustBlast: further cleaning and etching leaving the surface prepped for the last step...

 final step: RustSeal in gray... flows nice and smooth... what rust??

 yuck! gotta buy some rubber gloves... my cuticles were shot after a couple of hours here!

 front drums pretty rusty!

 after the wire wheel; plan to hit this with "high-build" primer then black high-temp paint

pretty dull stuff I know, but its all part of the show, right?  Guess I'll buy a couple of gallons of diesel fuel to do the initial grease/gunk removal instead of buying spray cans of "Gunk"; I used a full can of that just getting starting on the front end.

Thanks again for sharing our adventure and as always, your suggestions/input/comments are appreciated! 

Daniel and Mark

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

more scrapinig the bottom of Daniel's Merc; knocking rust off and there's actually some solid steel under there!

Sold some of Daniel's old radios at the vintage radio club auction today, so now we are moving forward with some brake part purchases.

Also believe I have scored a shift linkage so we can reinstall the column shift and get rid of the hacked in floor shift that came with the car.  Anybody got any idea how to hook up the shifter/linkage on a 63 Merc/Ford full size with automatic?  hopefully it will be pretty foolproof!

hopfully we'll have som pics of progress to post soon... oh year, Daniel has really getting the bumpers back to their shiny, chrome-glory!

Mark

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

wow... just read that last post; please accept my apologies for the bad spelling!

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

Received some NOS rocker panels today from Black Car LLC; found them while doing a google search for Mercury stuff. So the gathering of parts is officially on.  Will pick up some better rear brake drums tomorrow from my local salvage yard (I grew up calling them junk yards).  They also have a 64 Galaxie at the back of the property that I may be able to raid for some 14 inch stock Ford steel wheels, front and back bench seats and the shift linkage. The counter guy gave me a couple of leads for more body panels in Ft Worth and Oklahoma at other yards; hope that develops into some good buys. 

Perhaps the most important development is that Daniel got all his paperwork done today and will start his after school job tomorrow at a local retirement center; working in the dining room.  He had to get a tux shirt and bow tie to wear with dress slacks.  Its his first real job and I know he will be a good hand for the facility.  It so hard for folks to find work these days, and especially for kids still in school. 

Hope to post some pics soon. Thanks to all who are interested and encouraging.

Mark

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

Mark, just sent you a PM.

Glen Henderson



Freedom is not Free

Letohatchee, AL

Both of you are going to have a great time on this project. Memorys of the good and bad (mostly good) will last a long time.

My son was 6 to 9 years old when "we" did my 56, to hear his storys he single handedly restored dads car. 7 years later at 16, he found a  mustang (67) that was in primer. Told me "dad-dad it's in primer just needs paint". We looked at it and it needed more than paint.

5 or 6 years later the car was done, we had a good time working on it together and spent way more than the car is worth.

2 best moments, looking in the rear view of my 56 and seeing his mustang following on the way to ford carslile. second was he and his wife to be insisting that they wanted to leave the church after their wedding in the mustang, I did not know he was going to do the burn out he did pulling away. Lots of shocked (non car people) old folks that day.

Enjoy the car and the time you guys spend working on it together