Just a quick post. It's a little thing, but this type of stuff is really gratifying. I was fortunate enough to be able to locate a replacement NOS rear courtesy dome light lens. I could have cleaned up the one I had and resprayed the chrome with something suitable for what it is and lived with the little chip at the mounting screw hole, but I was able to pick up a really nice NOS piece which just feels good to change out.
Combining several days worth of effort together here, but I have been working on putting the front and back of the car back together. After more than a decade, it amazes me that I can still locate the hardware and figure out how some of this goes back together.
At the back of the car, I was able to get the Mercury emblem installed. It was missing two the the posts, so I'm hoping it will hold up with the two remaining. Installing stuff like this needs to be done before putting the glass in or it won't be accessible. I was also able to get the external window crank/window lock installed. I had a NOS handle that I added which has the original factory red emblem in beautiful condition. A lot of buffing and polishing for everything before it goes on. This won't be a show car, but there is so much grime/hard water staining that a thorough cleaning leaves many of the parts looking almost like new (well, at least a lot better) compared to how they started.
This is filler trim for the gap between the rear bumper and the back of the car.
Here are a couple of pics of the wagon tailgate with installed hardware.
Once I had the bumper in, I had to think about the order of installation of several items including the emblem on the header panel, the Mercury logo for it as well, the front nose trim which ties into the grill, the long, thin trim on the fender that runs the length of the wagon, and the fender "grill" trim that allows access to the installation of other front end components. Last night I was able to get all of those installed except that last fender "grill" which will go in the next time I'm working on the car. It will need clean up before it is installed.
In the meantime, here is the front of the wagon, the first time it has been back together since I took it apart more than 13 years ago!
The bumper isn't perfect, but I have two, and I may just splurge and have the other one rechromed and swap it out at some point in the future as it is a highly visible piece. For now, this will work perfectly. I'll try to get a better picture of the front end when I can roll it out onto the driveway and step back more than two feet from it.
That's all for now. Next up will likely be getting the tailgate glass back into place, the other glass track for the tailgate glass that goes in the rear roof pillar, and hopefully reinstalling a good, used rear tailgate seal.
It been about a month since I last ran the engine, so I decided to fire it up and charge up the battery. I'm always impressed at how well this car runs, and the relative ease to start it. And it is at this moment that I realize that I have not added a video of the engine running. We had more snow today but, weather permitting, I will get a video of the engine running and post it tomorrow.
This is a mild-built 429 with ported and polished D0VE-C heads, a simple Performer intake, and a Holley 750 with vacuum secondaries. The headers I build myself, and there are a couple of posts about them, ignition is a Jacob's Electronics multiple spark ignition, and it backs up to a C6 transmission.
And, as the title of the post says, I picked up a 3.25 Trac-lock center section which will be added soon!
Next projects up are assembling the remaining components of the rear door and working on the front bumper.
The rear bumper is installed. I've been working on this car for so long now, I sometimes forget how much went into the car. I have several hours into cleaning things up, removing, or at least improving, some of the dings or dents as well as removing overspray paint, a little polishing, and general clean-up.
I actually have three bumpers for the wagon, the one it came with which had nice chrome, but had been hit and needed work. A second one I picked up off of a parts car that was in better shape, but not by a lot. And a third one which was listed as NOS, but I suspect was just rechromed at some point and then left to sit. This third bumper is the one I have opted to use in spite of the fact that it does have numerous pits in the chrome as it shines nicely and is straight.
The bumper brackets were in good shape with just light surface rust, so they were sanded, primed with Eastwood Rust Encapsulator and then painted with Eastwood Extreme Chassis Black which I've had good success applying with foam brushes.
The back-up lights and license plate lights all needed to be cleaned and polished up. Everything was caked in Texas dirt and most had overspray where someone had painted the car a darker blue, but must have taped off almost nothing.
One of the really cool additions was a set of NOS Ford over-the-counter bumper steps. I picked them up years ago and it's great to finally see them on the car.
Before I could install the bumper, I also had to clean up the bumper fill panels, a 3-piece set of anodized aluminum trim that actually cleaned up pretty nice. The main center piece took more then an hour to clean off oversprayed primer and paint that was down into the ribber pattern. I also decided to add the door handle while I was at it, and will be adding the door lock/rear window handle shortly so I can finally reinstall the rear glass. Inching closer.
Still slowly plugging away. Working on assembling the doors which includes changing over to power windows and power locks. Lot's to figure out here, but I purchased all of the parts pulled from another vehicle, but I don't have a good guide to use for installation. So, taking my time. I am having to clean all of the old parts, remove all of the old grease which has hardened, re-lubricate, and fix any damage to the wiring harnesses.
I also need to do the beltline fuzzies. I just ordered a set from AutoKrafters for a 4-door Galaxie and am hoping to make those work since I have been unable to locate anything specific to a Mercury wagon.
And, I have been installing the trim. All of the trim needs to be washed up, overspray paint and primer by the previous owner has to be removed, dents knocked out to the best of my ability, and a quick polish. Most of the original factory mounting hardware is shot and finding something the works has not been easy. In most cases I can find something close, but requires modification. Very tedious work.
I did drive it out of the garage the other day, so it moves under it's own power, by it also leaked some tranny fluid, most likely from where the speedo cable gets installed, but I may have a bad seal at the shift arm that needs to be addressed.
More to come...
