1967 Mercury Commuter Wagon...

...and one more.

 

That wagon is coming beautifully! When you are done it will be better than factory!

 

I have been busy working away on the body. I haven't been happy with the DS front and rear doors. Did some looking and found a rust- and dent-free set from a 4-door hardtop and picked them up to reskin the doors.

The front door is done and was a bit of work, but looks so much better than what I was getting from the original. The rea door is going to be a bit more work since the profile at the top of the door is slightly different due to it coming from a vehicle without window frames. Looks like I will be splitting that panel and replacing everything below the upper body line where the trim runs.

In the meantime, I have continued to strip the paint and clean up the body work. Yesterday a buddy stopped over, and we finished tweaking the new shift linkage for the floor shifter conversion. I was able to get a factory floor shifter for a '67 Full-size Merc, but the shift rod was gone, so I picked up a C6-universal kit from Lokar. Nice stuff, but final adjustment was a bit of a pain until I had a second set of hands. It also required grinding down a boss on the side of the trans for clearance. Now it goes through the gates and into the gears perfectly.

Next up: Finish body work and prep for paint, and assemble the motor and see if I can bring it back to life!

 

Thanks for the update and glad to see that you are making progress.
What is your timeframe to have it on the road?

 

This past May. But, rolling with life, I want to see it on the road this year. So much of the base work has been done, that I am almost to the point of reassembly. The body work shouldn't take long, but making time to do it is really the tricky part of the project.

Thanks for the props!

 

The two things that usually hold up projects, money and but more importantly time

 

Great work as always - it's going to be a stunner when it's finished!

 

Measure twice, cut once...

Spent a little time in the garage last night and went to work on re-skinning the DS rear door. I had already removed the replacement skin from the door, so I marked along a body line where trim would cover it, cut it the panel down with an angle grinder and cut-off disc and cleaned up the cut.

Last thing to do before removing the old skin was to hold the replacement panel up to the door and make sure everything lined up. Thank goodness I did, because it didn't!

To my amazement, the door handle was located in a different place, sitting roughly 2" inboard of where my original sat. This reskinning project just became more work than I felt like taking on. So now I'm back to body work on the original. Oh well. Expensive mistake, but at least I hadn't cut the original yet!

 

ouch....and how many tools went airborne at that moment??

 

Honestly, I was just counting my lucky tars that I took a moment to hold the new panel up to the original door BEFORE cutting it. It's one thing to waste a little time and money on something like this. but if I had actually removed the other panel and cut it down, then had to come back in and weld it back up, I might be driving a three-door wagon.

 

Working on trying to get the engine started on Monday, and I have a buddy coming over to help out for the day. Lots of stuff done, and lots more to go if we are to get it running. Here is a rundown of the last couple of days of what I've accomplished, and a few pics for fun!

I started out the weekend cleaning up the distributor and starter. The distributor (cap, base, wires and all) was painted blue, and where it wasn't blue, it was dirty and oxidized. I disassembled, cleaned and painted it to dress it up. The vacuum advance is paint chrome which give a nice finish. Not really chrome-like, but a nice shine for cheap, and far better than what I uncovered.



The started was an even tone of oil and dirt covering surface rust. Once again, disassembled, cleaned up, and sprayed. This will sit behind a header, so it doesn't need to be perfect. I just couldn't put it back dirty.



Then I installed the heads and headers. What a pain! I made the headers myself and the passenger side wasn't too bad, but the driver's side was a bear. I had to pull the steering column and drop the steering box to get them in. I also had to "massage" them a bit up around the head as I couldn't test fit the last two pipes without tearing the front end apart, and I was off by about 1/4". No worries since this isn't going to be a super high performance vehicle. I wanted headers, and these should WAY outperform stock cast iron truck manifolds that were on the car.



Last, but not least, I polished up the valve covers I have. That meant wet sanding with 320, 600, 800, polishing with a Mother's Power Ball, and then hand polishing with a product called Autosol from Eastwood. In the end, I got the bright, satin finish that I was looking for. The covers are used, and they have "character marks", but I didn't want perfect, or highly polished.



I hope to be posting more pictures in the next few days that include a running engine,but we'll have to see.

 

Good to hear you'll be giving the donk (motor) a crank soon pvan

 

ooooo shes gotta be close now Paul:banana:

 

Engine is almost ready to fire. Just need to hook up the exhaust, radiator and a few more details. Trying not to rush it so I don't miss anything, but its hard when it looks ready to run!

 

Your car is where mine is right now. Ready for fire-up, and I don't want to shortcut something important.

Good luck, hope it lights easily for you.

Best,
Tom