1978 Mercury Colony Park

Guess I'd better start a build thread here. Progress will be a little slow since I'm in the northeast and this doesn't fit in my garage so I need to wait for warm weather for much of it.

So last Thursday I jumped a flight out to OKC and Friday morning started a 3 day trek back to NJ in a 34 year old wagon. I didn't even have tools....this should be fun.

Well before I even left the fuel line in back decided it had enough of this ethanol fuel and sprung a leak in Mental's driveway. Working on the cheap and since the hose was a little long I just cut it back until the soft spots were gone and popped it back on.

About halfway into friday I stopped for gas and after filling up I saw fluid running out under the car near the back of the motor. First thought was another fuel line had gone but nope, it was coolant, heater core sprung a leak. Still no tools, but a dime was good enough to undo the clamps and clamp the hoses back together at the diverter valve. Job done.

Happily (but boringly) the rest of the trip was uneventful and I arrived back in NJ sunday night. Had Monday off work (took an extra day as a buffer in case of problems) so I gave her a little wash and wax and she doesn't look half bad.

Aside from running to the hardware store I'll probably take her on BABE rally (www.baberally.com) this year and use it to haul my wife's motorized hammock to Jimmy Buffet tailgates. In that vein I'm doing her up like a surf wagon to go along with the beach hammock.

 

That's a really cool car. How many miles does it have? Seems like it's in real nice shape. Even the driver's seat uphostlery has held up. Looks like just the woodgrain is wearing. Are you going to redo it or go for maybe a painted look?

 

Odometer says 32,000 but it is most likely 132,000 but she is in really good shape. Came from Cali so she's rust free.

The paint is a bit sun burnt in spots and I'm usually not a patina guy but after polishing it up it has just the right look of age to go with the car so I'm going to leave the paint for now.

I will be redoing the woodgrain, just haven't fully decided on how yet. I'm planning on something a little non-stock and will probably do a painted woodgrain to get the look I want or give wood veneer a shot (although its an expensive experiment with the acreage I have to cover there)

Worst part is the arm rests on the door panels. The panels and padded rests have held up fine but the plastic bases are cracked. Got my eyes out for some replacements. My buddy I got her from said he had found replacements online but he doesn't remember where and I havent found them yet.

 

In the mean time, I bet that wood grain would look a lot better if you gave it a coat of pledge furniture polish. Won't bring it back to new, but it should look a whole bunch nicer. Those big old Fords sure do drive nicely, don't they? Just made for the open road. I rally want to get going on my 78 sedan. She's only got 39,000 km on the clock, and let's face it, 25,000 miles is 34 years is not very much at all.

 

What you see is already after a coat of pledge, it did nothing I'm afraid, it's really that damaged.

I drive a Fiat Abarth daily so needless to say the transition was a little severe but it was great to just cruise the 1400 miles home with for sure

 

It was cold and rainy when I got home but the wife was out so I wanted to get something done. When I changed the air cleaner the other day I was kind of surprised to find the cover was made of aluminum so I though it could use a little loving.

Before, nice and straight but oxidized.



After some 1000 grit sanding and Mother's aluminum polish. Much better.

 

The temps have gotten cold here and I have to drive the wagon to work tomorrow so time to do something about that heater core I bypassed on the road.

I actually ordered the new one as soon as I got home and pullled the old one last night. The new one came in today so back in it went. I love old cars, no pulling apart the dash for a heater core job. 30 minutes and done, nice and easy. Will be good to have heat tomorrow.

 

thats nice wagon JT

ive been lookin for the armrest's...not much luck

 

Bummer, I guess the upside is Im not missing any pieces to mine so I guess I will pull them off and reassemble them with some fiberglass reinforcement on the backside and then try my best to blend the joints where it's cracked and shoot it with some SEM to hide it. Its really one of the only severe blemishes to the interior other than the headliner, and I already have a plan in place for the new headliner.

 

Beauty of a car, body/Interior looks really clean, just the wood grain is shot. One of those wagons you don't hear much about. Under the hood there though, looks like it would be crowded working on it, so many hoses and vacuum lines to deal with.

 

A little free time today, time to stop talking about stuff and do some things.

Started with a tune up, fuel filter, plugs, wires, cap, rotor. Seems to run a bit smoother now, still a hair rough at idle. Power delivery seems to be better as well.

I started poking around to figure out where to mount the air ride components. I could have put them where the back jump seats are but I really dont want to loose those. On the passenger side rear there is a big compartment for the spare tire, thought about pulling the spare and taking my chances but then I wondered what was under all that trim on the drivers side.



Lo and behold a big old empty space perfect for the tank and compressors, heck I might get a bigger tank now.



Then I got tired of getting tangled up in the falling headliner so out it comes.



Install started on the new headliner. Kinda liking the look so far, fiddly work to get it in there, tried tying it off to the old headliner bows but that just made it look even wavier so I ran the sides a little long and then let them tension in under the trim so they all act as their own bows. That seems to be working well. Still a little wavy but this is suppose to have a natural "tiki hut" look to it so it's ok.

 

Ok, this one is very off the wall but I thought I'd see what folks thought. Been collecting stickers on the back windows of places the car has been. Went looking for some vintage looking stuff to represent the states traveled through and fell down a rabbit hole of interesting vintage stickers.

To hell with wood siding, what if I did the "woodgrain" areas all in vintage stickers? Travel stickers, beer stickers, political bumper stickers, just all era correct stickers Seems like it would be a fun way to deal with the wood siding, and allow for ongoing growth of that particular theme.

I have this vision of a weathered travel trunk with all the destination stickers in my head only in station wagon form. The patina'd brown paint is my "leather" travel trunk, now it needs its stickers.

I figure if I do it I'll lay down a sheet of white vinyl first so if I (or more likely the next owner) want to change it can all be peeled off in one sheet rather than sticker by sticker.

In case I never mentioned it I kind of march to a different drummer at times

 

....we all do....we just forget sometimes

sounds like a wild idea JT...isay...get all the stickers in a collage and have a WRAP joint do up as a 1 piece for the sides

 

Thanks for understanding that what you may see may not be normal. Although I was raised by a purist so I tend to keep the nice ones at least reversible when I make modifications.

If anyone is wondering about aiming for a beach theme with this it's because my wife doesn't really like wagons but she loves the beach and she's a parrothead to I'm trying to make it appealing to her. It's also going to be used to haul this little piece of madness to Jimmy Buffet tailgates.



That my friends is a motorized hammock, and one of the reasons my wife now let's me have a little more latitude when I bring home something questionable.

It started life as a very dilapidated 64 Club Car



She and her friends had the idea for a moto-hammock for tailgating but when I brought home that ugly thing she did not see the vision. 30 days later she was cruising the buffet tailgate, got in the local paper and up on the big screen at the concert with it. So she's learned to sit back and wait to see what I produce. The wagon is the designated hauler for all this so I want it to fit in at a Buffet tailgate.

With that in mind these showed up on my doorstep yesterday.



They are too damaged for surfing anymore but I am going to paint and pinstripe them and strap them to the roof rack. Might even use the legs off an old ironing board on one of them to make it a good tailgate table. Have evil thoughts of motorizing the 2nd one using skateboard axles and wheels and a weed wacker motor so I can chase the hammock around.

So yeah, that's a brief glimpse into some of my insanity. In my spare time Im building a widebody race prepped Yugo and a 1958 Wartburg 311 hot rod (go ahead, google it, you'll probably find my car right away)

 

...hmm....your slightly deranged



......and i like it........