1966 Mercury Colony Park - Restoration

Arizona Trip to Visit Another CP Wagon

I just finished the post on the rebuild but I wanted to share some pics and the story of our trip over to PHX to visit/pillage a '66 Colony Park I was able to find through the internet that was at Desert Valley Auto Salvage. Nothing like traveling 350 miles to a junkyard for the weekend, but think of it kind like a scavenger hunt. I saw a picture of the car on-line which was taken when it came into the yard. Needless to say it looked a bit different when we got there.

Here's what I saw on-line



Here's the car when we finished up



Overall it was a pretty good haul. The luggage rack was gone as well as two of the wood trim pieces (front passenger fender and rear passenger quarter). Otherwise we picked up all the wood trim pieces, two taillight assemblies, a rear tailgate trim molding that we needed, a transmission support member for a C6 transmission that was needed, the gas tank door and hinge that was needed, a couple of Mercury script valve covers, a washer reservoir, several Mercury badges. I'm sure I'm forgetting some other stuff that just seemed like a good thing to score at the time. The best part of this story is the removal of a tailgate trim piece.

This is one of those junkyard where you don't actually remove the stuff yourself. They have these guys that do it for you (which you ultimately end up helping them as you know more about the disassembly). Anyway, we wanted this trim piece that's the one rusted piece on our car. It's at the bottom of the tailgate on the inside. A relatively thin strip of metal measuring the width of the tailgate by maybe 3". It holds the bottom of the back tailgate skin on the frame. Well this old Colony Park wasn't about to give this piece up. As the car sat the rear window was rolled up, an electric rear window. So the first guy (guy #1) helping us starts dismantling from the inside the top of the rear tailgate. I'm trying to explain that this isn't going to work and try telling him the only way this will work is to get the window down and the tailgate open. After about 45 minutes with no success along comes another guy (guy #2), and let me say both of these guys were really helpful and great to work with, guy #2 sees what I'm talking about as our communication was great. So we all start dismantling the right and left side posts on either side of the back window. The thinking is we can eventually open the door with the window up. After about 20 minutes we can start to see this isn't going anywhere either. So it's time to open up the panel were the wiring for the rear window motor runs to the front of the car. Off goes guy #2 to get a battery. Guy #1 is working to get access to the wiring. I have to say that if I was just doing this myself along with Natalie, we'd be taking a lot more care not to mess up the inside of the car. It's kind of ironic since the salvage place doesn’t want customers tearing up stuff to get to their parts. Maybe we just feel a little sorry for the old girl as it sits there getting stripped. Natalie still feels bad about the Park Lane that we scored stuff off of a couple of months ago. Anyway, guy #1 pretty much rips the crap out of the driver side rear interior. Well, finally guy #1 one gets to the wires and strips them. I'm trying to explain to him what he needs to do. So I try explaining it rather slowly so guy #1 will understand. He doesn't really understand so guy #2 proceeds to talk really really loud to guy #1, I'm thinking, he's not deaf, he just doesn't speak English very well. Looking back it's kind of humorous. Well, I'm able to explain the red/yellow/black wire stuff, but alas the window is not going down. I had, on several occasions, jokingly talked about busting out the rear window. But the reality was I really couldn't think of any other way. I was thinking, I wonder what a Ford repair manual would say if a customer would have come in with a rear window motor out. While I'm sure step #1 would be "Disconnect the battery", I just couldn't see step #2 being, "grab large metal object and break rear window", but to be honest I'm not sure how you can get inside that tailgate without the window being down. And that window wasn't going down. So after a good one and one-half hours, guy #2 busts the rear window. Tailgate comes open and guy #1 unscrews $10 metal strip in less than a minute. Final irony on this is when we went to pay for everything I forgot to tell the guy about the metal strip, so two guys work over an hour for no return. I didn't feel too bad as I paid $120 for a transmission support, which I thought was a little high, other than the fact they had to move the car over to a work bay to get the support off.





Here's one other picture of the car while the trany support was being removed.



One last thing that was kind of neat. The old girl still had her original muffler, at least it was a 66 FoMoCo code (C6...) that was on it and some Ford U-clamps. Thought it was interesting that something like that would survive all that time...

Overall I'd have to say for around $350 we came out really well. Not a bad weekend. We also got to stay in a new Courtyard, drink a bit (too much), swim a bit and then head back West on I-10 feeling pretty good about our stash.

Next time its removal of the wood trim and the countless hours of refinishing it to the point where we can drive it up to Lakewood/Long Beach to the Woodgrain4wagons.com guy to actually apply the wood grain film.

 

Thanks for the recap! Are your fingers tired? Good to see that some pictures need a 1,000 words to explain the details.

 

dam...thats alotta words !!

375 miles to a wrecker?.....thats my idea of a vacation

 

Nothing like two dirt ball grease monkeys smelling like old, oily valve covers walking into a brand new Marriott to live the high life. (I would have preferred the Ritz or the Four Seasons but SchanzML couldn't find one for me in Phx). lol. It was a fun trip though. Cars in AZ don't have rust and it only rains when you want to go to the pool.

 

I am impressed with the overall condition of your wagon! It appears to be a very solid car to start with!! Cant wait to see how it goes. Thanks for the pictures.

Dr B

 

I hadn't really dropped back by in a while but I thought I could give a mini update. The original wagon has been sitting around gathering dust for a while. There is actually some progress on the engine. I just picked up a new intake manifold and a new oil pan for the 428 from Summit. They were delivered last Friday. The engine has been at BMS for a long time now, but should be finished by the end of July. I'll snap a couple of pics and post. The wood trim also has been gathering dust off the car as well so I think I’ll spend a day getting it ready to take over to Mick.

I picked up another 66 Mercury Colony Park back in Missouri over Memorial Day and hauled/trailered it back to So. Cal. I’ll post a few pics of that soon as well. We’ve been on a bit of buying spree lately; purchased another 66 Merc CP from Ill. and am waiting for it's arrival, not picking that one up but having it shipped. Hopefully it will be out here in the next couple of weeks; pics on that one too. So we'll have 3 wagons.

Well, as I said there hasn't been much progress on the wagon that I started this thread on... since this is a wagon forum I won't load it up with too much talk about the other eight of so Mercury's we've purchased over the last year, 66's and 67's hardtops, sedans and convertibles. But I will show a few pics just for fun.

But, I think we might start making some progress on the original project car. So I hope to give more frequent updates.

Regards,
Martin

 

Hang in there, Martin. Glad to hear you're still at it. Looking forward to seeing pix of the Illinois import...

--Hal

 

How do you do it Martin? I have my hands full with just one project, let alone several. Mine will have some color on her very soon.

I'm sure I speak for the rest some would be great!

 

Absolutely! With a fleet of Mercs like that! No wonder we don't see them on the road!

No more teasing.

 

Here's your grand daddy Merc! Is this huge or what!

 

I would love to see some pictures of the other Mercs too!!!! I cant tell you how much easier it would be for my resto to have a couple of parts wagons. Good job.
Dr B

 

Beautiful wagon, love them Mercs. And yes, pics of the whole fleet please!

 

Pics of Mercurys

Here are some photos of the cars I talked about previously...

Here's a picture of a 1967 Park Lane convertible. It was a pretty loaded car as far as options. It was an automatic with a 428 engine. We just sold this car; it's on its way over to Sweden.



Here's a 1966 S-55 Hardtop. Also a 428 with an automatic. This was kind of Mercury's NASCAR for 66. It's pretty stripped down, does have PS, PB and factory A/C. Also has tinted glass and a power driver seat. This car is currently for sale.



Here's another 1966 S-55 Hardtop. We call it "the parts car". It was used as a parts car prior to us obtaining it. Luckily most of the S-55 specific parts are still there. We hope to restore her but it's not a high priority.



Here's a 1966 Park Lane convertible. We lovingly refer to it as the Pimp-mobile. We picked this up in Grass Valley were it had been parked in a field for a some time. Prior to Grass Valley it lived in Oakland... enough said This will be a major restoration effort.



Here's a 1967 Park Lane Sedan. We picked it up over in Mesa, AZ. We bought it for the 410 motor and disk brake setup. This stuff may work its way onto our 66 Colony Park wagon. So it could end up as a parts car. No plan to restore her.



Here's a 1966 Colony Park wagon. Picked it up in Missouri very close to the boarder with Arkansas (town called Washburn). It's a pretty basic model. The only factory option is tinted glass. The A/C, and luggage rack would have been dealer installed. It has the base 390 2V engine with the town and country C6 transmission. This is the vehicle that we're currently working on and will be put up for sale.







We're lucky to have indoor storage. Here's a shot of the Mercs waiting their turns to returned to their former glory or possibly chopped for parts.



We're attempting to pick up another 1966 S-55 from Wichita, KS and another Colony Park from the St. Louis area. We're in the purchase process on both these cars. I'll post pictures when we get them out to Southern Calif.

So that's why we've not made much progress on the wagon that started all of this trouble; the car that started this thread.

 

That's a whole fleet, Martin! Up here, they'd all be project cars. Thanks. I had a 68 Park Lane. Fine automobiles.

 

Dash Pad

I mentioned that there was a place that refurbished dash pads. It's called Just Dashes. They're at justdashes.com. Might be a bit pricey but the work appears to be very good.

Martin