The $50 53 Merc

[connorm]

I bought this car over the weekend from a gentleman that was selling it from his brother's estate. The brother had a decent age gap between his siblings so he did not know much about the car, but did remember his sister driving it at one point. Although we believe the car was parked in 1969 because we found parking ticket/impound bailment, and 2 court summons all from 1969.

Now to talk about the car, its a 1953 Mercury 2 door Sedan. The car has a flathead and 3 speed manual. It's Glenwood Grey with Green and White interior. Right now the engine is locked up, which is unfortunate because the 53 Mercury/Lincoln flatheads were the 8BA 4 inch stroke, probably the most desirable flatheads. I am letting it soak in ATF/Acetone so hopefully it loosens up. I do have a lead on a possibly cheap 8BA that will probably get swapped in for now.

Right now my plan is to get the car running and driving, in pretty much stock form. I will probably put that cheap 8BA in it, if I can get it; rebuild the brake system with a 2 pot master cylinder, new brake lines, wheel cylinders, etc.; convert it to 12 volt, flush the radiator; and new gas tank. Hopefully this is all done by mid summer, but I am 3.5 hours away from my parents house where the car is stored. My real goal/deadline is to get the car to Ducktail Run this September.

[HO455]

Cool car. Looking forward to updates on this one. I love the title too.

[NONHOG]

Wow that's a great car!

[CG]

I really like the nose and the tail on those cars (middle is good too lol), they make very nice mild customs.

[connorm]

Thanks for all the responses. I guess I never addressed the name of the title, because this was an estate sale the guy just wanted the car gone. I paid $50 dollars for this car because he wanted to see someone get it that was going to redo it and get it back on the road because that's what his brother would have wanted.

The interior cleaned up pretty well. All of this was just a pretty basic clean up for now. This weekend I am picking up some wheels so that we can roll the car outside and work on the paint some more. If you look close you can see one of our helpers laying claim to the backseat. The 3 speed shifter is broken or missing so this will need addressed too, although you can shift the car with the bezel for now.

We found the key for the trunk and found some treasures in there, a 2 1968 plates, a broken tailshaft, a hitch that mounts to the bumper, and the dead body that we had joking about (a creepy baby doll). We haven't been able to get in the glovebox yet, even though the key should work. The ignition key is still missing, but I should be able to get one made by using the door locks.

Dad dug around in some of his license plate stash and he found a 51 plate with 53 renewal tag. As I'm sure many of you know at different points the government made smaller plates that bolted to the plate on your car as a renewal. This was done to conserve steel for war efforts, this time saving steel for the Korean War.

[Troy Sr]

OOOOh there's a dead baby in the trunk!!!!

[connorm]

Well I got wheels and tires for it. They are supposed Crown Vic wheels that are 15"x6" with a 5x4.5" bolt pattern. The tires are 205/70r15 that have very little miles. We bubble balanced them and used an old mounter to put it on. Very cool. I took my 1970 GMC for this parts run. The 1947 Hudson is my buddies, his grandpa had the wheels. I got there Friday and stayed the night and then we mounted and balanced the wheels and then moved about 13 Step Down Hudsons. It was a pretty fun weekend but I can't wait to be home next weekend and mount the wheels and tires. The engine is still locked up and I haven't heard from the guy selling the good engine. Dad has been spraying PB Blaster down the spark plugs holes and once we get the wheels and tires on we'll see if we can roll it and brake the engine loose.

[connorm]

Well I have a little bit of an update. I have been struggling on finding an engine, but I may have a lead on a core that the engine builder can guarantee me firing on all 8 and oil pressure, but its a little more than I wanted to spend. I will probably end up going this way, but want to wait a little bit on a couple other leads.

As I said this car is at my parents, and my mom really likes cleaning on cars so she tried something on this. She used Komet wash and pressure washed this 3 or 4 times. I couldn't believe how much it improved the look of the car. Between the exterior and the interior this car looks so much better. I am really wanting to work on this but it's gonna be maybe a month before anything happens. I do think we named this project Maybelline after the song. Anyway I will keep this thread up to date with everything.

[connorm]

I've been slacking on updates but I have made quite a bit of progress. I rebuilt all the brake system with new master cylinder, new lines that I bent, and new shoes, springs, wheel cylinders, adjusts etc.

I also got an engine and got it swapped in. Its a 8BA with a Mercury 4" stroke and .060" over bore. It has a 49-51 Ford car oil pan that is causing some issues with drain plug clearance. It also has 8RT truck heads and intake with a Stromberg 94 carb.

I also swapped transmission to a 3 speed with an overdrive unit. Fort Wayne Driveline and Clutch saved me because I have a Mercury flywheel and a Ford transmission. The Mercury has an 11" clutch, where the Ford has a 9-1/2". But the Mercury transmission has a 1-3/8" 10 spline input shaft and the Ford has a 1" 10 Spline input shaft. Fort Wayne Driveline and Clutch was able to get me a larger clutch with the smaller input shaft made that day.

Next was the gas tank, a 53 Mercury is 19 gallons and a 53 Ford tank 17.5 gallons and either one is about $300. But if you go to a 55 Ford gas that is a 17 gallon tank it was $300 with the tank, sender, and straps from Tanks Inc. The 55 straps didn't work, and neither did the 53 Merc straps, so I'm going to order 53 Ford straps and hopefully those work. Right now the tank is in with a ratchet strap holding it up. I will also be running just a soft line to the carb for now.

The last picture shows my issue with the drain plug. In 52 they went to the ribbed pan that had more clearance for the drag link. Right now the drain plug and the drag link are just barely touching and my plan is to hit it with a board and move it just 1/4" to get clearance.

[connorm]

And here is why I had to swap engines. The original engine was locked up and after we pulled it I took the heads off to take a look and cylinders 6 & 8 were filled with just. Even with the heads off the engine is still stuck. I did pull the intake off and the top end looks very clean. I am curious about the bottom end and what the oil might look like but I haven't made it there yet.

The last picture is a stash of parts I bought from a guy that was cleaning out his garage. This is a pallet of original parts and speed parts, but I also got 2 engines with it, one with aluminum heads. the third aluminum intake in will probably be the intake that I eventually run. It's a 4 barrel intake and I have a large bore Carter WCFB. I will need to find a small bore before I switch though. This stash of parts is also where I got the overdrive transmission, and I got a set of lake pipes to run when I do the exhaust.

[HO455]

Thanks for posting the photos and the story so far.
One can definitely see the brand engineering between the Ford and Mercury. The Mercury has the larger transmission shaft, larger clutch and the larger fuel tank.

I'd bet the fuel capacity and clutch size were touted by Mercury salespeople to get folks to step up and spend that little bit more.

[connorm]

Originally Posted by HO455

Thanks for posting the photos and the story so far.
One can definitely see the brand engineering between the Ford and Mercury. The Mercury has the larger transmission shaft, larger clutch and the larger fuel tank.

I'd bet the fuel capacity and clutch size were touted by Mercury salespeople to get folks to step up and spend that little bit more.

The Mercury also had a longer wheelbase, all in the front fenders. Ironically the Mercury parts are harder to find than the Lincoln/Meteor cars of the same year.

There was some big progress this weekend, it drove for the first time! It may not have had the throttle linkage hooked up, and I may have shifted it with a screwdriver, and the seat may have fallen through the passengers floor board, but it drove. I'll have more pictures and a write up later.

[connorm]

It was a big weekend working on the car. Last weekend was the first time that the car had moved under its own power, but mom deemed the floors too bad to be driven on the road, so we tore the interior out. Dad got me some sheet metal this week and we bent it up with the makeshift brake. The just sheet metal screwed them down. On the passenger's side we tied it into the rocker, or what's left of it. We also put a piece of angle iron on the bottom of the floor to give it some bracing. At 11:00 PM on Friday I took the the picture of the floor I posted. Dad's stayed up late and helped me put the interior in, then I started wiring up brake lights and working on other last minute essentials. The last thing to do before Ducktail is to order an air filter because none that I have tried have worked yet.

I did end up making it to a local cars and coffee Saturday morning. The event we started at 8 and at 8:15 we dropped it off the jack stands. It made the drive there awesome, besides the ratchet strap holding the gas tank in, fell off. We stopped and retrieved it. Mom drove the Crosley and for some reason dad didn't trust the Merc enough to not drive a support vehicle. On the way back It was doing fine cruising at 60-65, until the fan belt came off. The engine stumbled weird and then blew coolant out from underneath the hood. It was an easy fix but we were close enough we just towed it home. Everything is fixed and it'll be at Ducktail this weekend.

[connorm]

The Merc made it to Ducktail Run over the weekend! I picked it up Friday morning and started the trip over, although I can't say it was issue free. Once I fired it up it was running rough and the throttle wouldn't return to idle. My hill billy'd throttle linkage failed me. I added an extra throttle return spring, but the bailing twine tied to the linkage at the floor solved that problem. Dad and I had taken the top of the carb off and cleaned the fuel bowl out because there was some varnish in there but it was still leaking from the base. Once we made it to the main street we took the top off the carb and the float was free but the needle was catching on something. While I messed with it dad went to get carb cleaner a block away, and mom went to the bakery a block away. Armed with cookies and carb cleaner we got the needle moving free and made it the rest of the way with no problems.

The only issue we ran into was the car wouldn't go into reverse. I was pretty freaked out about this, until I talked to my buddy. Right now my thinking is that the overdrive unit shifted into overdrive. The car won't go into reverse in overdrive which would solve that. I also thought I was going crazy that the car was geared different after the reverse problem. With no experience with these and being hot and tired on the side of the road I didn't think about this but should've. The bright side is that overdrive works and it will cruise great when I get everything hooked up right.

Pic 1: This was working on the float, check out the cookies on the front bumper. That lip works great for holding tools.

Pic 2: The group I was with at Ducktail. My 53 Merc, the green 47 Hudson is my buddies, the black 41 Hudson is my buddies dad's, and the blue 52 Crosley is my dad's.

Pic 3: Having a 50's Mercury I had to stop by James Dean. This is where my transmission issues started.

[connorm]

I do have a mini update. The engine that I installed had the wrong oil pan and was rubbing on the steering. To fix this I took a 2x4 and hit it with a hammer. I moved it a little too much and when I check on it about a month ago there was pretty much no oil in it.

I took some thick gasket material, ~1/8", and put thread tape on it, and that seems to have fixed it. I did use just the standard thread tape because I wasn't planning on using it. Now that I know this will work I am going to pick up some yellow thread tape, oil resistant, and run with this.

I also need to pick up seals for the transmission, and possibly the rear end. That is next on the list

[CG]

What are the long term plans for this car?

[connorm]

Originally Posted by CG

What are the long term plans for this car?

Short term plans are to get the Merc going safely and reliably. I would like to get it going well enough for the occasional 1-2 hour drive.

After that would be to make the car more presentable. I want to leave the patina but am going to have to do rust repair. Matching the original dull paint will be a challenge. I would also like to put this car on air bags. I still plan on keeping this car a flat head and the 3 speed o/d transmission, but I want something that will cruise very well.

[connorm]

I went home this weekend and worked on it some more. Around Christmas time I put some thread tape and some junk (never used oil but from the 90's) that my uncle had to see if that would fix the drain plug leak. It significantly slowed it down. Pic 1 shows the final version of this. It is yellow thread tape that is petroleum resistant, and a thicker 1/4" cork gasket. This seems to be working now. I also put a thinner gasket under my overdrive solenoid, and refilled the transmission with GL4 gear oil. It was about $5 cheaper than when I bought the last 2 bottles, but still high.

Picture 2 shows my new master cylinder pushrod and my old one. The brakes were very spungy before and engaged low in the pedal stroke. Now they engage higher and are still spongy. I am thinking that they need bled at this point as they are 3 pumpers, but will almost lock up the wheels at 3 pumps.

Picture 3 is the Merc with my dad's 71 Chevy C20. My grandpa bought this truck in 75 and it was parked in 87. In 2017 my dad and I pulled this out from the weeds and got it going again. At this point it is roadworthy and it was my dad's first back from the dead project, that I helped with. The Merc is my first back from the dead project, that dad helped with. It's pretty special for me that these are both together and I can't wait until my car is sorted out a little more and we can start taking them to some shows together.

[HO455]

Love this car. Keep up the good work!

[connorm]

Originally Posted by HO455

Love this car. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the response! Next on the list is a throttle linkage, a check, and a clear inline fuel filter between the fuel pump and carb. Crap keeps getting in the carb and I'm not sure if the diaphragm in the fuel pump is falling apart or what.

I was able to drive the car about 5 miles this weekend. The throttle linkage kept falling off so I am going to order some ball and sockets from McMaster Carr and use some all thread to build one, for now. The engine is also cold blooded and wouldn't start without a choke in 40* weather.