1962 Mercury Monterey Project

I forgot to mention ... that dang car ate one more of my tools. Blood, skin, respiratory distress - and then it breaks my tools too!! As I was putting the exhaust manifold in, I bumped something and broke the 'selector' switch off my 1/2inch ratchet. ping - something sailed past my sight line into the nether regions of my garage. I looked down, sighed, pulled the socket off, and dropped the wrench in the garbage.  It was a fine wrench I really liked. One of my better tools. I remember the day I found it in the middle of the street next to a gas station. I did an illegal u-turn to park and ran into traffic to pick it up. We had great times together. Nice grip - long handle - loved its relationship with the cheater bar - selector stayed put even when I used it one-handed like a screw driver.  You will be missed dear friend.  Ha'makom yenachem otecha b'toch she'ar avelai tziyon veerushalayim

 The car is buttoned up and ready to go It took me <2 hours to get the heads, valve lifters, valley cover, intake manifold, exhaust manifold, carb and fan on. I tried to put the thermostat housing / expansion bottle in place, but I realized I had to drill out one of the bolts and so I didn't have enough to hold it in place. The other one was pretty gacked anyway. It took me another 30 minutes to organize all the stuff I had for the car inside the passenger space. I tried not to shove too much into the trunk, since it still doesn't open. While I had it up, I used some "green slime" to stop the leak in the one tire that wouldn't hold air. I tested this morning and it seem to be good to go. I had to zip-tie the E-brake cables to the frame so they would stop getting tangled and dragging. I also zip-tied the clutch pedal rod to something that was sticking out of the transmission - otherwise it was hanging straight down next to the fire wall. The tow truck will come ...

I set out this evening to put the transmission back in the Mercury. I had a plan - which held together for about 1/2 the experience. Then I had many many alternate plans and a fair amount of winging it. I jacked the car back up as high as it would go and then went through about 4 or 5 iterations of 'how do I balance the transmission" on my floor jack. The first plan started beautifully and then came undone within seconds of rolling under the car. I tried in vain to reset without crawling back out from under the car, but I was not strong enough to lift 100lbs and scoot the jack in place with my foot while laying on my back or side. So I dragged everything out and tried several configurations. I learned many lessons in these experiments - including how to operate the jack with my legs while I used my arms to weasel it into position. Eventually I got the spindle into the hole - I tilted the transmission and the engine several times and got it to seat all but the last 1/2 inch. I ...

Are you familiar with that SNL skit where the guy pokes himself in the head and says "kidneys kidneys" as if he wasn't thinking well.  Speaking of idiot proof instructions - did you know there is a sticker on the clutch plate which says "this side to the fly wheel". That was handy. Unfortunately, there was not a sticker on the motor mounts which said "face the open 'C' toward the back" or on the engine hoist that said "extend the arm ALL the way so you can get the engine over the cross member". I have pictures documenting these configuration details - in the case of the motor mount, I checked AFTER I installed them backwards but before I removed the block from the stand. That was nice. In the case of the hoist ... I figured it out after I had 650# of iron swinging 2/3 of the way to where it is supposed to go and I realize the hydraulics are hitting the front bumper and that is as far as I can get. At this point, I ha...

I'm throwing parts together on the Mercury so that it can be transported up to my daughter's school. She is taking an automotive elective this year and they have decided to take on that beast as a project. Here is what I told the course leader about the car: Mechanical State Engine / Transmission / Drive Shaft are out of the car Engine is disassembled down to the block - but the balancer / crank / cam are still IN Heads are off, but the valves are still in Exhaust headers = yes ... exhaust / muffler = missing Wheels / Front Brakes / Master Cylinder are off the car E-brake is off and cable is broken Fuel Tank is off the car Radiator is missing Body State RUSTY!! Trunk is locked / lock is broken missing chrome trim No keys Back seats are out of the car  "carpet" is gone (so is most of the rodent house & refuse) Rear glass is missing Wipers are missing Front fender is really crunched Hood / Front bumper is somewhat less crunched - hood hinges are seized 3 / 4...

 I am fairly sure that ZEP engine degreaser is a gallon of soapy water. The ingredients say it has some chelating agent that binds metals to it and drags them into solution (I think other forms of EDTAs are using as anti-coagulants in medicine). Whatever it is - it works. And smells nice. Of all the degreasers I found at home depot - it was the cheapest. Step 1 - drop a piston is a small plastic tub that used to hold diswasher tabs with enough ZEP to cover the rings Step 2 - come back tomorrow Step 3 - wrap connecting rod in some carboard and cinch it up in a bench vise Step 4 - break off any piston ring pieces that are easy to grab with your fingers (do this so that the snapping action is pointed away from your face) Step 5 - tappity tap tap with a screw driver + hammer on the grimey stuck ring parts that are left until they fly out (see note on pointing the action away from your face). 2 minutes of set up and 5 minutes of tapping and the job is done. Should take me 7 more days to...

"Brakes are off" is what people say when they are ready to move forward on something. It is a metaphor for taking action after being stopped. For me it was a long holiday hiatus which got rolled into some delays to progress after the holidays (I mean - it IS after Groundhog Day and Constitution Day in Mexico). Speaking non-metaphorically, front brakes are off for this rust covered beauty. As others of you pointed out - when I tried this last time, I needed to remove the spindle nut to get the drum off. I used a pair of channel locks to remove the dust cap and a some needle nose pliers to get the cotter pin out of the way. I don't know what you call that ridged cap that sits behind the pin and wraps over the top of the spindle nut, but that thing just sort of slides off. The spidle nut was not very hard to remove. It was pleasantly oily. Based on the general crud covered state of everything else, I had been worried these pieces would be dry and ground up - but there was a ...

People come over to look at the car and ask me "How long to get it back to running & driving?" I hear the question as: [to put the engine back together and reinstall it if I had all the parts?] So I say I could get it back in place in a couple weeks. That is not a fair calculus of what remains to be done - so here is my backlog of work-to-do:   Engine pistons - they are out, but the rings are gobblarnjimmyjammed into the grooves either remove all of the rings/ring pieces from the pistons and replace with new ring - you can translate 'remove' [apply solvents, lubricants, fires, and beatings until they let go of that crack they are holding onto] (a couple weeks) or replace the pistons & rings with new and press the new pistons onto the old connecting rods (not counting ordering + shipping - I need to find someone with a press, or figure out how to get them in place with my vise, a...

There is a scene at the begining of the third act of "Avengers: Infinity War" where Captain America, Natasha, and Black Panther go over to the magic shield around Wakanda and talk with the purple lady with the horn head & the big dark guy with the grabber weapon. I don't remember what she says (the dark bad guy only grunts), but Black Panther's response is - [You are in Wakanda now. You will have nothing but dust and blood.] I think Black Panther had recently found a car that had been parked in somebody's garage for 37 years. I suspect Tchalla was a AMC man. Today I went to work on the brakes - at least the fronts where I don't have to pull the axles to remove them. I spun off the lug nuts and jacked up the car. That was pretty much where my efforts to expose brakes came to a halt (pun intended). I could not figure out how to get the drum to move off the hub. I did not heat it with the torch, but I gave it a severe beating with a mallet - even that didn...

Since I got my truck running I was finally able to go empty my used oil at the part store. The collection pan has been FULL since I drained the engine and the transmission on the Mercury - and I needed to get rid of some more in my oil pan & parts cleaning bin. The truck runs fine, but I can hear & feel the power steering pump breathing its last. It vibrates through the steering wheel and sounds like it is humming a tune as I drive. It seems to work ok for now, but there is clearly something not happy about it. More on that adventure later. Lady E came out to help. She climbed into the engine bay with a plastic pan (like you use for collecting coolant) and several scrapers and set about cleaning up the front cross member, suspension, steering box, and clutch linkages. She squatted in the hole for 2 hours and scraped and scraped and pushed grease and dirt off the car until some parts turned a new color. She discovered suspension pieces that had not seen daylight in 60 years. Her...

As you know - my pickup lost its water pump when I went over to Doug's house to get the hoist & stand. It made sounds like a rusty swing set - except at 700 RPM - and unceremoniously lost control of its bladder all over Doug's driveway. It sat there for a week until I towed it home. That was Halloween. Today - it ran again & the heat worked. So - an entire month of distraction from the Mercury. First off, I did manage to find an OEM service manual I could download. I followed the diagnostic procedure - and after I refilled the radiator - I quickly realized that since the water pump was spraying coolant everywhere, that was probably the first culprit. I decided I would replace the thermostat too inspite of the fact that it passed the diagnostic test and wasn't in the way for the water pump. I ordered the pump, fan clutch & thermostat from RockAuto. I should have ordered all of the other parts too. I made myself a list that was 95% correct, but for what ever reaso...

It was more like one apathetic and one stubborn and 6 who just needed to be told what to do. The OCPOTI* gave me LOTS of good advice about why the motor was stuck. Some of it I was even able to follow. pistons are rusted to the cylinder walls, why not check the rod bearings, and that timing chain looks rusty. So I pulled a couple of rod caps and looked at the crank journal. Not only do the crank and bearings look pretty good - I think it is so cool that they stamp the "FoMoCo" logo and a registered trademark symbol on the underside of a piece of metal almost no one is ever going to see. A nice show of pride there. Mid-week, Other_Doug dropped by to look at the machine. I told him I was having trouble removing the crank bolt - and so he asked if he could borrow my breaker bar, put it on the bolt and threw his shoulder at it like he was doing the shot put. It turned right out. That seemed to ignite a flurry of activity - and so while the engine still world not turn, we removed ...

Now that the engine is on a stand, I can do a better job of figuring out why it won't turn. So, I took a coffee break today and opened up the bottom of the engine. The deconstruction probably took 30 minutes. I turned off the umpteen oil pan bolts and managed to lower it without spilling the sump. Actually - it looks pretty good. A lot less sludgy than I was expecting after 60 years. I did drop a wrench in there by accident - and gladly it neither splashed everywhere nor did it completely swallow the tool before I grabbed it. I had to remove the oil pump in the process. This weird thing has an oil pump outside the engine. You can see it in the upper left corner of the picture above. It seems to turn - so that is positive. I also removed the fuel pump. It is mechanical - with a lever that slides into the front cover and is pushed up and down by an eccentric wheel somewhere in there. I don't have the front cover off yet - but the pump and fuel filter came off without incident. I ...

 This past week I bought materials to make adapter arms for the engine stand. I got some 1-inch steel square tube for the arms, some 7/16 grade-8 bolts to attach from the arm to the engine, and some washers to make a bushing for the bolts and so everything was steady in place. I was going to buy a cutoff wheel for the grinder Dave loaned me, but it turned out that Dave had some so he dropped a few off on my front porch late one night. On Saturday I went over to Doug's to borrow his drill press to put some holes in the square stock. It turned out that Doug also had a bandsaw, so I used that to cut the square tube into 6 inch pieces instead of the cutoff wheels. Then we went to Doug's drill press. As these things go, he only had the 7/16 drill bit I needed. He did not have the bit I needed for the other side. So I ran over to the ACE hardware store near his house and eyeballed a good 9/16 bit for the larger bolts. I drilled one of the 7/16 and sized up the hole to make sure it wa...