The Mercury Project

[Gary 351C]

Re: The Mercury Project

I've always though it would be cool to have my car in a magazine, this isn't quite what I had in mind though ;D LOL. I sanded the whole car by hand and used a block for the flat surfaces. I didn't wash it after wiping it down with acetone. This paint covers extremely well, one heavy coat will do it and it dries in about 15 minutes. Like most things you paint, it's a good idea to practice on a scrap piece, I used an old deck lid to get the right technique down. 1 can will do a door, fender or deck lid. The hood, top and quarter panel took 2 cans. Hope this helps.

[chryco63]

Re: The Mercury Project

Hope this helps.

Very much, thanks Gary!!!

[NAS Backyard]

Re: The Mercury Project

Nothing wrong with that paint job. It doesn't look like hammertone from here. I used the silver on my sons car roof with a roller, hides alot. That is one nice looking body style. You may think I crazy but I turned down a 70 Cyclone Spoiler from a real good friend of mine for 10K about 3 years ago. It had sat in his driveway for 16 years under 4 car covers. It had about 80K miles. I didn't want to buy it for 10 and then have to spend 20 or 30 more to do it right. It was Yellow with a 4 spped with houndstooth iterior. It went to Ohio.

[Gary 351C]

Re: The Mercury Project

Some progress is better than no progress at all I guess. This is the first time in at least 6 months that the hood has been up on the "project" car. I got it to run, but only by using the Dave and Chad method of spraying a whole can of carb clean into it. Tomorrow I'm going to pick up a rebuild kit for the carb and in a few days it should run on it's own. ;D

[BetterWithBoost]

Re: The Mercury Project

Hey cantvalve16, yes I'm in Ridgecrest. Here's the dope on my redneck paintjob.

The paint I used was Rust-o-leum hammered blue, It took 12 cans to do the body. But I couldn't leave well enough alone, I ended up doing the inside of the trunk, the door jambs, and even the underside of the hood for a total of 18 at roughly $100. This attention to detail will end up biting me in the end when I get around to putting a real paint job on this car because I'll have to sand all of this back off. As far as prep, there wasn't much since the humidity is so low up here I wasn't worried about rust too much, I scuffed the whole car with 120 and wipped it down with acetone. And as far as paint choices the sky's the limit, after visiting the "Golden Cage" at Home Depot it can be a hard decision. I picked this type of paint because it was kind of a medium gloss and it has a refrigerator-like texture to hide some of the...um, imperfections. And If I was going to do a cheeseball paintjob, blue is probably the most acceptable. It took about 2 weeks to do the whole car and yes my fingers hurt from holding the nozzle down, those clip on paint sprayer handles don't work so don't waste your money. Hope this helps and good luck, here's the pics.

Love the car. Ridgecrest, CA? We used to hit NAS China Lake for bombing tests
back when I was in the Navy. Always had a great time... 115 degrees during the
day, a cool 80 at night. Is Tommy T's still open there?

[Gary 351C]

Re: The Mercury Project

It runs! I rebuilt the carb and did a few other things then actually DROVE it down to the gas station to put some fresh gas in it. This is the first time in 5 years that it's been out of the backyard. The transmission is still needs to be gone through and it's got an electrical problem somewhere in the engine compartment wiring harness. I have to run jumper wires from the solenoid in to the ignition switch to get the engine to crank. Things are on hold for now because we're waiting for escrow to close on our house, as soon as it's done I'll be moving into an apartment two blocks away until we buy a place down south near the beach ;D. Fortunately, my apartment has a large 2 car garage so hopefully I'll be able to make some more progress. At least get the electrical sorted out.

[Blazerteam]

Re: The Mercury Project

Nice pair of mercs in the garage ;)

[Gary 351C]

I just thought I'd drag this up from page 21. I Put some fresh gas in the tan car, dropped a battery in it and after some cranking it fired up! Drove it around the apartment complex and put it back in the garage. I've started driving the blue car a little more lately, the turn signal switch is going bad and I think it's time to tear out the headliner since it's beyond repair. My rattle can paint job is looking worse all the time but at least it's still all one color, as long as I keep it relatively clean it doesn't look like an abandoned car. Luckily the place I live is "old car" friendly.