Follow
the restoration of my 1959 Mercury Park Lane convertible step by step.
2000.
March
The spring is finally here, and I have started to take the car completely apart.
I have decided to restore the frame, and to do so I need to remove the body.
At this point I also found out that the body of the car was mostly junk because
of the rust damages, and began to think about finding a parts car...
From
this donor located in Joplin, Missouri, I bought speed reminder, some power
window parts and seat motors and a complete air conditoiner. Since the car was
a four door I was not interested in any body parts.
Working
on cars outdoor in Norway might bring you into all kind of situations. One day
it is warm and sunny weather, the next day everything is covered with snow.
At least I was able to take the body off the frame before the snow started to
fall.
When I lifted the body off the frame I found that the frame had some rust damages
that will need to be fixed.
Here is the frame blastered and painted with a rust preventive primer. As
I told before it had some rust damage, and in the right picture you can see
it has been repaired.
July
Here is the frame done. The front and rear suspension are totally rebuilt
with new springs, bushings and so on. I also rebuilt the brakes at the same
time. In the background you can see the body. It is in extremely rusty condition,
and I found that it can't be restored. Now I really need a parts car to finish
this project.
September
To please my neighbours I decided to cut apart the body and to get rid of all
that can't be re used. I saved the parts I would need to make a convertible
out of a 2 door hardtop body, which I found would be the only way to get this
car back on the road.
The man in the picture is my dad who is very helpful when I need a hand.
October
Finally Ifound a parts car. The car was located in Ohio, and I went there to
inspect it and to arrange the shipping to Norway. The reason why I cut the roof
off the parts car was becasue we wanted to save space in the container.
April
You might wonder what this is? Well, this used to be a very powerful 430 motor,
now it appears to be mostly junk! When I took the motor apart, I even found
out that the mice used to have its home in number 4 cylinder. When I inspected
the motor for wear I found out that it not only appeared to be junk, it was
a total disaster! Now I had to look for another motor too :-(
December
Here are some pictures of the bodywork I have done. The parts car had seen
better days and I found a lot of rust, but nothing that can't be fixed. It
is a lot of work to install all the convertible parts on a hardtop, but the
good thing is that if it is done the right way it will be extremely hard to
tell that the body once used to be a hardtop body.
When i fixed the floor I was wondering how the water could get into the car
to mke it that rusty in some spots, while some other parts of the floor were
rock solid. Well, I found out. The channel for the ventilation below the windshield
was full of leaves, and because of that it was rusty and the water came into
the passenger compartment that way. So it needed to be fixed, and that is
what you see in the picture to the left.
November
4 weeks later the car arrived Norway and my home. Now I can go on with the restoration.
Most people who looked at what I brought home from the US this time thought
I was about to become crazy, but who cares?
The
first thing I did to the parts car was to cut away all the body parts that was
not needed on the body and to replace them with the correct parts for a convertible.
Here you can see the convertilble windshield frame is done, and so is also the
centre of the floor. I also found that the car had more rust than expected,
and I replaced some floor pans at the same time.
I
have also had new seat covers made for the car in the US. The vinyl was ordered
from SMS, and the work was done by Rundes Custom Upholstery in Dubuque, Iowa.
They did a great job, and I am looking forward to the day when I can install
the seat covers. The door side panels will be done later whe I can afford it.
