1970 Mercury Marquis: Complete Restoration

[Barry Wolk]

It's available when you need it.

[continentalguy]

In the meantime, here's a recent pic of my garge. The Mercury is hidden the left behind the dresser.

Dan, in that picture your Lincoln is parallel to your garage door. Do you use skates, or is it just a lot of back and forth movement?

You have quite the stash in there.

[Barry Wolk]

Dan has many ways into his garage. He has a great residential garage. More like a garage with an attached house. I wish they allowed that size here.

[Dan Szwarc]

It's magic!

[Dan Szwarc]

Ugh! Two HOURS to drill FOUR holes! Granted, I was drilling through four layers of steel in four places, but OMG, it took forever.

I have four more sets of holes to drill, then I remove the fixture for reinforcement welding. I'll document that for all to see.

[Barry Wolk]

Drill small holes and enlarge them. Much easier.

[Dan Szwarc]

Drill small holes and enlarge them. Much easier.

Did that. I had five bits to do the job. I still had to go back to sharpen them numerous times.
The bolt holes were up to 7/16". Some went easily. Others acted like the steel was titanium.

[Barry Wolk]

Slow speed and lots of pressure for big bores. I have a Hole Hawg that goes so low speed it'll lift you off the ground. You may use it.

[Dan Szwarc]

Maybe that's my problem. Too much speed.

I have more to do and will likely be doing them this weekend.

Yesterday was another minor setback. I dropped the front reinforcement to do the reinforcement welding and one side wasn't tack-welded well enough. It came apart.
I beefed up the rest of it, but have to mount it back on the car to align it, re-tack it (better), then I can drop the middle section to beef that up.

Tilting is in my near future!

[Dan Szwarc]

The tilt-frame is coming together.

It's four separate pieces. If it was one, how the heck would I move it around?

[Barry Wolk]

Casters. I may have a set or you can go to your favorite store, Kitt's Surplus.

[Steve K]

Yeah Dan, steerable castors and hydraulic's for lifting and turning the car once it's ready to tilt and you'll be rockin' and rollin'. Push button lifting, turning, tilting, etc. Build it using a caterpillar variant of the Lincoln power bench seat mechanism

[Dan Szwarc]

I've spent more time working on the fixture than working on the car.

I don't know how people do a whole. Car in 2-3 years. This could take me 5 more!

[Barry Wolk]

Preliminary work is very slow, but you need to get it out of the way before you can make progress on the car.

[Dan Szwarc]

Finally have the car's ass end in the air so I can start cutting steel. Work is slow and tedious so there is not much to update, but I'm finally cutting away rotted metal. Clearance and angles are difficult.

I'm working on the rear inner rocker area and then the trunk in this position. I'll post as I make significant progress.