Old Cars hits the road and celebrates the classics while bringing the sights and sounds to you.

Angelo Van Bogart was out and about in Duluth, Minnesota catching up with Old Cars’ friend, Tom Maruska. Angelo stopped by his shop to see first hand the progress Tom has made on the 1956 Mercury XM Turnpike Cruiser’s restoration. 

Many of you will recognize this project from Old Cars’ articles over the past few years. You can take a look at this ongoing restoration by clicking here. 

If you like stories like these and other classic car features, check out Old Cars magazine. CLICK HERE to subscribe.

Want a taste of Old Cars magazine first? Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter and get a FREE complimentary digital issue download of our print magazine.

The post Old Cars Out and About: 1956 XM Mercury Turnpike Cruiser concept car appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

The 8^th Annual Copart Rebuild Challenge is officially open for entries and the $5,000 top prize is up for grabs. Entries close on Aug. 27, so now is a great time for people to start finding their project cars, planning their rebuilds/restorations, and taking great before pictures.

The Rebuild Challenge is a photo contest where Copart Members in the United States, Canada and Mexico can submit before and after photos of their favorite car restorations/rebuild projects for a chance to win cash prizes. There will be three winners: 1^st place – $5000, 2^nd Place-$2,000 and 3^rd place – $1,000. Voting closes on October 15, and the winners will be announced Oct. 28.

For more information, go to Copart.com/Rebuild

*As an Amazon Associate, Old Cars earns from qualifying purchases.  

The post The 8th Annual Copart Rebuild Challenge is officially open appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Back when we were pullin’ up stakes and movin’ to Montana, Mrs. Rotten and I were thinking we’d have abundant shop time, alone, together, as we’d likely be the only gear heads around. Boy, were we wrong!

As a result of meeting one guy, we’ve quickly come to know the hot rod community that we first thought wasn’t here. Among the main characters is area historian Bill Spurzem. For the past 80-some years, Spurzem has lived right here in the Flathead Valley. Just to lend perspective, the covered wagon in which his ancestors arrived is arranged as yard art alongside his garage. If you want to know what’s happened here, Spurzem can tell you. If you want to know about hot rodding here, his friends can tell you that it pretty much began with Spurzem.

Now before we get too technical, let’s talk about Spurzem’s long-term relationship with a certain little black ‘40 Ford V-8 (Standard) coupe. He’d known of this car for many years as he’d spot it here and there in his travels. Although he’d already amassed a fine collection of “olderly” automobiles, he still had an available spot for a keeper. But alas, the coupe was unobtainable. Finally, in the late ’80s, Spurzem had his chance to purchase the elusive little ’40 and without hesitation, he did so for 900 bucks.

For a year or three, he drove the ’40 darn near daily, still in original condition. Today, in classic gear head style, our friend is still drivin’ the wheels off the very same car.

As the story goes along, you’ll likely notice that Spurzem has good friends. Every now and then, they’ll come together to give his little coupe a wash-‘n’-dry once-over, but from the looks of it today, it’s been a while.

Now I don’t quite recall how this even came up, but someone birthed the notion to bring the ’40 Ford “Standard” in for a deluxe detail job — the ol’ once-over twice, if you will. If you’ve ever attended a good, old-fashioned work party, you know the feeling that goes along with it. When we mentioned our intentions to our friends at Mothers Polish, they felt something, too. Compelled to contribute to our cause, they shipped enough product to stock the shelves of a detail shop.

Although I have worked closely with a couple of good ones, I don’t claim to be a detailer. Truth be told, there are no detailers among our volunteer crew. There are, however, a couple painters onboard. Since we do possess the know-how to create a quality finish, we might also be qualified to restore an old one. From there, continued maintenance wouldn’t be rocket surgery. Perhaps we should schedule Spurzem for a once-a-year wash-’n’-wax touchup. This time we’ll work our buttocks off.

Tackling the interior

So, as this “complete” (that’s detail talk) gets underway, where should we begin? The pro detailers we know like to begin with interior trim. We will, too, but this won’t be a typical inside job. In fact, our first step will be rodent abatement!

In the country, in the city, or inside a finished ’40 coupe, rodents make themselves at home. For our friend, the trouble began years ago, almost immediately after leaving the trim shop. Chances are you’ve fought this sort of battle, too. If so, you know it’s not easily won. Here we’ll begin at the beginning, with particle masks for those who’ll wear ’em and a fresh box of nitrile disposable gloves — the kind we’d find at Harbor Freight.

In order to discover nesting places, we’ll remove the car’s seat and trim panels. After vacuuming, we will mix up a bucketful of leading-brand dish soap for initial sterilization before switchin’ up to sweeter-smelling Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner. Either way, we’ll try to observe the detailers’ rule: Always test a small, inconspicuous spot — especially when working with interior trim. This rule also applies when using products that are specifically designed for certain fabrics, so test for colorfastness before you let ‘er rip. A good detailer might also tell you to apply interior products via terry cloth or microfiber rather than direct squirts from the bottle.

What’s about to happen may resemble a free for all. As this story goes, it’ll be partly how-to and partly why-to from a bunch of gear heads here to share a good time while helping a friend.

As we go here, you, too, might be thinking of a friend. Is there someone close to you who deserves a good old-fashioned work party? If so, we encourage you to stick around and see how an age-old finish and same-age upholstery respond to our tag-team efforts — and, of course, modern chemistry — as we give our friend’s ’40 some needed attention.

Exterior: From gray, back to black

On the day we focused on detailing the coupe’s interior trim, we counted 14 in attendance. Most of us worked on the car. We all enjoyed the day, but no one more than our guest of honor, Bill Spurzem. As our friend sort of supervised, he was noticeably moved at times. If you’ve attended such a party, you likely understand.

By the end of day one, the inside job was completed, but this party wasn’t over yet. This time around we’ll tag-team exterior detailing chores. The little black coupe looks gray. Scratched up and dried out, the existing finish is a quarter-century old, but it doesn’t have to look that way. We’re pretty optimistic that we can revive it.

Like most painters will tell you, the key to a paint job’s longevity is acceptable mil thickness. Here in the summertime, temperatures can reach 90 or so. Magnified by the sunshine, black can be cooked upon. Then, come winter, the same black finish is then subjected to frosty-freezing temperatures. Visual inspection of our ’40 Ford’s paint reveals no cracks, so we suspect the primer-surfacer and topcoats are thin and elastic enough to expand and contract with hot/cold steel. Spurzem has confirmed our suspicions. Back when his little coupe was painted, it was properly stripped to bare steel, which makes its finish worth saving today.

If we could meet the painter, we’d tell him that he did a bitchin’ job. It would also be nice if he could give us a clue or two we could use, but that meeting won’t take place today.

So, knowing what we know, how deep should we delve? Because the paint is likely thin, we’d rather not color sand — especially since we know it’s been buffed twice before. We have a magnetic mil gauge which would tell us (give-or-take) what filler, primer-surfacer and topcoats add up to, but it wouldn’t tell us how much of it is black. For this paint job, a non-sanding primer-sealer may have been used. If so, it’ll be the first thing we discover if we color-sand and/or buff too far. Whatever is down there, we don’t want to see.

The crew you’ll meet today will include two painters. We’ll be dealing with the aforementioned unknowns as we follow our own painterly instincts. The plan, as it stands, will begin with a bath. From there we’ll employ two types of clay to smooth away surface impurities.

We’ve been loaned a fancy, German-made Flex buffer (favored by pro detailers) that we’ll want to try out, along with an assortment of pads from Lake Country. Those are recommended for use with Mothers products. Since we’ll have more than one buffer running, we may have opportunities to compare equipment.

Among the clays, compounds, polishes, waxes and cleaners we’ll be using, you’ll notice products from Mothers professional line. Those aren’t so commonly found in auto parts stores, but they’re always available directly from Mothers.

The following tech might resemble a free-for-all, but again, we’re here to have a good time. Like our interior detailing, this’ll be partly how-to and partly why-to. In the big picture, it’s really about our deserving friend. If by chance you have a friend who deserves a good old-fashioned work party, by all means, try this at home.

Learn more about the products used above at…

Harbor Freight Tools
800-423-2567
www.harborfreight.com

Mothers Polish
714-891-3364
www.mothers.com

*As an Amazon Associate, Old Cars earns from qualifying purchases.  

The post Overdue detailing a ’40 Ford appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Story and photos By Tom Maruska

While waiting for less humid weather in order to sandblast parts to the 1956 Mercury XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car, I moved on to restoring and rebuilding many of the components to the dream car. When the weather is humid, the sandblaster clogs from the moisture in the air mixing with the sand. That makes the job miserable as I have to constantly disassemble the sandblaster to unclog it.

So, I moved on to tackling the motors in the butterfly roof window panels. The motor was inoperable and as can be seen in the photos, its interior was pretty rusty. I took the motor completely apart and sandblasted the case inside and out (the sandblasting cabinet for small parts doesn’t clog up), cleaned the armature and brushes, soldered new wires in place and painted and reassembled the motors. When completed, they both ran as new. The rest of the butterfly operating mechanisms were also cleaned, repainted and greased for years of smooth operation.

An item that was difficult to make was the acrylic dividers that rest on a chrome bar and separate the quarter window glass from the acrylic windows at the rear corners of the car’s roof. They’re intended to give the illusion that there’s nothing there while they are actually supporting the roof, as well as acting as dividers between the two types of windows. The original chrome steel supports were too far gone for the chrome shop (AIH Chrome Plating in Dubuque, Iowa) to plate. The shop sent them back and told me to make new ones, which I did.

Recreating the steel supports was relatively simple; the acrylic coverings, however, were not. There is an acrylic divider between the rear glass quarter windows and the acrylic glass rear corner windows. It’s going to be a tricky part to reconstruct because it has to be polished in all crevasses to make it as clear as glass. I purchased a small piece of 3/4-inch Plexiglas from a vendor on eBay and using an original piece for a pattern, I used my table saw to cut the basic shape and then cut out the grooves and notch. The difficult part was sanding and polishing the acrylic inside the grooves and notch to end up with them perfectly smooth and clear in order to get the desired effect when installed on the car. They mount over a chrome bar and the idea is to make them seem transparent and as if they don’t exist, giving a wide-open view from inside as well as outside the car with no blind spots.

All of this work to recreate the acrylic windows had me thinking about a place not too far away me, in Lakeville, Minn., that specialized in making acrylic displays for retail stores. The business was Masterglas and the owner, Steve, was a “car guy” and would make custom acrylic parts for various car projects. For instance, he made some of the domes for Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s cars as well as cockpits for small aircraft. I heard about him while I was restoring the Thunderbird Italien concept car on which the large rear window was acrylic. At the time I contacted him, he was more than happy to make the Italien window and then later, when I was restoring the Mercury XM-800 concept car, he also made the windshield and back glass for that project. When I purchased the XM-Turnpike Cruiser and again had the need to have acrylic windows made, I called Masterglas only to find out that Steve had passed away and they were shutting down his business.

That sent me searching the country and even Canada looking for a place, hopefully within driving distance, to make the acrylic windows for this project. I found one place in California and another in British Columbia. Their prices were reasonable, but the kicker was that I had to ship these heavy and fragile plaster molds across or out of the country and if they got broken in transit, I’d be starting all over. Then I got the hair-brained idea to build my own oven large enough to accommodate the sheets of acrylic in the size I needed to make the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s windows. I searched on Craigslist and found two electric ranges nearby for free. I brought them home and stripped them of the side panels, heating elements, oven controls, door hinges, seals and insulation. I purchased two sheets of 18-gauge sheet metal and went to work cutting and welding and built my own oven big enough to accommodate my needs.

As a test for my new oven, I used a piece of old Plexiglas I had in the shop and it turned out fine. Except for the scratches from laying around the shop for a couple years, the test piece would have been a good window. I put off forming the actual windows until a later date.

The XM-Turnpike Cruiser has unique conduits for the power window wiring as it enters the doors. There are also unique covers for the door hinge openings in the A pillars. These items were quite rusty and I had to rebuild them before the doors are properly in place. I also made new door sill plates.

I kept busy over the next few weeks rebuilding other component parts for the car. These parts included the master cylinder and brake booster. It’s a Bendix Treadlevac booster as commonly used on a lot of Ford Motor Co. and General Motors products of the day.

With all of the aforementioned parts restored and ready to reinstall on the car, I figured I better get back to getting the car ready for them. By then, the humidity had dropped and the weather was perfect for sandblasting.

I do the sandblasting in my shop and to contain the sand, I erect a “tent” over the car using the same tubular framework you see over vendor spaces at swap meets and other outdoor events. I wrap it with clear 4-mil poly and tape it to the floor. I have an exhaust fan in the sidewall of the shop and I construct a “duct” to it from the tent.

Once the sandblasting was completed, I left the tent in place and sprayed epoxy primer on the exterior of the car and its body parts. Then I sprayed the interior with KBS Coatings rust proofing paint and that will be the finished interior color. Every bit of the metal in the passenger compartment will be covered by carpet, panels and the headliner so the color doesn’t matter.

The next step will be refinishing the exterior of the body and getting it ready for paint. As you probably know, it’s a rather time-consuming, boring procedure comprised of spreading body filler (aka Bondo) over the entire surface of the body, waiting for it to harden and then sanding about 98 percent of it off and doing it again and again and again until it’s, as the saying goes, “laser straight.” You probably won’t hear from me again until the paint is on and assembly has begun. I can’t wait for that point in the restoration!

Click Here for Part 6 of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser project

*As an Amazon Associate, Old Cars earns from qualifying purchases.  

The post XM-Turnpike Cruiser: Restoring bits and pieces appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

It was a long haul, but this long-ongoing ’31 Cadillac V-12 convertible coupe project was a runner by the time we were ready to paint and complete the final installation of the fenders. The body was resplendent in green with black reveals. The fenders and aprons would soon be black as well. We had a trimmer working on the car and the painter in me was pretty protective at times like these. However, as it turned out, our trimmer of choice was actually quite conscientious and he did a bitching job while I was painting little pieces and working the fenders.

Before I put the fenders in color, I wanted to verify that they were going to fit as well as the rest of the car. We worked hard to fit the gaps on this old wood-framed body. The fenders had been fit to the car before, but that was in the early stages of the restoration and they had been hammered a lot since then. So, a double-check for fender fitment was good insurance while they were still in first-round primer-surfacer.

Before any serious scrutinizing took place, and before any measurements were recorded, we checked for even tire inflation all the way around. A measuring stick confirmed that the passenger’s side frame horn was a little closer to the shop floor than the left. A weak spring could have been the culprit, but that could be addressed at a later date. For this fender fitment inspection, we needed the frame level, which we temporarily accomplished with a little help from a level, a measuring stick and a small hydraulic bottle jack.

What started out as a standard, straight-forward procedure took a surprising twist in the form of a twisted driver’s side front fender. In short order, I embarked upon an emotional rollercoaster ride which took a lot out of the lil’ old auto restorer in me.

What you’re about to witness made me sick at first glance. So, I devoured a large habanero, anchovy and headcheese pizza, had a beer and called it a night. The perplexing problem’s simple solution came to me in a warped and twisted dream — a warped ’n’ twisted fender dream.

Source –
Au-ve-co Products
www.auveco.com

*As an Amazon Associate, Old Cars earns from qualifying purchases.  

The post Resto Basics: Fitting Fenders appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Fast Freddie’s Rod Shop in Eau Claire, Wis., usually has a wide range of old car restoration and resto-mod projects filling the shop at any given time. One of the neatest projects in the works recently involved a 1971 Dodge Challenger the Fast Freddie’s crew was transforming into a vintage SCCA Trans Am road race car.

The Challenger was well worn when it arrived at the shop and received a lot of body work and racing mods to make it mimic an authentic track car, but one of the things that was going to remain stock was the factory-type chrome bumpers. The rear bumper on the Dodge couldn’t be saved. It was just too beat up to go back on the car, but licensed replacements are available through suppliers such as Auto Metal Direct (AMD), which also supplied some body panels and floor pans for the Challenger.

Of course, even the simplest projects aren’t as easy as they seem, and the Fast Freddie’s crew wound up having to test fit the new bumper several times, shim it on both sides and eventually bend the bumper mounting brackets with a little heavy persuasion before the AMD replacement bumper fit just right.

“AMD has Chrysler-licensed reproduction front and rear bumpers, and they are as factory correct as you can get,” noted Fast Freddie’s owner Fred Kappus Jr. “It’s as close as you’re going to get in a reproduction. Every once in a while you have to tweak and bend and shape stuff like this, but AMD has been a really good source for reproduction panels.

“There is quite a bit of adjustment in the bumper brackets. You can see the tail pan is slotted for the bumper bracket so you get some up-and-down adjustment and you get some side-to-side adjustment. It’s a two-man operation to get everything set up the way you want it, but not too difficult.”

The bumpers were being test fitted before the Challenger, which had been painted with primer, could go in for final paint and assembly. The bumpers will come off again, of course, before the body heads to the paint booth, but not before it fits perfectly, gets photographed and then marked so things go smoothly during final assembly.

In this case, the bumper brackets were shimmed with a pair of 1/16-inch spacers on the passenger side, and one spacer on the driver’s side. When the gaps still weren’t perfect, the crew pulled out the “Pogo Stick” pulling tool, which provides plenty of leverage to safely tweak the bumper brackets and bend things slightly to get everything to lined up.

“The biggest thing is just getting your gaps right and making sure the contours on the quarter panels fit the contours on the bumpers,” Kappus said. “All you need are regular hand tools, and you’re gonna want a buddy over with you, so he can hold one side while you tighten the other and help you eyeball it.” 

*As an Amazon Associate, Old Cars earns from qualifying purchases.  

The post Resto Basics: Bumper Bolt-Up appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Story and Photos BY Tom Maruska

Since the last update of the 1956 Mercury XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s restoration in the Oct. 17 issue of Old Cars, I have continued rust repair on the body and work on the upholstery. Once I completed the rust repair on the front of the car — particularly around the bumpers, grille inserts and headlamps — I was done with the sheet metal work all the way around the sides of the body. I still have some work to do on the structure on the underside of the roof that holds the butterfly roof panels in place. There is also extensive fabrication work to be done at the bottom of the windshield, as well as around the bottoms of the quarter and rear windows, not to mention the bottoms of the doors. I will also need to completely fabricate a new hood and deck lid.

The metal work at the front end would be easy compared to the work around the bottoms of the windows, so that’s where I began.

The rust behind the front bumper pods on both sides of the car was extensive. I used my plasma cutter to cut off the rust-perforated pieces, then used those cut-away pieces as patterns for cutting new pieces that would get welded together and then onto the body.

You may recall from my earlier updates in Old Cars that Ford Motor Co. sent the complete, new rolling Mercury chassis to Carrozzeria Ghia in Turin, Italy, to have the body constructed. Since the lower control arms were in place when the car arrived in Italy and this was a one-off concept car, Ghia saw no need to leave access to the control arm bushing bolts should replacement be required some day. Since the under-body roll pan was completely rusted away, and I had to remove the control arms for restoration, I needed to have access to the bolts when I reassembled the suspension. Once the control arms are back in place, I will install flush-mounting covers over new access holes with just a small screw attaching the new panels at the very bottom. They’ll then be finished along with the rest of the body and will disappear from view. I sincerely doubt this car will ever sit out in the weather again, and it will likely be driven very little, so it’s probable the control arm bushings will never need replacing again.

The deck panel just behind the front header panel and under the hood also needed to be replaced. It was, like everything else, rusted beyond repair, so it needed to be cut out and replaced. The center section that the hood latched through was still solid, so I left that in place and made the new panel to go around it. When I removed the rusty panel, I found more rust in the structure beneath it and, of course, I wasn’t surprised. I cut out and replaced the rusty pieces below, then welded a new top panel in place.

Sometime in the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s past, a previous owner replaced the car’s rocker panels, but he didn’t duplicate the body ridge line along the bottom edge so before I moved on, I fabricated correct rocker panels and welded them in place.

The ‘butterfly’ roof panels

The roof section turned out to be tougher than I imagined. There is a lot of structure on the underside of the roof to support the “butterfly” window operating system. And guess what — it was severely rusted and needed rebuilding.

One of the bad things about the butterfly roof and roof panels is there are no adjustments built into the system. It has to be welded perfectly so that the alignment up and down, forward and back, and all the gaps are perfect. To make these panels fit, I tack-welded the butterfly mounts in place, then installed the roof rail trim, installed the butterflies and examined how it looked. Then I would mark the adjustments needed, cut the tack welds off and try again. It took quite a while before I got them just right. The mounts are still just tacked in place and I won’t weld them in solid until I get the roof refinished to a point it’s ready for paint. At that point, I’ll refit all the pieces and “burn” them in with my welder. However, the main roof structure is completely welded solidly in place; just the brackets that mount the butterflies may need to be adjusted and then solidly welded later on.

I should note that before welding parts in place, I coated them with the KBS Coatings rust-proofing product that I’ve been using throughout the project.

Refinishing suspension parts

I needed to take another break from the rust repair and do something for a little while that looked like I was accomplishing something. To that end, I sandblasted, primed and painted all of the suspension parts. These include the coil and leaf springs, the brake drums, tie rods, upper and lower control arms, spindles, axle ends, rear end and backing plates, as well as a few other miscellaneous parts.

I always mask any part with threads or that contact bushing or bearing surfaces. I’ve learned the hard way that any paint on those surfaces has to be removed before installing nuts, bearing and bushings.

I don’t mind jumping around to different parts of the restoration to get a break from one thing or another — it all has to be done anyway. After painting the suspension parts, I was on to another “break.”

New upholstery

One of the reasons I like to order all the parts that I think I’ll need early in the process is that I like to jump around and do different things to break up the monotony. I also wanted to get one of the seats completely done just because I want to see what it will look like. So, I started with the driver’s seat.

I sandblasted and painted the driver’s seat frame with KBS Coatings’ rust-proofing product. I had to do a little rust repair to the seat frame, too. Why would I think this part would be different than any other part of the car?

One of the seat tracks was also rusted off on one end and I had to fabricate a new 5-inch section and weld it on. This part looked like it was likely a production part so I could probably have found one someplace, but I didn’t know how much time I would have spent on the internet or phone trying to find it. So, in pretty short order, I had it made and welded in place. It did take two trial attempts before I got the third piece correctly bent.

The first part of the seat that I finished was the panel on the back of the seat. It’s adorned with a large L-shaped chrome piece with a handle on the top corner and a chrome finger cup under the handle. This is to pull the seat back into the upright position after accessing the rear seat area.

There are two different pipings used on the seats. Gold piping was used between two sections of the orange leather, and white piping was used between white and orange leather. I have a Consew Premier commercial sewing machine that will sew through seven layers of leather and it works great. It’s a double-needle machine with two needles 3/8-in. apart, and you can sew with either or both needles (depending on the project). There isn’t a presser foot especially for sewing with piping so I made one myself and it works perfectly. It rides on the piping and sews perfectly close to the piping for a great-looking seam.

Now I have the back of the driver’s seat completed and the foam rough cut for the seat bottom. I can almost sit in the XM-Turnpike Cruiser and begin to get a sense of the car when it was new from the driver’s seat.

Author’s note: Thank you for your continuing interest in the XM-Turnpike Cruiser! Be sure to watch for more updates in Old Cars and visit www.tommaruskacars.us for additional information on this fabulous and historic car. I will be posting a couple videos on YouTube showing some of this work. Go to youtube.com/tpls63 and then click on “videos.” Once there, scroll to the end for videos of this project.

For More Info
www.tommaruskacars.us

Click here for part 3 of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s restoration

The post XM-Turnpike Cruiser update part 4 appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Phase 3 of the Mercury concept car’s restoration

Story and Photos by Tom Maruska

Ford Motor Co. commissioned Italian coachbuilder Ghia to build the 1956 XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car, and even though Ford sent drawings and a scale model, not all of Ford’s better ideas from the model and drawings were implemented by Ghia in the final concept car. More often than not, Ford was not happy with the changes.

The dream versus reality

This update of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s restoration will highlight some of the differences in the actual construction of the car built by Ghia compared to how Ford actually wanted the car built.

The clay model that Ford sent to Ghia features a vent window notched into the windshield. To Ford’s dismay, Ghia ignored that detail and eliminated the vent window altogether! Ghia actually continued the windshield straight down the A pillar, as can be seen in photos of the actual car.

Ford also planned the fender “gills” to be chrome-plated, but instead, Ghia painted them.

The front bumper was also changed from Ford’s original plans. Ghia built the XM-Turnpike Cruiser in a traditional fashion. That is, the front bumperwrapped around the side to return at the wheel opening. However,Ford wanted thin bumper ends at each front corner to float beneath the headlamps. Each front bumper piece looked like an upside-down U and would have allowed for a painted area between the bumper and the front wheel opening. Also, a small chrome trim piece would have adorned the body side between the bumper and wheel opening.

Another difference I’ve noted is that the slats in the grille inserts are actually horizontal and in the model they are shown vertical.

As written by Jim Farrel in his book “Ford Design Department Concept & Showcars,” “V.Z. Brink who was the Ford Styling Center Administrator wrote a report regarding the unauthorized changes Ghia made stating that, ‘when future cars were built at Ghia, two and possibly three visits be made to make sure what Ghia was building was being done the way the Styling Center wanted.’”

Trimming the details

When the XM-Turnpike Cruiser first arrived in the United States, it was devoid of any identifying emblems. Ford tried a couple different ideas on how they wanted it presented and photographed its experimentation process. Early photos show quite large “MERCURY” letters in the coves of the quarter panels, but eventually Ford staff settled on the much smaller letters that I’ll eventually re-install.

Ford also experimented with a large “XM” preceding the “Turnpike Cruiser” script on each front fender. The “XM” was later removed leaving only the “Turnpike Cruiser” script.

I’ve been trying to decide if I should fabricate the “XM” letters and put them back on the car — what do you think?

Interior anew

Original photos of the interior show it was all leather, including the headliner. There was also a fair amount of chrome-plated metal components, such as a metal grab bar and ashtrays with lighters. Unfortunately, the condition of the interior was much like the rest of the car — rough.

I like to plan ahead so when I need a break from one part of the restoration, I can do something different for a few days as a change of pace. It all has to get done, so why not mix it up to break the monotony? I purchased new leather for the entire interior as well as piping to trim the seats. (There is white piping around the white seat inserts and gold piping between the orange panels.) One day I’ll sandblast and paint the seat frames and build new foam and sew up new seat covers.It’s fun to see what different parts of the car will look like as it comes together.

Switching gears

The other day I took a break from cutting and patching rusty steel for a couple days and sandblasted, primed and painted the wheels and then mounted the new tires. They turned out beautiful so I knocked one of the old hubcaps on and took a picture for your viewing pleasure.I have a set of NOS wheel covers and spinners for the finished product. The tires are 760×15 bias ply wide whites from Coker Classic Tires.

I also recently ordered and received all of the new suspension parts for the car from Concours Parts. The parts include brake cylinders, brake hoses, U bolts for the leaf springs, different body bumpers, ball joints and tie rod ends and rebuild kits for the transmission, steering gear box, power steering pump and everything else I could think that I would need as the restoration progresses.

Body repair

And, yes, I have been working on the body of the car and it’s progressing nicely. I have the rear of the body rebuilt from about 1 inch above the license plate recess downward. All of the associated trim and the rear bumper has been test-fitted to make sure these parts fit the body properly.

The lower part of the rear quarters were also pretty rusty and they are rebuilt as well. I also test-fitted the newly plated exhaust outlet. There is one exhaust outlet on each side of the car and yes, they are functional.

The repair work is complete on the rear of the car as well as both sides with the exception of the passenger door opening. AIH Chrome just finished plating lot of the parts including the main part of the front bumpers. I rebuilt the lower part of the front roll pan between the bumpers and hung the bumper pods on to verify their fit.

The car was flipped upside-down for easier access to repairing the roll pan.I braced the body at the spring towers and removed the rotisserie brackets so I could hang the bumpers in place. The new sheet metal on the roll pan between the bumpers can be seen in pictures.

I had to perform extensive reconstruction to rebuild the “A” and “B” pillars on the driver’s side and still have to do about the same on the passenger side. These areas were severely rusted inside.

Now that you’re all caught up on the rebuild of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser, I will get back to work so I can show some progress for the next update.

More info tommaruskacars.us

Click here for part 2 of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s restoration

The post XM-Turnpike Cruiser restoration part 3 appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Phase 2 of the Mercury concept car’s restoration

Story and Photos by Tom Maruska

Old Cars – Tom Maruska has been hard at work to bring the 1956 Mercury XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car back from the brink. The heavily weathered show car was left in the elements for decades, causing extensive rust and deterioration to its other parts. Old Cars has been following the story of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser since Maruska acquired it and then through its aggressive restoration. The following update follows the first installment showing Maruska’s work in restoring the show car in order to make it worthy of a pedestal again.

Rust Replacement

The restoration of the 1956 Mercury XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car is progressing better than I originally anticipated.

Since the last update, I welded the donor frame rails into place. I chamfered the edges of the new and old frame rails in the same thickness of the steel as the original metal and filled the “V” with weld. Then I ground the welds flat and added boiler plates over the seams for added strength.

The next step was to remove the undercoating in the wheel wells and other areas in preparation for sand blasting. These undercoated areas still had good sheet metal. The undercoating was very hard and stubborn on the XM-Turnpike Cruiser, so I resorted to using aircraft stripper to soften it for easier scraping. Aircraft stripper is very noxious, so I used a hobby air system pumping fresh air into my face mask while using it.

The Big ‘M’ and Other Fine Letters

After getting all the old undercoating scraped away, I took a short break from the body and decided to remake the big, unique “M” hood ornament that was missing. I had the base for it so I knew the size of the foot print, but the “M” was long gone. Fortunately, Ray Cosh, who sold me the car, had supplied a period photo of the “M” on the car. There were no side views of the “M,” so Ray drew a picture of how it should look.

Since the “Y” from the “MERCURY” on the nose panel was also missing, I began fabricating this letter at the same time as the “M” hood ornament. The letters on the front of the car are the same size and shape as the letters on the quarter panels, so I was able to use a “Y” from the quarter panel as a pattern. Then I also replaced all the studs on the quarter panel letters.

All these parts were then sent to AIH Chrome to be re-plated into “car jewelry.”

New Floors

Fortunately, my neighbor, friend and fellow “car guy” Clayton offered to let me use his newly acquired electrically operated bead roller for fabricating the new floor panels for the XM-Turnpike Cruiser. I have a sheet metal brake, plasma cutter, English wheel and planishing hammer (for later use on outer body panels) as well as a wire feed welder.

I began by replacing the extra support tubing alongside the driveshaft tunnel and fabricated a new tunnel.

The XM-Turnpike Cruiser has extra structure under the floors, an “X” under the front floors and added supports under the rear floors. These areas also had a covering beneath them, on the bottom of the car, sandwiching the braces in a type of “double floor” system. This was for added strength because of the concept car’s weakened frame from recessing the rear floors.

A new structure was created and then welded into place. Before welding the bottom cover into place and covering the braces and the bottom of the upper floor, I coated the entire area with KBS Coatings rust-proofing treatment (www.kbs-coatings.com). I also coated the inside surface of the bottom sheet before I welded it into place. All seams were coated with sealer to seal up the inner cavities so moisture can’t get in and start the rusting process all over again. However, I doubt that this rare car will ever sit outside again as it did in its earlier years.

By coating the surfaces with KBS Coatings rust-proofing product before enclosing the areas, I believe I have better coverage than if I had drilled holes and inserted a tube with a nozzle on the end and sprayed a coating inside the closed areas. However, I will have to use such a device to coat the insides of the frame rails once I have all the welding on them complete since it’s the only way to get inside that area.

One advantage to having the car on a rotisserie is that I can position it so whatever part of the frame rail is down can be thoroughly coated inside and allowed to dry before rotating it 90 degrees to coat the next bottom surface.

While looking at early pictures of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser on the show circuit, you may have noticed that it looks a bit longer than any other Mercury from the mid ’50s. Ghia added approximately 18 inches to the chassis that Ford sent them in order to extend the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s body length during construction. Ghia reinforced the lengthened structure by fabricating a large metal “X” brace at the rear of the chassis, under the trunk floor. Like the rest of the car, this addition was also severely rusted and needed to be replaced. And also like the other covered areas, this X brace was coated inside with the KBS Coatings rust-proofing treatment before welding the trunk floor extension into place.

Stop-and-Go

The XM-Turnpike Cruiser had very unique gas and brake pedals made of orange rubber and trimmed with chrome. The originals were deteriorated beyond use, but were usable enough to copy. Even though most people would never notice them, I didn’t want to replace them with typical black pedals. The original pedals also had a steel plate embedded in the rubber so they could be attached to the car. I used a plaster of Paris buck in order to carve models of the pedals.

Then I searched the internet for a pourable silicone and found Smooth-On (www.smooth-on.com), which I poured over the plaster models to make new molds for creating the new pedals. Smooth-On also sells pourable liquid urethane that is tintable in a rainbow of colors, and it has a much higher tensile strength than the liquid silicone used to make the mold. The result is very similar to the hardness of a standard brake pedal.

I poured the liquid silicone into the molds. The models were painted simply to aid in their release from the silicone once it cured, and I happened to have a can of orange spray paint handy so I got a sneak peak at how the finished pedals would look. They were also coated with a mold release agent from Smooth-On.

I mixed up about half the liquid urethane needed and added coloring to get the shade of orange I was after, then poured the molds a little less than half full. After it hardened enough so that the steel gas pedal inserts wouldn’t sink, I laid them in place and then mixed and poured the other half of the orange urethane on top to fill the molds. The next day, when I removed the pedals from the molds, I was quite happy with the outcome.

Next Steps

Next, I’ll be getting back to the body again. There are still a couple pieces to fabricate under the recessed rear floor area that the mufflers and tail pipes fit into, and then I’ll begin on the outer body repairs. There is extensive fabrication to be done below the windshield and rear windows.

I believe the car was completely assembled before it was initially painted so all of the “hidden” areas were left as bare metal, another reason the car so severely rusted. Because of the way the window seals are recessed below the body surface, there was little to stop the migration of water into these vulnerable areas. I will get into those areas in the next update. Thanks for following along!

Click here to check out the XM-Turnpike Cruiser part 1 

Click here to check out the XM-Turnpike Cruiser part 3

The post XM-Turnpike Cruiser restoration part 2 appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

’57 Chrysler gets a much-needed boost

Jody Stuck had a hard time believing it himself. The longtime owner of Midwest Classic Restorations in Oneida, Wis., has restored more cars than he can count, and worked on scores of finned Mopars from the late 1950s, including ground-up restorations on many of them. Somehow, though, Stuck couldn’t seem to recall ever having to do a brake booster swap on one of the big, beautiful Chryslers.

“This might be the first,” he joked.

The job of putting a refurbished booster unit in a 1957 Chrysler Saratoga didn’t turn out to be overly difficult for Stuck. In fact, it went a bit quicker than he expected. “I figured I’d have to get up under the dash and see what was under there,” he said. “With a lot of these boosters, you have to disconnect things under the dash before you can pull them out. This one wasn’t like that.”

Stuck knew he would have to swap the booster unit on the Saratoga after the car began running rough and braking poorly. “It had a huge vacuum leak and the engine just didn’t run properly. Whenever you have a vacuum leak that’s a major issue,” he said. “I did some trouble shooting with the brakes and vacuum canister before I figured it was the brake booster… It just ran really rough and erratic with the vacuum leak. We plugged off the canister and unhooked the booster and then the engine ran a lot better, so we knew what it was.”

Stuck had purchased a rebuilt Chrysler brake booster unit from Booster Dewey (www.boosterdeweyexchange.com) in Portland, Ore. The company can either restore an existing booster, or supply a new unit for many different models. In Stuck’s case, he went with a new unit and will send in the old booster from the Saratoga to be restored for future use in another car.

The booster swap was pretty straightforward: unbolt the master cylinder from the mounting plate it shares with the booster, remove the booster and bracket from the firewall, then bolt in a freshly refurbished unit from Booster Dewey unit using the existing hardware.

The accompanying sequence of photos shows how he did it.

If you like stories like these and other classic car features, check out Old Cars magazine. CLICK HERE to subscribe.

Want a taste of Old Cars magazine first? Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter and get a FREE complimentary digital issue download of our print magazine.

The post New brake booster has Saratoga ready to roll again appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.