Started! Revell '49 Mercury Station Wagon

[Art Anderson]

First thing is to build up the chassis, modify the front crossmember to accept the very nice flathead V8 from Revell's 50 Ford pickup (in real life, very much the same engine as used in Mercury and Ford passenger cars. This necessitated reshaping the oil pan to clear the Merc's tie rod, and then modify the exhaust manifolds to passenger car configuration and add the essential, separate "crossover" exhaust pipe connecting the left side manifold to the right side part, then adding the correct passenger car exhaust outlet at the rear of the right side manifold. The crossover pipe, along with its couplings on the manifold, and the outlet coupling were made from bits of Evergreen 3/32" styrene tubing, with bits of brass rod making the locating pins. All glue joints done with Goldberg SuperJet CA glue.

The pickup truck's transmission isn't correct for a passenger car, being a top-loader using a floor shift, and lacking the longer tailshaft housing used in passenger car installations, so it was cut off, and the rear of the bellhousing carefully filed both flat and square. I cut the transmission unit off an engine from the AMT '49 Mercury, and once filed to a flat face, glued in place with liquid plastic cement:

The chassis came in for a bit of modification to the front crossmember. I found a picture online that shows the downward-slanting areas just inboard of the upper A-arm pivot points to be boxed in, rather than open channel as done by Revell, so a couple of bits of strip styrene were stubbed in place there with CA glue, then filed to match the shape of the crossmember in those areas. A couple of bits of .080" thick strip styrene were used for the front motor mounting points. I drilled a hole in each one to accept the locating pins on the Revell engine's front cover plate, but lacked a small drill thick enough to accept those locating pins. A dental burr turned out to be the exact diameter needed, so it got chucked into my pinvise, and with a bit of rotating that, workable locating holes!

Other than possibly fabricating the extra-heavy duty oil-bath/oil wetted aircleaner (which mounted beside the carburetor) and fabricating a stock exhaust system in sections like the real thing so I can finish off and smooth down the seams down the centers of the X-member legs, the rest of this model should be straight-forward assembly.

Art

[Ramfins59]

You're off to a great start on this build Art. Looking forward to seeing more.

[Joker]

Tuned in . . .

Edited February 10, 2014 by Joker

[Danno]

Kewl.

[slusher]

49 Merc I am tuned in..

[scaleauto]

Great start Art, I always enjoy and learn from your builds.

[Art Anderson]

Sweet. Why not use the AMT 49 Merc engine and tranny?

I could have. However, the Revell '50 Ford pickup is a lot more current and state-of-the-art than the AMT '49 Mercury (which dates all the way back to 1962), and in the bargain the AMT Mercury flathead engine has "rudimentary" spark plug wiring detail engraved onto the cylinder heads, which looks kinda bad to my eyes. AMT's engine did contribute its transmission to this project though.

Art

[Johnny1973]

Nice start Al

[crazyrichard]

hmm curious on the body !!

[Len Woodruff]

Very Kool Art. I look forward to how you finish the wood trim on the body.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Nice work converting everything to stock configuration. This should be a real knockout.

[Nitro Neil]

Wicked Pissa!

Watching this one. It's the first stock version I have seen anyone doing.

[Ron Hamilton]

Nice work Art. I am doing something similar, but I am going to rod my flattie with some speed parts, give the car a little rake, and add a few accessories to it.

[Art Anderson]

Exhaust system built! Six pieces of Evergreen 3/32 inch tubing, plus a scratchbuilt muffler, plus some heating with a BIC lighter:

Art

[crazyrichard]

nice !