63 Mercury Meteor

[Modlbldr]

Since I should be finishing my Raptor on Monday and, hopefully, my 63 Tempest later in the week I figured I'd start a thread on this. The first pic is my idea of what I'd like it to look like.

I do most of my building during breaks and lunch at work and this one has been my project to pick away on at home. I got the body cleaned up relatively well. I still would like to fix some of the trim on the driver's side but doubt that I wouldn't mess it up more in the process. I'll probably leave it alone.

I narrowed the chassis  pan from the T-bolt kit and sanded a bit of the pan thickness to get it to sit up in the body correctly.

I am using a donated Hi-po 289 out of the Mustang GT350 kit. Everything looks like it should play nice with the old kit.

Stay tuned for more progress soon.

Later-

[slusher]

Nice start, I will be on board!

[Spottedlaurel]

Good start Tom, I look forward to seeing it progress.

I'd never heard of the Meteor until I saw one in France back in 2017:

Mercury Meteor by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Mercury Meteor by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Nice-looking car.

[Tom Geiger]

A Meteor in France!  There has to be an interesting story there!

[Modlbldr]

40 minutes ago, Tom Geiger said:

A Meteor in France!  There has to be an interesting story there!

I agree! And what a well kept example.

Later-

[Nazz]

Great project Tom, I will definitely be watching. Meteors were  common in Canada. Question, is the body a resin piece and who did it?

 

Jerry

[Sam I Am]

1 hour ago, Tom Geiger said:

A Meteor in France!  There has to be an interesting story there!

Must have fallen from the sky...?

[AmericanMuscleFan]

Very cool subject Tom!  The chassis pan fits perfectly and it will be a rare bird when completed!

One of my father's co-workers had a '63 Meteor and the family sold it just a few years ago when he passed away, the car had only 35,000 odometer miles and never had driven in winter, unfortunately it was a four-door version... ?

[Modlbldr]

Thanks guys!

1 hour ago, Nazz said:

Great project Tom, I will definitely be watching. Meteors were  common in Canada. Question, is the body a resin piece and who did it?

 

Jerry

Jerry,

This is an old AMT kit.

Later-

[Force]

The chassis from the Thunderbolt is perfect for this as the 1962-65 Fairlanes and the 1962-63 Meteor shares the basic platform and is the only Ford/Mercury cars who do so, so they are closely related.
Many may think the Falcon/Mustang platform works but it's kind of close but it's definately not the same as the Fairlane/Meteor platform is slightly larger and differs in several places...I used to own a 1964 Fairlane and guess how I know this. 

I will for sure follow this build.
One thing if you are going to do a street car, the leafs and brackets are right but take off the traction bars as they are racing only and maybe change the rear end to an 8 inch as I belive it was standard on the Meteor and Fairlane, I don't know if the 9 inch was on the option list even for the 289 HP 4-speed cars.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Force

[thatz4u]

are you planning to replace the radiator cradle & radiator??

[espo]

This should be an interesting build. I like what the owner of the green car did with it. 

[Modlbldr]

1 hour ago, Force said:

The chassis from the Thunderbolt is perfect for this as the 1962-65 Fairlanes and the 1962-63 Meteor shares the basic platform and is the only Ford/Mercury cars who do so, so they are closely related.
Many may think the Falcon/Mustang platform works but it's kind of close but it's definately not the same as the Fairlane/Meteor platform is slightly larger and differs in several places...I used to own a 1964 Fairlane and guess how I know this. 

I will for sure follow this build.
One thing if you are going to do a street car, the leafs and brackets are right but take off the traction bars as they are racing only and maybe change the rear end to an 8 inch as I belive it was standard on the Meteor and Fairlane, I don't know if the 9 inch was on the option list even for the 289 HP 4-speed cars.

Hakan- thanks for the input. I will remove the traction bars but doubt that I'll go to the effort to change the rear end.

Al- I noticed the radiator wall and old screw mounts last night. I am thinking of cutting it out and replace with the radiator and wall from the T-bolt or ? for more detail. I need to be careful though because there isn't much room between the existing parts and the engine fan.

Later-

[Force]

May I have another input there.
The radiator from the Thunderbolt is not correct as the Thunderbolts used a cross flow big block radiator from a Galaxie to cool the 427 FE High Riser engine, the small block Fairlanes used the same radiator as the small block Mustangs.

[Vic Florie]

I'll be following along on his one also as my parents owned a '62 Mercury Meteor. I also own an AMT '62 Meteor kit and would like to do the same with it.

[Modlbldr]

4 hours ago, Force said:

May I have another input there.
The radiator from the Thunderbolt is not correct as the Thunderbolts used a cross flow big block radiator from a Galaxie to cool the 427 FE High Riser engine, the small block Fairlanes used the same radiator as the small block Mustangs.

So, a radiator and wall from a standard Mustang should work?

Later-

[Force]

The radiator wall is not the same in the Mustang and Fairlane but you could probably use it and make it work.

[Modlbldr]

Working on this again tonight. Just some quick progress shots. Proof of life shots, you might say.

Hakan-

 thanks for all of the input. I appreciate it. I decided to not use the traction bars but I'm keeping the Tbolt rear end for simplicity sake.

Al-

 after looking at the radiator wall and radiator I decided to cut out the offending screw bosses. I found that the easiest way to clean it up was to cut out the wall and battery, perform the surgery and reinstall the wall and radiator. I will need to find a new battery to replace the molded in one.

Still some clean up to do but I realized that I don't have any putty at home.

Later-

[thatz4u]

Tom, nice solution for the rad. issue, keep up the good work..

On 10/7/2020 at 11:31 PM, Modlbldr said:

Working on this again tonight. Just some quick progress shots. Proof of life shots, you might say.

Hakan-

 thanks for all of the input. I appreciate it. I decided to not use the traction bars but I'm keeping the Tbolt rear end for simplicity sake.

Al-

 after looking at the radiator wall and radiator I decided to cut out the offending screw bosses. I found that the easiest way to clean it up was to cut out the wall and battery, perform the surgery and reinstall the wall and radiator. I will need to find a new battery to replace the molded in one.

Still some clean up to do but I realized that I don't have any putty at home.

Later-

 

[thatz4u]

On 10/20/2020 at 7:18 PM, thatz4u said:

Tom, nice solution for the rad. issue, keep up the good work..

 

Nice work , the Battery from an AMT 67 Mustang might work..

[Can-Con]

On 9/27/2020 at 11:42 AM, Nazz said:

Great project Tom, I will definitely be watching. Meteors were  common in Canada. Question, is the body a resin piece and who did it?

 

Jerry

Not the same Meteors, The American ones were a mid-size Mercury only built in '62 and '63,IIRC. 

The Canadian ones were full size cars. BUT the Canadian ones were not built in '62 and '63 while the name was being used on the American cars.

[Sixties Sam]

Looking good! I learned to drive in my mother's '62 Meteor in 1965. It had a small V8 and that crummy 2-speed automatic in it.

Sam

[Modlbldr]

So, obviously I have not updated this in a while. AL (Thatz4u) asked about this one this morning and I had to dig to find the link. I have been working on it between other builds. I'm at the BMF stage on the body but still have the interior and chassis to do. Slow progress.

This one took a bit of a turn with the colors but the build will be a hot rod style.

Later-

[Sam I Am]

Looking good. 👍

[ewetwo]

Nice Tom.