Merc Rebuild (Mock Up)

[James2]

Had a day off today and since the weather has turned Fall like and painting the GS Corvettes is on hold for now. I decided to start this rebuild.

You may remember this one from a few years back.

About a year ago this Merc was one of the models damaged while moving. It was nicked up pretty good and some pieces were lost. The hood took most of the damage.

Thanks to a doner kit given to me by my Pal Al, I am ready to make something cool out of this. I began with disassembly and fitting the new hood. Because of the amount of body work, I am resisting the purple pond. My hope is to sand, blend and repaint without hurting the body.   http://s176.photobucket.com/user/fredjames_2007/library/49 MERK?sort=2&page=1

Thanks for looking and feel free to follow along...

 

Edited October 21, 2018 by James2

[Modelbuilder Mark]

Do you have some of the original color? 

[James2]

Primer Again. Gonna need quite a bit of smoothing and fitting for the hood but it's headed in the right direction....

[Dann Tier]

This is gonna look SICK!!

[da Speedinger]

how can i forget this one - i used your photo-documentation of sectioning and chopping to create my own '49 merc lead sled:
http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/113876-gas-monkey-49-merc/

[James2]

Tiny Steps right now. I have decided on a suitable engine. This will be the set up. 

I thought I might share the stages of clean up so far. Right is as is from the tree. Middle is cleaned and drilled. I use a small Dremel bit like a file too. Left is touched up with Molotow chrome. I’ll paint the inside of the stack later

[TarheelRick]

Love these old lead sleds so will be watching this revival.  I like the looks of that forward hinging hood, do you have some better pictures of how you did it?

[James2]

Sure Rick, hope these help.

I like the brass wire because of the spring it has and the fact that it does not look heavy. The aluminium tube is slightly wider than the distance between the fender wells which are drilled to accept the hinge. The brass wire has 90* bends that fit in those holes. The slight bend in the middle helps lift the hood up and I installed two pieces of styrene to stop the hinge from flipping forward to far. It's about as simple as I could do it, without over engineering. Here one Rider is doing, it's a lot cleaner than this. 

 

Here you can see the engine from the Revell 50 Ford pickup  with Ardun heads mocked up.

 

[Koellefornia Kid]

This looks really nice, so far!

[James2]

Progress and Mock up...