1951 Mercury 4dr project

Some of you know me already but most of you don't. My name is Nick and i'm the president of Insane Kustoms Car Club based out of the Fox Valley area in Wisconsin (20mins south of Green Bay). My former username on here was Never2low (businessman_24 is what I use on all my other forums which is why i made a new account). Anyways enough with the rambling, here is the project. I've been working on it for about the past 1 1/2 months (sat in storage for about 8months) so far so everything below is just getting you guys up to speed on it.

I found it about 2 hrs north of me next to a farmers barn. It was all tore apart like he starting working on it but did nothing. It was been a wiscosnin car its entire life so the rust damage is a bit much. Rockers as well as about 6" of the floor all the way around are gone. Bottom of fenders and skirts are gone but the main body is still solid and it has a clear title. :bigthumbup:

Anyways here is what i'm starting with.







All these panels still need a lot of work but here is the begging so far.

Rear deck lid was in great shape.


Shaving some holes


DS front door, shaved all trim and door handle.


There was about a 1.5" flat area were a piece of trim mounted to. I'm looking at extending the door up past that point to the sill so it flows better.


DS fender, repairing rust and shaving trim holes










shaved trim holes








P/S rear door


template and filler piece for door handle hole




D/S rear skirt




filler piece






Found a nice little surprise, old skool lead body filler. Took the torch to it and melted it out.


Felt like a good 2lbs of it






Shaved trim holes as well, all the new pieces are extra long so they can be trimmed down to size once matched back up with the body.


In case anyone is wondering how I'm forming some of these pieces I have a 3ft Pexto roller with 2.5" rolls I'm using.


Picked up a 1990 F150 with the EFI I6 4.9 300 that i'm using as a donor for the engine/tranny/wiring & front stub of the frame with the I beams. Will try to use the bench seat as well after recovering it.






Spare block and turbo that will be going on it. Turbo is off of a Mack Diesel truck


This project is really only going to be in the $3,500 range to build including price of buying the car, besides paint. All the bag brackets, bar brackets etc..., notch and link bars you see I made...saves a lot of money versus buying from some where.

Heres just a couple more of the frame. Also part of the frame is a air tank which is why there are 4 bungs on the inside of the frame.




Laying hard in the garage, bagged all four corners.


Rolling the drive shaft/exhaust tunnel. If you look closely you can see 3 lines on the material. Those are the marks to roll from one to next with one being in the center. As your rolling it you have to rotate the material so each line is parallel to the roll by the time it reaches it. By rotating the material it changes the diameter from one end to the next.




We now have rockers, they aren't replicas of the originals but they will work for what I need.




Yes that is stainless steel and there is plenty more of that to come.




Tubs look great from the rear. At the moment my setup won't allow me to fit a wide tire to use up the entire tub. However I'm considering shortening the rear end this winter and redoing some things to fit some big meats under the rear. Doing the tubs big now will just save me some time later.


Had a 20gal aluminum fuel cell laying around so I modified it to work for this application. Using the stock f150 sending unit/pump and mounting it in the fuel cell. Its ruffly a 17.5gal tank now, had to shorten it some.


Little more stainless




Started reassembling the engine today.

Ported and polished head, comp cam springs, chromoly push rods, arp head studs.






Custom drive shaft all ready to go


Little decoration


The holes are just for water to escape


Custom fuel cell that allows the factory f150 sending unit/pump to mount in tank.

Sweet! You have some talent. Keep up the good work and keep posting pics of the project.

Cool project.



Here's your old ragtop:

nice, glad to see its getting some use

Here is a handy tool. Marson rivet nut gun, drill your hole, thread the nut on the gun, pop it in the hole and squeeze. Its just that simple .


Little rtv under each rivet nut to help it seal.


Just started mounting the fenders and grill to get an idea of were things will be and what has to get done.




I need to start wheel shopping as well once I finish figuring out exactly what I need. Thinking maybe a 15x7 -25offset in front and i'm not sure what for the rear yet. Would like to go with older wheels as well if I can find them in the size I need.

sweet lookin project