On the weekend of 1/4/13 thru 1/6/13 I ventured from Florida to New Jersey with a car trailer in tow, all to purchase 72 Mercury Comet that has spent the majority of it's life in an antique car meseum..... It currently has the original 200 I6 and C4 automatic in it..... It only had 15,052 miles on it when I perchased it..... It has a a couple dings and a few nicks and scratchs but the paint still has a shine to it, even though it was a little dingy looking when I picked it up..... The chrome pieces on the car are straight but not in the best condition, I am sure due to it's 15,000 mile in the NJ weather..... The car is very solid, it only has surface rust on the underside and has never had any body work before..... I cleaned it up really good today and I have to say it looks pretty damn good for it's age..... It was running when I got it but not to my liking, today I changed the plugs, straightened out some vacuum hoses, replace a couple pieces of fuel line, added an extra fuel filter to it, set the timing - It is definately running better but not great yet, I think the gas is a little old(it is cloudy looking in the clear filter I put on) so I put some gas treatment in it and filled it up with 93..... We will just have to see what happens there..... I also found the water pump to be wobbling around(I have no idea why it didn't leak), so I flushed the cooling system and replaced the pump and thermostat(I think the alternator is making some noise too, guess that will be next)..... I am not going to use this motor but want to keep it running and dependable until I change it..... Any ways the good stuff, here's some pic's of it after I cleaned it up.....
Looking great Frank. So what is the plan? Are you going to do to this everything you were doing to the other car? Very nice solid start. Glenn
Saturday I had a chance to get it up on a lift at work..... I can't believe the condition of the batery tray..... Here's the torque boxes front and rear..... Here's the rear quater drops and inner fender areas..... Here's the upper shock mount area..... and the floor pans.....
Very pretty little Comet! So, what are your plans for the car, keep it stock, make it a driver, or ????
The Maverick is now gone and I have all the suspension parts, rear end, brakes and wheels/tires back at my shop now(for those that were following my old Mav build)..... I also did a couple things to the Comet today, old alternator was noisy so I replaced it along with the belts..... I removed the stupid looking saber tooth buck-e-beaver front liscense bracket since I don't need it here in Florida..... Then I removed the chrome door edge molding off the doors and edges of the trunk lid, why people used that stuff like they did I will never know.....
Looks like you won't have any panel replacement to do on that car. Very nice find. A solid car for sure. So what are the plans? I assume since you kept all the mechanical parts off the other car they will be installed onto this one. But what else? Will this be a Comet version of what you were doing to the other car? I mean, paint, taillights etc? And when do you plan on tearing into it? I always look forward to your updates. Only now instead of being way behind you in your build I am ahead, for now. Glenn
It is a really solid piece..... There are a couple things I am trying to decide on right now..... I can tell you this one will progress in stages never diabling it for long periods of time..... I am going to keep the Comet tail lights and the paint will be what it is for a good while anyways..... The rest we will just have to see what I come up with..... You are definately ahead of me, for now anyways.....