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This is the 55 Mercury I obtained after it had sat several years in a small garage in St.Catharines. I took it on trade for installing a used engine in a customers car. He had received the vehicle as payment for a debt and had no way to store it or to get it running. It had its original 223 cubic inch straight 6 and heavy duty 4 speed transmission along with a steering wheel the size of a 45 gallon drum. Manual everything made it a tough vehicle to enjoy driving, but I did use it for the first year. |
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| Here is the truck as it arrived at my shop in tow behind my 88 Chevy shop truck. A little ironic as you will see shortly. |
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I added a late model trailer hitch and electric brakes as I really used it as a shop truck. Here it is at a car show in Welland with a friend's 31 Model A on the trailer. We had taped a number to the doors to make it look like an early dirt track car and tow vehicle.
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| Friends persuaded me to update the drive train to make it more enjoyable to use. We started by removing the body of the 55. This truck was an M350, a heavy duty chassis. It would have been sold new as a cab and chassis only with no pick up box. It came to me with the flat bed on it so I opted to keep it. |
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| This is the 88 Chev that would become the foundation for the new shop truck. Computer wiring had corroded to the point it was impossible to keep the motor running properly. The decision was made to convert it to a carburetor and rewire the new truck with a Painless Wiring kit.
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| Here we are in the process of stripping the body off the 88.Three guys, one day, one case of beer and the job was done.[ at least the beer was done!]
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| A little brute strength was all that was required to remove the unwanted parts. Funny how things work out, I am taking the photo and the smallest one of my helpers [Dave Paddle] is taking the cab off. Guys will do anything for free beer! |
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| In this photo the cab is already installed. Instillation photos were lost due to camera operator error.[too much beer??] I decided to go with flat black for ease of touch up, as I really am going to use this vehicle year round. We painted the rear wall and roof before finishing the deck installation. Hi tech spray bombs were used as we had them in stock.
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| Here the flat bed is installed and the truck has already been on the road for a few weeks by this time. Oak railings were added to make the truck easier to carry stuff. If you look close, you can still see the original 88 rear bumper still in place. Many changes were still to come but I needed my shop truck back as I had nothing else to drive.
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| The racks were found to interfere with the rear view mirrors when towing so they were shortened 1 row. This photo is my proof that this truck is a year round vehicle.
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| The preceding photos were taken in the summer and fall of 2003. This photo is April of 2004 and we decided to complete the California suede paint job. Here our body man, Wayne Stevenson, watched by friend Wayne Miller, is filling the original gas filler hole in the cab.
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| Friends can only stand around so long before they are put to work. We filled all the name plate holes in the hood and Wayne is sanding the primer before we paint.
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| Here we are in the spray booth! No expense was spared in the construction of my new ride. We used real masking tape and paper everywhere we could.
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| Looks great EH? We masked over the logos on the doors as they are expensive to replace. The aluminum rims are used parts salvaged from a Toyota Highlander SUV we bought to take the motor out for a customers truck.
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| Too much flat black, not enough shiny. FLAMES! That's what we need! A local painter Wilf, from Silverlines Air brushing handled the job for us. Looks Great!
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| The stock dash was retained at first. No amount of work could make the gauges read correctly with the newer sending units so a new set of gauges were needed. I took a pattern of the stock dash and had this aluminum panel made up to fit the after market gauges. A little polishing and some LED lights for turn signal and high beam indicators and were truckin.
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| Here is a little further proof we actually use this truck. Here we are taking the 35 GMC we built for a customer to the spray booth. This was fall 2003 as all the flat black was not finished yet and the racks are still 3 rows in height.
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| Here is the truck being used to haul a 27T body for Dave Paddle's project. Check out the Hemi build up photos to see this neat ride.
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| A side shot to show the aluminum checker plate installed to hide the 88 frame. It is unpainted and rather shabby looking so covering it up was the easiest route.
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| A rear view, again to show the aluminum installation. The license plate folds down to reveal the trailer towing hitch and the black plugs on either side of the plate are for trailer wiring and to power the winch. Just visible are the 3inch tailpipes that are the end of a complete stainless exhaust from the headers back.
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