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The 1954 MERCURY XM800 SCRIPT  CONCEPT CAR

                                                                                   

Here are a few other items I completed before I started on the body work.
The transmission was completely rebuilt with new clutches, steels and all seals,
The brake system is all new with new shoes,
cylinders and lines,
I found a correct type air cleaner on ebay
and while talking with Joe Bortz one day he remembered seeing the original horn ring
in a box in one of his garages and when he went to look,
sure enough it was there so he sent it to me.
That was a GOOD find!

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(Click on the pictures to open them in a new window)






Here I am 'driving' the XM-800 into the shop to begin work on the body


The first thing that needed doing as far as body work is a really nasty job!
Removing the old paint. I used "Aircraft Stripper for Fiberglass" and it took 6-7 applications to get through all the paint on the XM-800. It appears to have first been painted a gold metallic color

and apparently they didn't care much for that and painted it again the white pearl color.
There was a lot of paint on this car, much more than I've removed off any other


Here is is all cleaned up


Now on to the body work, and I'll begin right at the top.
Earlier I mentioned that the XM-800 sat outside alongside a barn in central Michigan. It sat there for around 19 years through all of the nasty weather we have in the midwest including winter snowfalls.
The heavy accumulations of snow on the roof year after year caused the roof to partially collapse. In these pictures taken while I was unloading the XM-800 thd day I got it home you can see the sunken profile of the roof:




so the first order of business would be to get the roof back into position and keep it there.
Since fiberglass is a form of plastic it can be reshaped with enough heat.
The heat lamps I use for baking body filler and primers and paint also work well to heat the fiberglass up enough to reposition it. When I got it warm enough to work with, I positioned a bunch of props under it to hold it in place once it cooled

Here's how I propped it up for cooling:

and when it cooled I removed the props and the roof held it's shape nicely

so the next step was to reinforce it as it was weak and I want to make sure it stays up. First off I took the belt sander and removed about 1/8"-3/16" of the old resin from the roof and then I laid on 5 layers of fiberglass matt

and coated each with a heavy coat of resin:

Here's how it looked when done:

It's probably strong enough now to walk on, but don't you DARE!




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