Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.
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Those are some very cool bananas too Mike!Thank you Gentlemen. You know, I do all of this stuff for you guys, and others just like you......
Just so you can tell me how cool it is.
I keep them just for you too Dave.
I use them only when the situation calls for as required to curb my ego.
I've had to resign myself to the facts Noobz. My aspirations of having a finished running car by end of April, dashed by the reality of needing to eat.E-e-e-e-e-e-e-xactly.
Well, the last of my days to accomplish something is gone.
I wanted to get the entire door panel done for a Full Monty reveal, but things took longer than I expected.
I had to get the door bar filled, and sanded. Everywhere there is a welded joint shows it under primer. The joint is ground smooth, but you can feel, and see that seam. So that took most of the day. Between filling (and waiting for it to dry) then sanding, then filling some more, came the priming regimen. Every coat required over an hour to dry, and that was pushing it today. The weather was cool and slightly humid.
So, I bounced around a lot.
The day started with me dragging the door panel up to the kitchen so I could permanently mount the cyclone letters. That required that I first fit some serious assed double sided tape that the letter company provided me.
**This pic isn't taken upstairs, I drug the panel back down for these few shots. Hence the filthy work surface beneath the panel.
Since the door panel was up, and since I had an exacto knife, I went ahead and carefully cut the material out between the two holes I drilled in the panel so I could use the stock ford clips to mount the door.
So when it's all said and done,.....the clips that the car came with are the ones that work. NOT the twist in ones,.....Not the spring steel ones,....The stock, factory supplied, works perfectly clips I already had.
After that It was downstairs to sand, or fill, or prime the door bar.
At about 3PM the door bar was ready for paint. I had some left over HotRod black from two separate manufacturers. Some Ditzler stuff that the engine compartment was painted in, and some Summit branded product that the dash, and console bars had been painted with.
Naturally, I wanted to use the same stuff that the bars were painted with, but there was very little left. There was enough of the Ditzler stuff however to fill my paint cup about 2/3rds full. Consequently, guess which product I used?
Let me tell you,....all Hot rod blacks are not created equal.
The summits stuff more satin, the Ditzler stuff is flatter. I was hoping that would not be the case, but it is.
This time around I did manage to follow the mixing instructions, and despite that fact that I have the cheapest of gravity feed guns, it sprayed beautifully.
I put 3 coats on the bar, and let it flash between coats till the gloss was gone.
I needed a place for my elbow to sit that wasn't steel. So I made a platform out of steel to mount a wood backed, padded, leather covered pad to, and welded that to the door bar.
(obviously, I did that before all of the filling and priming)
The little elbow pad looks like this: It will get stained the same as the door panel.
The steel mount is a duplicate in shape. There are two nutsert things in the pad, and two 1/4" allen head bolts hold it to the door bar.
The bar was not dry enough to handle for this pic. I nicked it when I handled it. It doesn't matter really, It's the wrong sheen. It's too flat. Since I have to buy more paint for theb other door bar, I'll just scuff this thing and spray it at the same time when that day comes.
Obviously not dry enough to affix the mesh to it either.
So, all in all a good day. The door panel looks exactly like I expected it to. I'm very happy with how it turned out.
I hate how blurry the pics turned out today,...I must be on crack.
I wanted to get the entire door panel done for a Full Monty reveal, but things took longer than I expected.
I had to get the door bar filled, and sanded. Everywhere there is a welded joint shows it under primer. The joint is ground smooth, but you can feel, and see that seam. So that took most of the day. Between filling (and waiting for it to dry) then sanding, then filling some more, came the priming regimen. Every coat required over an hour to dry, and that was pushing it today. The weather was cool and slightly humid.
So, I bounced around a lot.
The day started with me dragging the door panel up to the kitchen so I could permanently mount the cyclone letters. That required that I first fit some serious assed double sided tape that the letter company provided me.
**This pic isn't taken upstairs, I drug the panel back down for these few shots. Hence the filthy work surface beneath the panel.
Since the door panel was up, and since I had an exacto knife, I went ahead and carefully cut the material out between the two holes I drilled in the panel so I could use the stock ford clips to mount the door.
So when it's all said and done,.....the clips that the car came with are the ones that work. NOT the twist in ones,.....Not the spring steel ones,....The stock, factory supplied, works perfectly clips I already had.
After that It was downstairs to sand, or fill, or prime the door bar.
At about 3PM the door bar was ready for paint. I had some left over HotRod black from two separate manufacturers. Some Ditzler stuff that the engine compartment was painted in, and some Summit branded product that the dash, and console bars had been painted with.
Naturally, I wanted to use the same stuff that the bars were painted with, but there was very little left. There was enough of the Ditzler stuff however to fill my paint cup about 2/3rds full. Consequently, guess which product I used?
Let me tell you,....all Hot rod blacks are not created equal.
The summits stuff more satin, the Ditzler stuff is flatter. I was hoping that would not be the case, but it is.
This time around I did manage to follow the mixing instructions, and despite that fact that I have the cheapest of gravity feed guns, it sprayed beautifully.
I put 3 coats on the bar, and let it flash between coats till the gloss was gone.
I needed a place for my elbow to sit that wasn't steel. So I made a platform out of steel to mount a wood backed, padded, leather covered pad to, and welded that to the door bar.
(obviously, I did that before all of the filling and priming)
The little elbow pad looks like this: It will get stained the same as the door panel.
The steel mount is a duplicate in shape. There are two nutsert things in the pad, and two 1/4" allen head bolts hold it to the door bar.
The bar was not dry enough to handle for this pic. I nicked it when I handled it. It doesn't matter really, It's the wrong sheen. It's too flat. Since I have to buy more paint for theb other door bar, I'll just scuff this thing and spray it at the same time when that day comes.
Obviously not dry enough to affix the mesh to it either.
So, all in all a good day. The door panel looks exactly like I expected it to. I'm very happy with how it turned out.
I hate how blurry the pics turned out today,...I must be on crack.
Phillip123
Active Member
- Jan 5, 2015
- 125
- 17
- 28
The panel w/o anything added is the same as any other flat panel weight, (about 1-2 pounds with the mesh insert) the door bar is .065 Dom 1.250 tubing, it probably adds another 3 pounds, and that box with spkr....3 more. In total, probably 7-8 pounds added to the door.
The same as strapping your average m-16a2 w/ a 30 round clip to the door, nothing special.
The bars would make perfect mounts for an assault weapon. Perfect road rage material there.
Phillip123
Active Member
- Jan 5, 2015
- 125
- 17
- 28
I'll say this about that.
It's no freakin wonder why they are justifying positions like this. On one hand, the complexity built into the cars can be seen as a plethora of " ticking time bombs", just waiting to blow some future owners' pockets completely off their pants when it goes bad out of warranty,....but on the other hand.....how many people would be satisfied with middle of the road tech for the sake of not wanting to have to worry about something going wrong when they buy a new car like this?
Starting at the lowly 320i, and ending at the i8, there are probably 25 different models in the 2016 line, and I have to know every single thing about every single one of them. Not only that, but I have to know how each model compares to the competition in the price point. So that means I have to know a comparable amount about Audi, jaguar, MB, Land Rover, and the premium jap cars.
I'm only in two days, and I'm sold though. They are amazing cars. They really aren't doing anything more complex with the engines than anybody else does ( I.e. Variable valve timing, and lift, direct injection, dual, and twin scroll turbochargers, and the 2.0 Ecoboost ford is probably tit-for-tat just as much of a technical achievement as the 2.0 BMW version but,...damn.....they have fusion sized platforms here that start at 50k. I was in the full sized 750 last night for the first time.
Wow.
Carbon fiber door frames, cameras and sensors at the nose, tail, and sides to collaborate with the on board computers to assist in lane departure, collision avoidance, park assist ( the car even backs itself in) Gesture, and voice control of all of the information ( ala minority report) to literally let you sweep your hand in the air to change channels, between things like Nav, and phone, virtual positioning of the car, that literally allows you to see the thing from above it, AS YOU ARE SITTING IN IT so you can see how close you are to the curb/ back/ other car when parking, that you can spin around by turning a virtual knob in the air in front of the touch screen where the " BMW Kinnect" motion sensor is located.....its just mind boggling.
And to think,....you can have all of that for the low-low price of 119,000.00 USD.
I know it's only day 3 and I'm in information overload,..but I also know that there is probably no better job out there for me. I'm confident that with time, I'll know just as much, if not more than my boss.....but damn...
I am official now though.......( they don't waste any time here)
Last edited:
mikestang63
SN Certified Technician
I'll say this about that.
It's no freakin wonder why they are justifying positions like this. On one hand, the complexity built into the cars can be seen as a plethora of " ticking time bombs", just waiting to blow some future owners' pockets completely off their pants, when it goes bad out of warranty,....but on the other hand.....how many people would be satisfied with middle of the road tech for the sake of not wanting to have to worry about something going wrong when they buy a new car like this?
Starting at the lowly 320i, and ending at the i8, there are probably 25 different models in the 2016 line, and I have to know every single thing about every single one of them. Not only that, but I have to know how each model compares to the competition in the price point. So that means I have to know a comparable amount about Audi, jaguar, MB, Land Rover, and the premium jap cars.
I'm only in two days, and I'm sold though. They are amazing cars. They really aren't doing anything more complex with the engines than anybody else does ( I.e. Variable valve timing, and lift, direct injection, dual, and twin scroll turbochargers, and the 2.0 Ecoboost ford is probably tit-for-tat just as much of a technical achievement as the 2.0 BMW version but,...damn.....they have fusion sized platforms here that start at 50k. I was in the full sized 750 last night for the first time.
Wow.
Carbon fiber door frames, cameras at the nose, tail, and sides to collaborate with the on board computers to assist in lane departure, collision avoidance, park assist ( the car even backs itself in) Gesture, and voice control of all of the information ( ala minority report) to literally let you sweep your hand in the air to change channels, between things like Nav, and phone, virtual positioning of the car, that literally allows you to see the thing from above it, AS YOU ARE SITTING IN IT so you can see how close you are to the curb/ back/ other car when parking, that you can spin around by turning a virtual knob in the air in front of the touch screen where the " BMW Kinnect" motion sensor is located.....its just mind boggling.
And to think,....you can have all of that for the low-low price of 119,000.00 USD.
I know it's only day 3 and I'm in information overload,..but I also know that there is probably no better job out there for me. I'm confident that with time, I'll know just as much, if not more than my boss.....but damn...
I am official now though.......( they don't waste any time here)
You are now officially my hero.
While that type of technology is amazing, it is exactly what is making people lazier and lazier. Kudos for being ambitious enough to learn it all, especially being an older gentleman (no offense meant this time, actually).
In a few years all cars will be able too stop themselves........ 
man gonna need a new way to weed out the rejects.
man gonna need a new way to weed out the rejects.
Funny how you mention "new way" and "weed" in the same sentence. Sounds like you may have already developed a method for finding out which car really takes care of the important stuff....so to speak....
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