Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

Well in keeping w/ my commitment to buy my paint, today I did just that. A gallon of 2k primer and it's required activator, a gallon of PPG acrylic enamel Competition Orange, it's activator, and a gallon of reducer, and a one qt "pkg" of Ditzler hot rod satin black. Total price......450.00.
Of all the standard, non-metallic colors in the spectrum, red is the most expensive. Evidently, Competition Orange is next in line. Prices ranges from acceptable, (the 150.00 a gallon I paid) to freakin' insane.... 315.00 for Dupont Chromabase. I don't know what the premium mfg's put in their paint to make it that much better,....but it has to have some precious metal or something I'm thinkin'.

These last two days I've been getting filty (again). I already did the floor in front of the axle, but still had some welding left over in the back in the wheel tubs, and frame rail reinforcement before I could finish painting that.

Day one was welding day. More of me getting my ass burned up w/ little molten balls. Today was paint day.
Now every other time I've bought the rattle can bedliner product, it's always been the same RustOleum stuff. Today, I bought two cans of the sorriest, biggest piles of steaming dog s hit ever packaged and branded as paint.

Duplicolor makes a water based product in a 16.5 oz can that was "on sale" at Advance for 2 for 20.00. At the time I didn't know it was water based and it didn't matter anyway.They call it "bed Armour"

They need to change that.

They need to call it can of water based dog sh it that spits, spatters runs, and glops black sh it everywhere but where you want it.

If it was just one defective can, I coulda lived w/ that, but both of these things started sputtering almost immediately. I figured it was by design, and that they wanted the texture to be coarse, but after 10 seconds of spraying, there was a huge build up of paint dripping off the can and nozzle. I could feel little droplets hitting my face as I sprayed this crap despite my best attempt to stay out from under the spray . The floor under the car?....Black. My clothes? Black. when the cans were empty, and I drug my ass out from underneath, I went inside to see what I looked like.

I had it.


Blackne. The worst possible case.

About a thousand little specs of this crap now covered my face in a pattern around where I wore safety glasses,...almost looking like I wanted this. The only thing that I can say positive about this crap, is that it washed off w/ soap and water.

But if it didn't...............

You could call me Salt-N-Peppa.

Now that all this crap had to dry,...I moved back to the engine compartment to finish weld the remaining holes,.....(and I mean EVERY remaining hole) that was left to weld closed.

A/C? gone. Heater? gone. Clutch cable? gone. Speedo cable? gone. Evap drain? gone. Wire grommet holes for main harness? gone. Holes to mount A/C evap?. gone.

Gone, gone,gone.

I even went as far as starting to remove the pesky pinch seam that ran across the firewall,...(and actually cut two inches out) but after looking at what kind of mess that would be,....I welded that b itch right back in place.

So now, I'm grinding. Then I'm smearing on body putty, and eventually,...the engine compartment will assume it's final color. Satin Black.

95BlueStallion said:

You are one productive SOB.

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What?... I've had the car for 8 months now,......some people think it should be running.

95BlueStallion said:

Technically Chip Foose would have had it done in 7 days, but youre from Council Tucky.

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In reality, I did way more than I wrote about in the last update. ( Figured my rattle can rant went on longer than standard attention spans allow for)
I got absolutely anal when it came time to button up the wheel tubs. Not only is there two welds on top of the wheel tub (one on both sides of the filler strip) but there are two additional welds on the bottom (inside the wheel tub)

Now why I did that I'm not exactly sure. Part of me was saying that it guaranteed that no crud could ever get in between an open unsealed edge regardless of what seam sealer and undercoating would be applied over top. At the top of the pic, you can see where I had a little towering inferno moment when I rosette welded the trunk hinge mount tabs back on the tub. (another thing I did today).
All I know is that it took me more than a minute to get "unlocked" after balling myself up inside that tub, looking straight up while I stitch welded two rows of seams that were made up of one side galvanized, the other side mild steel.
I know the weld seems to wander,..but that is the way the sawzall finished the cut. Take out the filler in the middle and both welds kinda follow the same path.

This thread started 8/28/13. The end of this month makes 8 months.
If it wasn't such a disaster, I'd share what my hamster pile of parts look like. There is so much sh it stacked up, I'll be glad when I can finally start bolting some of that junk on. Now that the floor is painted underneath, and all of the welding is done, both front wheel wells will be painted by weeks end. I get the bored and honed block, the rebuilt rods, and the new pistons back tomorrow if I can get by the machine shop. I will mock up two pistons (#1, and #6) to see how far in the hole they still are, and then return the block back to them for decking. The crankie-doo, rods, pistons, flex plate, balancer one bearing, and one ring set will go to another shop for balancing.
In all of the time I've built engines that used a custom piston, these by far are the best looking pistons I've seen, so if I do get them back tomorrow,..I'll be sharing a pic of one of those sweeties then.
Bottom line,...for the sake of about 1000-1500.00 that car is done. Time & sweat will be the only thing stopping it from being complete. Looking for a fall completion.

Today the project name changed. Matter of fact, I'm gonna rename the car right along with it. Calling the project a Gila Monster was appropriate when I was multiple thousands of dollars away, had no idea where the time and resources to build it would come from, and didn't have much more planned in the way of HP/TQ than a straight from the JY LS as the potential power plant.

That was 8 months ago.

Now as I draw down on the spending part of the build, and all that remains is to put the plan into action via my labor, the concept is starting to take shape. The fact that the engine I'm building for the thing COULD make in excess of 550 ft/lbs of RWTQ, kinda puts my little southwestern venomous lizard laying on a rock, trying to keep warm outta of his league.

But, not wanting to completely separate the car from the region the it hails from, and given that Ford, and his messenger of the gods buddy Mercury have used the name in the past. I figure what the hell.



Those that know me know I'm a sucker for decals on a car. These will be fender emblems in black w/ the orange body showing through everywhere you see white.

So my thoughts to justify the name change for the project is simple:

It just doesn't matter.

Firstly, unlike the Mustang, how many Fairmont purists are in the world that I gotta worry about offending by changing my Ford over to a Mercury, and how many are gonna picket me for taking a long dead namesake and slapping it on my car?

And do I give the reddest of rats' asses?

Secondly, In the desert SW They don't call them Tornadoes. They either call them dust devils, twisters, or CYCLONES!
I'm still giving credit to the region I found this poor old bastard.

I think my little orange and black lizard friend would be proud.

Noobz347 said:

LOL... I posted those in the wrong thread.

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I'm so glad to hear that,..I didn't want to "not get it" again.

95BlueStallion said:

I still like the Gila Monster. Its unique and original to the car, and the "monster" part of the name holds pretty true to the power you will make out of the Frankenstein motor you are making. However, it is your car and I have no red rats' asses to give nor take from you.

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Well I gotta be honest. I never really intended to call it the Gila Monster in the same manner I'm badging it as a Cyclone. The Fairmont/Zephyr bodystyle is pretty much the evolution of a Fairlane/Comet, so to me it makes sense.
However.....
Ford namesakes suck. A Fairlane never meant anything more than the name Henry gave to his mansion, and even the GT/GTA badges couldn't change the gayness.
Mercury on the other hand:
Firstly, there's that winged helmet wearing "messenger of the gods" vibe that will allow me to have the little dudes head made into wheel center caps.
Secondly,. A Comet is a ball of ice dust hurtling through space, just waiting to hit a planet and end it. A Cyclone blows doors off. A Marauder roams from place to place in search of booty to plunder..... Cougars, aka mountain lions, scare the sh it outta horses,..Monterey is a cool place. and Montego, is an even cooler place...Hell, Even the name Zephyr means A westerly wind ( more or less).
So bottom line, If you're gonna plagiarize a brand, at least they gave cool names to their cars.

But If it makes you feel better, you can still refer to it as the gila monster