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

Boosted92LX said:

So you are telling me that's the same gold?

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Nope, but up against white, what difference will it make? As long as I use the same "gold" that I used on the wheels w/ a black base under it, It'll match.

The pics last night were all at sunset on an overcast day to boot. I'll unmask them and roll a couple out in the sun, and we'll see what difference the sun makes.

rdharper02 said:

That's awesome, I have a set of bullets I want to paint black and you just painted your black ones.....lol. What's the best way to mask off the polished lip? I was actually thinking of using some 1/4 inch mask and then following it up with something wider.

I think we will have to see the Mad Mike proof of concept before anyone is comfortable with "The Vision". I've been following your crazy ideas over a few years now and some how you keep pulling out some sort of mojo and making them work. I will admit that if I was not on vacation I would have hung a photo of a mustang with gold 24s on this post.

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All depends on what you are comfortable with, with regard to taping the polished lip. All I had was very expensive automotive paint resistant 2" tape to work with. I just did a small section at a time, and only stuck the edge so it would follow the radius.

I've said it a few times before, I can always tell how well the most recent modification goes over by the comments, or lack thereof.

With regard to my decision to paint the wheels, I've always been a fan. When my options are to choose either:

Black paint

Silver paint

Argent paint

Or

Shiny

The choices for customization are too narrow. If I was just gonna buy me an off the shelf wheel in one of the above color/ finish options, I may as well buy an S 197, and go stand in the me too line with the rest of the cattle.

With respect to the following:




I was telling the wife about the back story on the whole "Gold wheel thing", and how I could tell how well one of my design decisions "go over" on the forum by comments or the lack of the same. Typically, when I hit one out of the park, I'll get a fair amount of attaboys,..and when I post a pic of a green-gold wheel I get crickets. I told her that The fact that the wheel is the color that it is has forced me to change over to a white/gold (in my case....white/green-gold) paint scheme.

I showed her a pic of one of my favs Pontiac GP SCJ, and she................hated it. ( What the hell does she know?)

She went on to ask why I decided against the orange and I told her that green and orange don't mix. She, ( an interior design consultant) looked at me like I had 3 eyes. "Uhh,...trust me when I tell you this.......If there is a prayer that those wheels will ever look gold........you need to keep the orange." She goes on to say " Depending on how green the wheels are, the orange will bring out the gold more than the white, which will not because of the mutual color pigments in gold and orange."

She had to see the wheels first.

So I take her into the garage where they are, totally deprived of sunlight at 11PM last night, and the first words outta her mouth were "Ohhhhh,.....that's realllly green."

Ohhhh,.....so No Orange after all?

Lets put it this way,......I'm not even gonna take a picture of the wheels in the garage, they're so green.

Here's what I think:

I'm thinking/hoping that that gold I painted on the wheels is photochemically reactive. I think that devoid of sunlight, I'm getting a green wheel. I'm hoping that when the sun gets up over the trees here, and I roll one of those pigs into the sunlight, I'll strike gold.

If that happens, then my wife, with her eye for color combo's may get a vote in the final color choice. At the same time, she's talking about color combo's on upholstery, and carpeting that you might see in a university/office. But I'm here to tell ya. What works on a rug, ain't necessarily gonna work on the monster.






Andddd....the suns' up........and it doesn't make one damn bit of difference except to light up the metallic.

It's my fault actually. The dried paint in the white strainer is gold. Clearly, the black base of the wheel is affecting the final color of that gold.

So,.........that leaves me w/ a few options:

Paint the "gold" parts over a black base and two tone the car white and this green metallic.

Two tone a base (black and white/light grey and spray the entire car in that metallic. The base will change the color to where the main color will be the gold it's supposed to be, and the green that the wheels are, so in essence it will automatically two tone.

Add a light grey sealer to the wheel and spray another qt of paint(or however many coats it'll take to get the right color to show up), and paint the car orange.
(this makes sense to me if I'm not completely screwing up by spraying what has to amount to 7-9 coats of paint on top of the existing powder coat)

Maybe one of the body/paint guys will chime in here. @95steedamustang

stangboy said:

I think I like the idea of the 2-tone base idea. OOOOOORRRRR........maybe spray a gold pearl clear on the wheels to bring out more gold. *DISCLAIMER* I'm not a body or paint man. I'm just making logical, but uneducated on the subject ...suggestions.

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Thanks for the input. I always appreciate the comments, even if they feature pimp my ride suggestions, or elders from the Church of What's Happenin' Now.

And since I'm on a roll of talking to the crickets.......Another one of my "planned" modifications just became reality today.



This decal was done a year ago. After being notified that it was done, I let it sit another month before attempting to pick it up. During that time, the restaurant next door caught fire, and the resulting smoke and water damage ruined all of the completed projects.

So I waited till this week to have them redo it. (Not that I'm anywhere near ready for a decal, but it'd be my luck that Godzilla would appear and step on their shop, or some junk like that, so I figured better safe than sorry)

Yeah, I'm a decal guy. The last car had 69 Mach 1 themed graphics, and this car will pay Homage to the Mercury Cyclone. The art work has been used on several cars now, and I just keep changing the name font beneath the tornado graphic. I really like my pissed off F-5 twister,.....kind of appropriate for a force fed lizard if you ask me.

This decal is the "big" version. I'm having a smaller one made up just like it, and I'll choose accordingly.

I'll have a large CYCLONE made for across the trunk lid beneath the spoiler that will span the entirety of the deck, and thinking I'll have two additional decals made for the top of the hood scoops that will say the typical 60's stuff advertising what was under the hood (In this case, either, and, or TURBO, 4.1L, 250 C.I. XFLOW) Blah, blah, blah. A MUST have that I can't find yet, is a Mercury Gods head wheel center cap sticker that will fit over my existing ones.

I like 60's muscle. And I like what they did with the decals, paint, and styling back then as well. This car will certainly not be subtle, so why would it bother me to plaster a few themed stickers here and there.

I'm campy that way I guess. Where Scotts' car is the epitome of High class, My car will carry the banner for the class of rednecks living in mobile homes, wearing wife beaters, and drinkin' Old Milwaukee.

Go on crickets,.........back to chirping..

RaggedGT said:

I like the graphics, have you considered any darker greens? Maybe like khaki green on the bottom, that greenish gold on top-and an orange stripe/pin stripe to divide the two colors?

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Naahh. Orange is back. I decided to recoat wheels. It'll be a couple of weeks before I get around to that, (need to let the solvents bleed through so I don't trap them beneath the new sealer)