The door I ended up using for the driver side had some surface rust on the lower part. It also had a pretty bad dent that needed attention.

To make sure I had all the rust removed I put on citrus acid on the lower part of the door for 24 hours, then cleaned off the acid with lunked water and wired brushed it. That removed all the rust in the pores, and the surface is just as good as it had been sandblasted.

Then it's time for some body filler on the fine dents that I could remove with my hammer.

Now I was ready to remove the body from the frame. The underside of the body was of course very dirty and had some surface rust. Before it could be sandblasted I needed to get the old undercoating removed. It is a very dirty and unpleasant job, and scraping the underside of the car clean from all this old stuff is the worst part of a restoration.

The trunk lid needed a lot of adjustments to fit the car. Even if it looked perfect on the car it came from, that gives no guarantee it will fit just as nice on another car. In this case it took me hours just to make it fit absolutely perfect on my convertible. Also a big trunk lid like this one needs some bondo to be straight even if it never had any damages.

In the left picture above the body is getting sand blasted. To the right you can see how nice and clean it is when it came back home.

The front fenders pictured were, with the exception for a few dents, as new.

1967 Mercury Monterey S-55 convertible.

 

Follow the restoration step by step

Body - paint

The sandblasting left a lot of sand inside the body that I had to remove. It took me several hours with my vacuum cleaner and the air gun to get it done. I now discovered some problems that was not visible before. Nothing serious, but some pin holes here and there that needed welding. A few hours with the wlder and the body was ready for epoxy primer. After I got the primer on I had all the body seams sealed. Then the underside was ready to be painted with a semi gloss black paint. I Also used a sprayable sealer in the trunk to give it the same surface structure as it had from the factory.

Now it is time for paint preparation work on the outside of the body. As you can see the bocy is resting on my garage hoist so it can be moved up or down to easy the work positions. Here is the work started to straighten the l quarter panels. Even if they look pretty straight and nice in the pictures they require a lot of bondo work to become perfect.

In the front of the car is one of the reasons why I am slow on this car. My dear Doberman puppy Amy sure knows how to keep me busy playing with her instead of wasting time on the old car in the garage.

In fact there is another reason for the slow progress, and that is a hurting neck , right shoulder and right arm.

Here are some color samples they paint shop made for me. Front lower color is close to factory color, while the one ont he top is the same color with green pearl on the top. It looks really nice in pictures, but I am not sure if any of them wil be my choise. I have now ordered a quarter of original color paint, and it will be used for the floor and inside of the body. Then I will which color to choose.

Here the quarters and trunk lid are as straight as I am able to make them with the bondo. As you can see most of the quarter panels and trunk lid are covered with the bondo. In most areas it is a very thin layer just to take away the slightest imperfections.

Here the doors and front fenders are ready for the next step, which is another round of epoxy primer. The I will spray the polyester filler and finally the surfacer. So far I am very happy with everything, and I believe this car will be very straight and nice when I am done.

Some details of the front fenders. The top picture shows a rare and interesting option, the fender mount turn signal indicators. I was lucky and found a NOS set at All Ford Nationals, Carlisle, in June 2008.
You can also see that I have test mounted the 428 emblems.

Finally the doors are done and ready to be painted.
For the color, I have decided to go for the factory correct paint and through a friend of mine found a supplier who had the good old acrylic base coat paint and the recipe for my color with the Mercury name Trafalgar blue, Ford #1908-A. This was a one year only color, which I think makes it more interesting to keep it that way
To the right you can see how I put sealer to the door shell. This is from my point of view and improvement to the how the factory did it.

Things are going pretty good here right now, and to the left you can see the fenders and the hood with the final coaty of surfacer on.
Above is the back side of the front fenders painted in a similar color to the factory primer.

To the left you can see the hood and trunk lid painted in the Trafalgar Blue color. It is a nice color that shifts from blue to green depending on the light. I am very happy with it.
The picture above shows the radioator support. For the engine compartment parts I am using a dark grey surfacer. That makes them easier to paint since these parts are going to be semi gloss black.
I also made an appointment with the paint shop on when to get the car painted, and they wanted the car to be come January 5, 2009. That should work fine for me.

After a lot of bondo work and sanding, the quarter panels were finally ready for another layer of Epoxy Primer and then several coats of Polyester Filler.
After drying over night it is ready for another round of sanding, then a new layer of epoxy primer and finally it is time for the final surfacer.
All the sanding the last weeks has really been hard on me and I am glad I am soon done.

To the right you can see the body after it got the surfacer on and the inside of the car painted. At this stage I have also applied the sound deadner on the inside of the quarter panels. Now the only thing left to do before the body can be reattached to its frame is to paint the fire wall and the trunk. Right now it is very fun, especially since I can see some progress every day.

To the left you can see the trunk painted in the correct black base color with the blue and red spatters just as original. I will describe more carefully the work for the trunk including how to make a new perfect looking burtex mat and the cardboards in the page for miscellaneous restoration work

Here the body is hanging over the frame ready to be lowered. As you can see the firewall has been painted semi gloss black.

Now the car is almost ready for the paint shop.