1967 Mercury Monterey S-55 restoration. Follow the car coming back to life step by step. DRIVELINE, MOTOR TRANSMISSION, REAR END

The original 428 motor for my car was long gone and transplanted into one of those rather common 1967 Shelby GT500's. A terrible destiny of course, but not much I cn do with that. The main reason for buying the 1967 Park Lane 4 door parts car was its motor, which is both date and casting code correct for my S-55.
I assumed that it was in good shape because of the low miles (53K) on the parts car. Anyway, when Irestore a car I like to take the motor apart for an inspection and to replace gaskets and worn parts. I also had plans for a new Edelbrock cam kit and a new aluminum intake to save weight.

1967 Mercury Monterey S-55 convertible.

Follow the restoration step by step

Driveline - motor - transmission

Here we go. To make it easier to pull the engine block I removed the cylinder heads and intake before it was lifted out. The engine looks really dirty at this stage and I disliked the signs of poor oil pressure and bad lubrication by the excessive wear on the rocker arms and tip of the valves.

Here are the major components of the 428 Super Marauder. After cleaning and a careful inspection I found it likely that this motor has suffered from low oil pressure for some time. In fact it is totally worn out and will need more help than I expected. There is not much else to do than to browse the catalog from Summit Racing and place an order for new pistons, rods, valves, push rods and all the regular parts like bearings, gaskets, camshaft with lifters and a timing kit.

The rocker arms are also totally worn out so I will have to look for a good used pair.

I have also thought about giving it a cylinder bore and to get the crank turned, but I believe I will be happy with just a cylinder hone and to polish the crank. I am not going to race this car, and I doubt it will be taken on very long trips either with the prices on gas we have these days.

The cylinder heads needs work as well. Probably new valve guides, new valves and the valve seats grinded.

The motor will now rest until the fall while I am having the needed machine work done by a professional shop.

It is September 2008 and I am back working on the motor. All the parts needed for rebuild have found their way over the pond from the US.

Since June I have also had the crank polished and cylinder heads rebuilt at a local shop.

For the block I have honed the cylinders myself and I am happy to say that they turned out pretty good.

I found a set of excellent used rocker arms on eBay, so that too is taken care of.

I decided to upgrade to the Edelbrock performer cam shaft with a matching roller timing chain. Beside of that the engine will be totally stock. I also have a matching Edelbrock intake, but found that it will give me some problems with hood clearance, so the original heavy intake will be used.

What I found to become a problem was to get std. 428 pistons. They were out of stock everywhere, but finally I managed to find a complete set on eBay. Sometimes I wonder how me managed before eBay. . .

Here comes the funny part. My best helper when I am working on these motors is a great book named "How To Rebuild Your Big Block Ford". If you read and follow everything in that book you just can't go wrong. I have rebuilt several engines through the years with very limited knowledge, but ended up with great engines every time. Lets hope this will be the case on this one too.

The first thing I did was to install new cam bearings. Then I installed the cam shaft and the crank. The next is to install the timing kit. I like to use generously with assembly lube doing this to be sure the motor will survive even if it has a low oil pressure for the first seconds after it is started up. The next step is to install the piston ring kits to the pistons and then get the pistons installed and connected to the crank. Then it is time for the new high volume oil pump before I close the bottom of the engine with the tray. If you wonder why I work with the engine on the floor it is just because my engine stand wasn't big enough to take the big 428 FE block.

Next step is to install the valves in the cylinder heads and to get the heads bolted on.

I have done a lot of work that is not so visible to the frame and chassie this fall. First of all I had the disc brake set up completely rebuilt. The rotors are turned and calipers got new gaskets and pistons.
Of course I installed new bearings all over. I found a NOS set of brake hoses for the car, that has been installed as well.
The rear brake hose can be hard to find for these cars, but a brke hose fro a 70's T-bird is exactly the same and easy to find at places like Rock Auto.

A brand new exhaust system has been custom made for the car by Bilens Eksosanlegg in Oslo.

NOS parking brake cables was found at Green Sales company in the US.

My friend Voltaire Gomez in California helped me with a set of good looking chrome valve covers and the chrome air cleaner is an exact reproduction I bought from Autokrafters.