Because I simply do not have enough things with wheels, I bought another car. Should start right up!
As you can see, my taste and quality of vehicles has changed only for the better. No title? No brakes? No run? No trim? No X? What’s not to love?
In case you have no clue what this car is, it is a 1963 Mercury Comet S-22, an early 60s compact car. It is the much prettier sister to the Ford Falcon, with a longer body, flashier trim, and a more luxurious interior.
This particular specimen leaves something to be desired with that above description.
Back in the middle of June 2024, I helped a lady with her 2011 Ford Escape and noticed this basketcase in her woods. The next day, I bought it for the grand total of $500. Luckily, the car is mostly complete, at least the most important stuff is there.
A little history on this car: the Comet has sat in those woods since 1994. It actually sat on a neighbor’s land, rather than the lady who sold me it; in fact, she has lived there about 25 years, and she says it has been there ever since she’s been there. The property owner gave it to her and her husband so that they might fix it up one day, but never got to it. When I spotted in the woods, I asked her if I might check it out and consider buying it. She said to go right ahead.
According to the VIN, it is a 1963 Mercury Comet with a 260 V8 and a 2-speed automatic. I never even knew FoMoCo made a 2-speed. I was a bit hesitant to buy it given it was a two-speed, but the price was right and I figured I could do a swap in the future if I cared enough.
Getting it Running
Despite the amount of crud, the motor wasn’t that hard to get running. The seller allowed me to attempt to get it running on the property with hopes of actually driving the car out of there. I got a bunch of tools together and some gasoline and got to work.
Firstly, I checked the basics: engine oil, carburetor condition, and made sure the bare necessities were present. I changed the oil with some Rotella diesel oil, turned the motor over by hand (how lucky!), sanded the points in the distributor, and set up a hotwire for the ignition. Hotwiring is very simple on these old cars: just run a wire from the positive of the ignition coil straight to the battery. This gives you spark all the time. Next, jump a large gauge wire from the positive of the battery to the starter motor to turn her over. Add fuel and it should at least sputter.
Secondly, I dealt with the Motorcraft 2100 carb. It didn’t work for some reason; it may have had to do with the air cleaner being wide open to the elements for 3 decades, I’m not sure. In my impatience, I totally ignored it and played the awkward game I call, “The Human Carburetor,” where I spray carb cleaner or gasoline straight down the intake’s throat to keep it running. It ran like garbage, but it ran. Next day, I rebuilt the carb and was able to pump fuel to it and it actually meter it correctly. It still ran about as well as it looked, but I didn’t have to spray and pray anymore.
Thirdly, my plans of driving the car out of the woods were totally thwarted by the brakes. You see, I went to get new tires for the car and I noticed as I reinstalled the tires that all 4 brake drums were locked up solid. I was in utter disbelief. At this point, I decided it would be best to call a tow truck to yank it out of the woods for me because I don’t have the equipment to move cars. Yet.
Funny enough, when he unloaded the car in my driveway, he actually broke one of the brake drums free!
Getting it Driving
A running engine and a driving car are two very different things. It needed, and still needs a million things done to it, but here’s what I have done so far.
I Hate Brakes
Hydraulic brakes have been a disaster for the human race. Ok, not really, but working on them is a pretty miserable task. I bought all new brake parts and hydraulic lines and started fixing them one by one.
3 out of 4 drums were seized up to the brake shoes. I find the best way to fix this is to use a propane torch, a hammer, and two screwdrivers or small pry bars to work the drums off without damaging the drums. It took nearly an hour for each drum, but I didn’t damage anything. I replaced all drum hardware and shoes, replaced the hydraulic lines, and repacked the wheel bearings. The bearings are original, but they roll just fine. I did have one defective wheel cylinder from RockAuto, but they kindly sent me another one for free.
At this point, I ought to mention that brakes have quite literally tried to kill me. I had the vehicle jacked up on all 4 corners and at one point I was working on the hydraulic tee on the rear axle. I don’t know how it happened, but the car slid forward on the jacks, the front axle hit the ground, the rear driver corner fell, the passenger corner somehow didn’t fall, and it left me pinned underneath the rear differential. It sat on my collarbone and neck. Luckily, I could still breathe, and it fell slowly so it didn’t seriously injure me.
I attempted to lift the rear axle, but I couldn’t both lift it and get out at the same time. Luckily, I could reach my phone and call my father who was inside to come outside and get the car off of me. He put the jack under the driver’s rear corner which lifted it enough for me to get out.
Things could have gone much worse for me, either serious injury or death, so be careful going under a car under all circumstances. I got a little soreness in my right arm and collarbone, but it could have very well killed me.
Other than that, the brakes weren’t that bad. Certainly not the debacle that the F-100’s were. Minus almost dying; that wasn’t great.
Starter Replacement Surprise!
The old starter gave out for some reason, and I got a replacement from the local parts store; that’s when I saw it, those glorious casting numbers beginning with C4. The transmission started with C4 and so did the motor. The VIN was not correct at all, this was not a 260 with a 2-speed, it was the beloved 289 with the equally beloved C4 3-speed automatic! I was overjoyed learning this, because support for these parts is much greater than for the 260 and the 2-speed. In fact, there’s even hotrod potential there, but I am not likely to hotrod it.
Idling Better Than My Other Junk
I mentioned earlier that the motor ran like garbage; if you but touched the throttle it died, and it was clearly missing a few cylinders. So I played another fun game called, “How Many Cylinders Will My Motor Run On?” Its very simple: get it running, get some insulated pliers, and one by one pull the spark plug wires off the distributor and listen to the motor. If it sounds worse or dies, that means that plug is firing and the cylinder is fine. If it doesn’t that means the plug isn’t firing and the cylinder isn’t working as it should.
Would you believe that the hardy 289 was running on only 3 cylinders? 5 dead cylinders, and somehow it ran anyway. What a sturdy motor! I had some spark plugs laying around for my truck that, for some reason, didn’t fit it, but they did fit the 289 beautifully. With that done, I fired it back up and it ran smoother than my 2004 BMW. What a champ!
Demoralizing Shifter
Running engine? Check. Brakes? Check. What’s to prevent the old thing from driving? How about a seized up column shifter? I spent entire months trying new ways of breaking it free without damaging the precious shift tube. To say I was demoralized would be an understatement. One day, I finally got up the courage to pull the whole column out and see if I could get the tube moving.
If you don’t know about the tube, here’s how it works: the column shift engages a tube with 2 indexing spots on it, one on either end. The tube encapsulates the steering shaft. When you move the shifter, it spins the tube which engages a little arm under the hood which is connected to a rod that connects to the transmission. Certain positions determine what gear you are in. My problem was that the tube would not move at all.
With the column out, I could access the underside of it and apply PB B’laster and fire. With enough heat and some light hammering, the shift arm finally freed up and the tube with it. I took it all apart, cleaned all the rust off and painted everything, and reinstalled in the car. Now the thing could shift.
Will it Drive?
The day before Thanksgiving 2024, I started up the 289, braved the disgusting interior, and threw her into gear. It lurched a number of times, but wouldn’t move. I kept adding trans fluid until it finally moved! Both forward and reverse! I poked it around the yard, running off a mason jar full of gasoline, and finally drove it into the boat shed for more extensive work.
The Interior, or a Reasonable Facsimile Thereof
The interior is so bad it gets a bigger header. I have no pictures of the original carpet and seats, so take my word for it, it was utterly disgusting, smelled of rats, and was full of… acorns? I felt I needed a hazmat suit to be in the car.
Besides lots of vacuuming, I knew I would need to pull the carpet, because I feared the floor might be in need of repair. Turns out the floor was completely AWOL.
Truthfully, I made it that bad. You see, it failed the “Strike it Lightly with a 2-Pound Hammer” test and I decided to cut all the rotten metal out. I do not regret what I did either, because I rebuilt the floor for free, minus some consumables.
Would you believe some manufacturers of floor pans want $150 a piece? That’s $600 total! Maybe to someone with no creativity and money to burn that’s OK, but I’m on a budget! But I got lucky again and creative.
A friend of mine recently had his ancient gas stove breakdown, and decided to replace it. Instead of him having to pay to have it hauled off, I took it off his hands, scavenged all good flat sheet metal out of it, and rebuilt my floor that way. The results speak for themselves.
Metal is just metal. Between dead blow hammers, ball peen hammers, a sheet metal clamp used as a bending tool, angle grinder, and a MIG welder, I built this floor. The floor pan manufacturer doesn’t sprinkle magic fairy dust on their pans that make it somehow better. It may look better BUT it costs a lot, and I’ll be covering up my egregious welding sins with factory style carpet anyway just as well as purchased pans. No one except you and me will know that Mercury and Kenmore got married.
And before you question the quality of the stove’s metal, I took some measurements. The garbage metal I cut out measured in at 1/16th of an inch thick; the stove’s metal was the same thickness. Both were weldable mild steel sheet metals. As far as I’m concerned, I did no worse than Mercury did, just not as pretty.
I, uh… “seam-sealed” everything with a combination of cheap Liquid Nails, Rustoleum LeakSeal, Flex Seal, Rustoleum Black paint, and whatever else was lying around for cheap. This was the only money I spent on this floor, maybe around $60.
That’s where I am so far. I have to work out how to remount the bucket seats since most of the original holes are gone, but I have 1/2" shims that should make that a cinch, and the back seat mounts on some clips that are still present.
Boring Legal Stuff
Don’t worry, I did not forget about the lack of a title for the car. After compiling a lot of paperwork for the SCDMV, with an extensive explanation as to why the title is long gone, I was sent a title in my name in the mail. Frankly, I consider myself extremely lucky, and put off most of the work I explained above before I got the title. Why restore it if you can’t drive it?
Some states allow a titleless vehicle to be registered if it is 25 years old or older, but South Carolina requires all vehicles to be titled if they are to be registered. I won’t further bore you with the details, but if you need advice on titling a vehicle, send me an email and I’ll do my best to help. I absolutely would not recommend buying a titleless vehicle unless either A. The seller can get it titled, or B. the vehicle was abandoned, as in my case.
Misc. Fixes
A car sitting in the woods for 30 years ends up having strange things that need fixing. For instance, my first major interior repair was the trunk. It was mostly rotted out, but my buddy had an old school water fountain (don’t ask) that made the repair a cinch.
I have since painted it like I did the rest of the interior so its no longer that hideous. Its a trunk, who cares?
Air Cleaner
Ok, this has bothered the tar out of me. I had the original air cleaner, but I could not find the lid for it. It was nowhere with the car, and believe me I looked. The easiest fix would be to just buy the cheap Edelbrock air cleaner that fits basically everything, but I could not bring myself to ditch the old cleaner. So I set about making a lid.
I failed twice trying to make something round enough using material from the old stove. The third try was successful, but ugly. The fourth try looks great. Definitely not a mismatched pot lid I found at the thrift store that they gave me for free that was only a quarter inch too big that I ground down to size. Definitely not that, don’t be ridiculous.
I also definitely didn’t have to make a longer stud from some 5/16ths threaded rod with a nut welded to it. Nope, not at all.
Pipes
One day, I pulled the dipstick to check the oil to see if it had leaked. I should say rather, I pulled the whole dipstick tube. It was rusted through and pulled right out. They sell replacement tubes, but all the reviews are bad saying that the fitment is poor. So for about $2, I decided to make a duplicate tube out of some copper tubing from the local hardware store. I’ll report back if this silly idea actually works.
I did the same with the hot-air choke. We’ll see if the copper holds up or not.
Alternator Upgrade
Being a 1963, the Comet was equipped with a bulky generator and spider’s nest of wires called a voltage regulator. They didn’t work, and generators suck anyway. Instead, I bought a Tuff Stuff GM-style one-wire alternator that really doesn’t fit, but I have forced it to fit.
I bought these super crappy brackets to attach it to the motor, but they were so flimsy I doubt they could hold up to high RPM. Further, I could not get any tension on the alternator. So I got creative again. I took a 1/4" piece of steel, attached it between the bottom of the alt and the tensioner to give it enough throw to actually tension it. I also threw the generator bracket back on because its a million times sturdier than the junk adapter I bought. I haven’t run it this way yet, but you can’t move the alt with moving the whole car, so I think she’s cinched down.
The Story So Far
I hope you enjoyed this marathon of the Mercury Comet’s progress. It has a very long way to go, but mark my words, she’ll be on the road in 2025. It has forced me to think outside the box many times already, and I can’t thank it enough for challenging my creativity and patience. It is a worthy car to bring back to the road, and it is more than a mere revival as you may have seen on Youtube videos, it is more of a resurrection from the dead.
In case you think I’m blowing my life’s savings on this little project, I have actually kept a ledger on what I have spent. I have spent, including the purchase price, $1791.06. I have not counted consumables because they get used on a number of other projects. Even then, that would only be maybe $1900 total. Turns out, you can have fun on a budget.