1968 Monterey, by Mercury

Quicksilver, the Heavy Metal Messenger

Purchased in 2000 from the original owner, the car spent most of its time in Denver, Colorado. As a result, there has been no exposure to Midwest salty roads and the car is very solid. Door seams and the usual rusty places are flawless. Bought with about 61k miles, it now has around 67k, as I drive it less than a thousand miles per year. Always garaged, it's a fair-weather weekend friend.

When I first got it home, it was shod with a mix of bias ply and radial whitewall tires. The rear sagged lower than the front. The single rusty exhaust system was a chuffing embarrassment. There was a rigged system underhood that apparently cut cylinders or reduced spark or who knows what; it was called a Mileage Maker. From the factory, the car was equipped with a high-compression X-code 390 with 10.5:1 compression, a two barrel carb, and that single exhaust. I have since replaced the pipes with true duals (no crossover) connected to the cast iron log manifolds and a pair of red Cherry Bomb glasspack mufflers.

The brakes have been completely rebuilt: rear brake rebuild with new cylinders, front brakes completely to include rotors, calipers, pads, and a master cylinder. I also treated the big girl to some braided stainless steel flex lines up front.

Last summer I had the transmission rebuilt. The shop said they're quite sure it had never been pulled in 40 years, and it took three trips through the steam bath to clean it. Of course the trans slipped, wouldn't go into gear, was completely sloppy.... They put in a new valve body, Kevlar bands, HD clutches, a higher stall torque converter, and a shift kit, all for $850, including yanking it and reinstalling it. And you know what? It shifts a hell of a lot better! Took a huge bunch of slop out of the driveline, too.

I replaced the rear coil springs with some heavy duty station wagon coils. The front had coilover shocks which I replaced with gas charged Monroe shocks without coilover springs. I had the biggest Firestone SS20 raised white letter radials that would fit my factory steel wheels put on. I pulled off that weird electronic gadget from underhood, installed a Pertronix Ignitor under the distributor cap, replaced spark plugs, installed 8mm plug wires, put on an open element air cleaner and some eBay chrome valve covers, installed an adjustable vacuum advance unit. I eventually pulled all the hardware from the inop air conditioning system. Next to the underdash triple gauges I installed a dummy 8-track player, there is a dummy 5-foot CB antenna that I sometimes stick on the trunk. My Sony CD player slides under the front seat and a pair of 3-way speakers fit the rear package shelf in factory holes. I have a set of 1968 license plates registered. Recent upgrades include some amber fog lights in the high beam locations and I just installed a chrome dealer tag on the trunk lid, a rare item from the dealership that is not in business anymore, but from where the car was purchased when new.

So the rear end sits higher than the front now, thanks in part to the HD rear springs, but thanks even more to the fact that I lopped a full coil off each front coil spring this year. I pulled apart the front suspension and installed new upper ball joints, put some polygraphite bushings on the original factory 3/4" front anti-sway bar, upgraded to polygraphite sway bar end links, and used a Dremel tool with cut off wheels to modify the coil springs. One full twist of coil measured 1-3/4 inches; when reinstalled, the shortened springs dropped the nose of the car one and a half inches.

On my to-do list: I have a friend who is going to donate a factory cast iron four barrel intake at no charge (actually, I traded a Thunderbird model, new in box, for his old intake). I have a line on a new four-barrel carb, 600 CFM. I really need some better shocks front and rear. The front sway bar needs to be enlarged, and I need to add a sway bar to the rear, where there is none. I'd like to relocate the battery to the trunk and then plumb in a cold air tube with an air filter behind the headlights on the passenger side.

Finally, I put a vintage shorty brown beer bottle as a coolant catcher up under the front grill. ;-)