Rembrant's new non-Bullnose project

Hey Guys,

Thought I'd post up some pics of the new project truck. Not a Bullnose obviously, but I figured that most gearheads like me can appreciate many other trucks and projects just the same. I took it for a drive a few days ago and just made a deal on it today. I know the truck doesn't look like a project per se, but I'll explain what I mean about that in a minute. First off, it's a 1951 Mercury M1, and the word of mouth history on it is that it's a local truck, sold new here about an hour away. It has had some modifications. It has a 5spd in it out of I don't know what, and a 4bbl intake with 2bbl and an adapter plate on it. It has also been converted to 12v, and has full dual exhaust. Other than those things and the wheels, it appears to be mostly all stock and original. It was originally a 3 on the tree. I don't have any plans for huge modifications as I like them to look mostly original, but the "project" part of this truck will be adding power steering and power disk brakes, and whatever other creature comforts I can add to make it more pleasurable to drive. I'll be changing the wheels and tires also. As charming as the original manual steering and brakes are, to me they are downright dangerous, at least on the types of roads we have around here. Anyway, here are a few pictures of her. I'll share some more details after I get it home and spend some time with it.

That is stunningly beautiful!!!

Cool! That looks like fun!

Nice truck, I like it! Be neat to see what you do with it.

Vary nice looking truck

A flatty with a 5sp I hear is a nice set up.
I have not been up on the 5sp used with them could it be a T5 like used in the Mustangs?
A WC T5 I am sure would hold up to any power that flat head could put out.

Also not up on the power brakes the guys use but there must be kits.
Same would go for the steering but wonder how they bolt a pump to the motor?
I have heard a lot on guys using electric power steering on projects maybe that is a way to go?

Will be following as I did your other projects
Dave ----

Cool!  That is a really nice truck.  It even has seat belts.

So, tell us more about what it is and what you plan to do.

That's a really interesting truck, Cory!
Congratulations!  👏. 😉

I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

That truck is way cool!!  And you get to add something new to your signature!

Really nice, Cory!

This is amazing!  Much better shape than the non-bullnose project I just picked up.  I love this era of vehicle.

I look forward to following the progress!

Gary Lewis wrote

So, tell us more about what it is and what you plan to do.

Well, where to start??...LOL.

I've had some time to go over the truck and figure a few things out with regards to the direction I'm going to take.

Power brakes with a front disk kit is pretty high on the list, as is power steering. There's bolt-on kits for all of this stuff, so they're relatively straight forward. Swapping on front disks will be easy enough, but installing a power master cylinder under the cab will be a bit of a pain in the butt. I see there are remote reservoirs available, so that might help the situation a bit.

I've determined that the 5spd trans is a BW T5 from a 2wd 1987 Chevy S-10. That's nice to know for several reasons, but mainly so I can order input and output seals for it. It needs a throw-out bearing (it's noisy when clutch is pressed) and finding out what's in there might be a bit tricky. This 5spd swap was done before there were all kinds of simple swap kits available, so I don't know what's in there until I pull it. From what I've been reading it seems likely that the pressure plate and everything is 1952 Ford, and all they did was swap in a 10" S-10 clutch disk (to match the input splines of the T5). So the throw-out bearing should be correct to the truck, but I honestly have no idea until I get in there.

I'm pretty sure a complete rewire is required, which shouldn't be all that bad on a truck of this vintage. A 12v conversion was done, but it was rough...there's loose wires everywhere, and open ends hanging out, etc. This stuff really bother's me because I've seen a lot of old vehicles catch fire the past number of years. This is fairly high on my winter project list. The engine still has an original Load-O-Matic points distributor, so that is going to get converted to something more modern.

I'm learning about the old flat head Ford engines pretty quickly. I find them fascinating. I didn't realize until I bought this thing that the engine cooling system(s) are isolated left and right...so two water pumps, two thermostats, and two inlets and outlets in the rad, etc. The first thing that came to mind was how did the truck's dash only have one coolant temp gauge?? From my reading it looks like only one cylinder head had a temp sensor, while the other just had a temp switch. So you were always only monitoring the temp on a one side, and the other side was either OK, or not OK...lol. I assume if the side with just the switch overheated then it would peg the gauge full hot.

Driver's side has a loose king pin, and the passenger side has a loose wheel bearing that won't tighten up, so I see some front end work over the winter.

The carb is a Holley 2300 2bbl (350 CFM) with manual choke. This thing starts, runs, and idles very well. It has an interesting mechanical linkage for the throttle, but it seems to work OK, so I won't fuss with it too much.

I'm going to try and do a bit of a health check on the old flat head asap...compression test, and check oil pressure, and go from there. The engine runs very nicely, and doesn't smoke so I'm hoping it's all just fine. I'd very much like to leave it in there and not swap in a SBF/302, etc.

So for winter 2021/22, I'd like to do power disk brake swap, power steering, complete re-wire with new gauges and ignition, and a whole bunch of maintenance work from king pins to, wheel bearings and u-joints, etc.

Peeling the layers of a 70 year old onion, eh Gary??...lol.

So far the old thing is a hoot to drive, and it's getting lots of love out on the streets.

That is all cool information and will be following along.

On the BW T5 I know 1 difference between the Ford (Mustang) & Chevy (S10) the S10 shifter placement is I thing farther forward on the tail housing.
This can be am issue with the Ford in some cars & trucks as the shifter would hit the seat so they swap on the S10 parts.

But that causes an issue with the speedo cable as the hole for it is in a different place and to make that work, they say it can be done, you need to (think) drill the harden output shaft for the drive gear.
Been a bit since I did the Ford WC T5 swap in my 70 AMC Javelin.

On the Holley carb how did they make that happen?
I thought the in take "plate?" was a 1v carb. Did they make a 4v intake and use an adapter?
I like the 2300 carbs as I have one (500 cfm) on a AMC 304 and my son has one on a Jeep 258 six.
Dave ----

FuzzFace2 wrote

On the Holley carb how did they make that happen?
I thought the in take "plate?" was a 1v carb. Did they make a 4v intake and use an adapter?
I like the 2300 carbs as I have one (500 cfm) on a AMC 304 and my son has one on a Jeep 258 six.
Dave ----

Dave,

The flat head has an Offenshauser intake on it, which I believe is a 4bbl intake. There is an adapter plate on it that serves two purposes...one is to adapt the 4bbl intake to a 2bbl carb, but the plate also has a pivot mount on it for the throttle linkage, since the factory throttle linkage is on the passenger side of the carb. There's a whole linkage/lever system that transfers it to the driver's side.

That does seem like a lot of peeling, Cory.  But you have a plan, which sounds like a good one, and you've proven you can carry out a plan quite well.  I'm anxious to follow along...

On the power brake setup. Might be easier to do a hydroboost with the master. You would just have to make a bracket to mount under floorboard and adapt to the brake rod that is already there ( I assume). That is if you go with conventional power steering pump. If you go Electric steering, you will not have the pump.
Can't remember how much room there is under the floor board for a vacuum booster.

Bruce moose4x4 wrote

Can't remember how much room there is under the floor board for a vacuum booster.

They sell these little under floor power brake booster kits.

https://www.performanceonline.com/1948-52-FORD-F1-TRUCK-POWER-BRAKE-BOOSTER-KIT/

That is likely what I would do. You can get them for full drums, or front disk rear drum, or all four disks.

They also sell firewall mounted brake booster kits too, but I think I'll at least try to keep the stock pedals and everything for now.

Hello Gents,

Few minor updates on the old '52 Merc...

I added a set of wheels and tires more to my liking. The Cragar smoothies and plain small tires were not really my thing. Some of my friends really liked them, but we're all different, and I much prefer the 80's vibe of chrome with 60 series raised white letters, as inappropriate as they might be to some.





ANYWAY....

This poor old truck had not been driven much in the past 15-20 years. Just an occasional Sunday drive, or a local car show or two per year, and it was barely driven at all the past couple years (due to Covid, etc).

I don't think it liked me driving it so much...I did put several hundred miles on it in barely more than a week, because now she's in the hospital. It was making a slight "ticking" sound when the clutch was pressed, and I assumed it was a bad throw-out bearing. Do you guys call them release bearings? Anyhow, it wasn't getting any worse, so I decided to just nurse it along until the end of the season, since I might be making some big driveline changes anyway.

Well that plan went south last Sunday when I was out for a drive. I stopped for a coffee, and when I started it back up, it started making a constant scraping noise....like metal on metal. I drove the old thing home, jacked it up and pulled the transmission. Turns out the ring gear was partially pulled off the flywheel, and it was therefore scraping on the starter shield.





I took the flywheel to the local engine shop to have it surfaced and to have the ring gear put back on, and they happened to notice that the ring gear was cracked. So I have a new ring gear on order, hopefully arriving mid this week.

There's also an issue with the pilot bushing. This truck has a Chevy S10 5spd in it...it's a BW T5 unit, but it was adapted to the old flathead with what looks like homemade parts. There are nice adapter kits available for the swap now, but I don't know if they were 20+ years ago when this swap was done.

I'm having a new bronze Oilite bushing made (the one that was in it was brass), and due to the improper match up of this transmission and engine, I can only make the bushing 0.400" thick (it should probably be more like '0.750" think). I don't know if this matters? There's no radial thrust on a pilot bushing is there? Isn't it just a guide for when the clutch is pressed while the engine is running? Once the clutch and pressure plate are fully engaged, I didn't think there was any force being applied to the pilot bushing?

ANYWAY #2....

I'm not 100% sure what direction I'm going with this thing yet. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to swap in a later model AOD transmission, and a later model 8.8 rear end. The flathead I'm not sure yet...it might get left alone for now, or it might get swapped out for a roller block 302. Still debating that.

So fingers crossed for the arrival of all my new parts this week. Swapping back down to a normal sized 10" clutch and pressure plate, new pilot bushing and throw-out bearing, and we'll see how seh works.

Stay tuned for more...I could be swapping more Bullnose parts into this truck before too long, so I'll still be somewhat relevant around here...ha!

I don't know what is going on with those last couple pictures...the forum is re-sizing them and flipping them upside down...

I've tried to reload them twice, and no go...

Gorgeous looking truck.

I like the way you originally said no major plans for mods and already that appears to be changing.
I can really relate to that.

I believe that cast brass will take a heavier load than oilite.

https://www.bronzebushings.com/blog/cast_bronze_bushings_vs_oil_impregnated/

The worst radial loads will probably be during clutch engagement and disengagement as I would expect some unbalanced tangential forces during those actions.

If the bushing fails it will probably take out the transmission input seal and bearing, my guess is that it would fail over many thousands of kilometres.
That would be a good time to go to the AOD.

I like those wheels and tires!  Looks great!

On the bushing, I think .4" should be plenty.  And you are right, it just registers the input shaft.  So if you have a good fit and it is centered up it should work very well.

And I'll watch and see what the plans are.  Maybe get it going with the flathead and drive it some to see what you want?

On the pics, I'm not sure what you tried to do, but I just rotated them 180 degrees - and lightened the 2nd one a bit.  And then forced them to width="100%".

Sorry to hear about the problems, but you’re learning your truck quick!

I like the wheels and tires. I like raised white letters.

Funny, one of the guys was kidding with me when I bought tires for our Suburban at my favorite local tire shop.

I said I wanted the RWL’s out, he says “nobody does that anymore”. I laughed and said I’m that way, my era you know.

When they were done and pulling it up front I stood and watched the Burb go by. Looked good, didn’t see him behind me watching also, he says “man, that looks good!”