hello from north carolina

[sonnyb]

hi guys, im new to the forum , so please excuse me if i don,t follow the right format. i,m 70 years old and starting a new project. its a 53 mercury and i hope to build an old school custom. my memory fails me so i need some advise from 'younger' guys. i like chevy engines but i think they have oil pan clearance problems. don,t know about fords. what is the easiest engine to put in the merc?[P

 

[skull]

welcome

good to have ya here.

start a build thread with some pics and l am sure someone here could help ya.

Later

 

[Gus]

Hello

Welcome to RRR........... I never had a Merc, so I can't answer that question !!! But heck, we will all help you get a build page started, so you could post some pictures...

 

[Dirtyrat]

Welcome, and do post some pics up when you get a chance.

 

[moparcowboy]

Welcome from Colorado, never to old!! I'm 61 working on two projects[cl[cl

 

[Sam_Fear]

Welcome to RRR! We are casual here as long as ya keep it clean.

 

[Snake Farm]

Welcome aboard! As for the Merc, a subframe from a Nova or Monte would solve a lot of things at once like motor mounts, power steering, disc brakes and such. Those old Y-Blocks had a sweet sound all their own though and should fit with no problem.

 

[MercuryMac]

Hi sunnyb, welcome to RRR from northern Alberta. A '53 Merc, right on. As Snake Farm suggested, a Y-block is the ticket. They fit in a '54 Merc and then for many years after, so why not in a '53. I'm a huge fan of the Y-block so I'm just putting pressure on you, here. The Y's have a rear distributor so you'd think they'd have a rear oil pump and oil pan sump, well, not on the cars they don't. They have a remote sump up near the front so you might have clearance issues. I'll go out and check if the truck oil pans have the bulge at the back.
I'm a couple of days away from my 63 birthday, and build like mad when the rest of life doesn't find me and send me elsewhere.
How about those pictures, we gotta see your car.
Keep on tinkering.

 

[26Troadster]

welcome to rrr.

 

[MercuryMac]

Hi sonnyb. I checked out the Y-blocks, and the one that came out of a truck was probably a car motor put in a truck, so the oil pan sump is at the front on it, too. I measured the area where a couple of flatheads had rested in '50 Fords and then measured a couple of 292's and the flathead cradle will hold a 292,as the cross member is molded in to surround a front sump oil pan. I think you can put any reasonable sized motor in there that you want.-------if you post some pictures.
Keep on tinkering.

 

[MercuryMac]

pictures

Hi sonnyb, I am a die-hard Ford guy with Dodgey tendencies so I'm steering you away from putting a SBC in there, even though that would probably be easiest. Here we are begging you to post some pictures, but we haven't given you any, so here are some. Sorry that I didn't clean up any of these motors first. In the first two, you'll see the external oil pickup tube [horizontal]. In the second picture you can see the oil pump partly [at the right-hand side of picture]. The last one is a 292 in a '55 Ford.