1957 Ford Country Sedan mocha silver V8 4dr wagon

[djfordmanjack]

It has been ages that my Country Sedan has been in the waiting queue.
Although it has a valid inspection sticker, I havent licensed her since Nov 2020 due to pandemic restrictions.
Time to get some smaller things adressed.
the tailgate lock was somewhat stuck and wouldn't lock but I got that freed up with some fiddling and oil.
Finally got around to mount the CS emblem that I got from Contibob. Perfectly fits the wagon! Not too shiny and not too rough. Just a nice old original Ford part. 




and started on replacing the door seals. Quite a lot of work to remove the old sticky and crumbling stuff. For replacement I am using self adhesive industrial foam band, that is made from natural rubber and waterrepellant. it is 15x15mm square which is roughly 19/32" and nicely seals. after a day or 2 it settles and doors can be shut without slamming.  total cost is $50 for all 4 drs. 

[RICH MUISE]

Nice work Gunter. What did you use to get the old dried adhesive cleaned off without damaging the paint? When the time comes around to get to drive it, let us know how your replacement seal works out as far as wind noise. The wind noise was driving me nuts in my car, so I tried adding an additional small seal to the door jamb in the upper area at the window frame area...almost totally got rid of the noise 
Thanks for posting

[djfordmanjack]

thx Rich. I can't say enough how well this stuff works for me. Not original in appearance, but the cheapest product with the best result imho.
yesterday both rear doors with fresh rubber needed pushed shut with 2 hands (like replacement rubber would for months). I let them settle over night, today they will close under their own spring load, with that new-car-like 'ooomph' sound. the good thing is the stuff will stay compressed to gap size, but still has 1/8 or so of rebound to properly seal again. so it basically aligns to the gap with plenty of sealing force left. the material is usually used on construction machinery, vent doors, tractor canopies, machinery housing aso.

I have yet to do the front doors and I see the area you are talking about. the particular shape of our door glass frames obviously makes it a difficult thing to properly seal. Good thing - like you I previously used thinner (1/4") industrial rubber band on top of the old frt dr seals and it sealed perfectly against rain and noise. We'll see how the thick rubber will do on its own. Before putting on new seals, I have to adress and seal some surface rust in the lower door seal channels. ( not visible but I want the doors to last).

For seal removal I use a trusty old scraper with rounded off and dull corners and edges. it works pretty well. then I use a razor blade scraper for the crusty and dry og contact cement ( only on flat surfaces) and finally paper towels soaked in industrial laquer thinner. the paint in the doors and jambs is all original and quite thick so I got the glue and remnants off without damaging or scraping the paint. it is very shiny underneath and a bright colonial white.

Will post about the upper door areas.

[djfordmanjack]

quite some things going on with my CS lately. finished the door seals, and I still need to adjust the pssgr frt door hinges and latch, which have been out of alignment for decades obviously. Also I pulled the rocker assemblies and sucessfully did the old rope trick for valve stem seals replacement.Thx to Jay and Jim for their ideas! While at it I also pulled the oil pan for some not-so-nice findings, but managed to reassemble everything with a little more oil pressure gain.
Seems she is doing fine, as we made a neat 80 car rod run this weekend. Pretty steep 3000 ft climb in summer without overheating or brake trouble. Hats off to the old lady !

[Rancher]

While at it I also pulled the oil pan...

That's a pretty good "while at it" 

Right up there with: "I thought I'd check a wrist pin a minute." lol

Hats off to you for your progress.

[djfordmanjack]

and again and again and again....one out of 3 stop light switches....about the magic number rate in todays spare parts.
I had to replace one that I had replaced hardly 1000 miles and a few years back. So I tried the MACs thingy, and luckily bench tested it before. and it wasn't even closing the circuit at 135 ps, even though the tag said 75-80 psi. So I patted it with a sledgehammer, hoping it would come apart and show its innerts. which it didnt.
so the one in car for a short period was massaged with a grinder. beautiful cheap copper, points burnt . oh well.
next one. will probably last another year or so. at a lack of words, really.

[Rancher]

May have to switch the lamp load via relay, huh?

[djfordmanjack]

That would be a solution, but it makes you wonder how these cars could get away with their old oem switches for more than half a century... and nowadays seems impossible to produce anything half decent to last a year or so. I think many of you can relate to my anger.

[djfordmanjack]

Pictures ! (and stories)

So the old rope trick worked well and all valve stem seals were replaced, many of which had crumbled before. I made a mushroom shaped anchor that threads into the rocker stand holes and used my 'custom-built' (cobbled together old box wrench) lever.

















Then it was time to pull the pan and remove decades of crud and coal build up still in the engine, even though I had thoroughly cleaned and flushed it many times. good thing the pick up screen was all free and there was little to no water in the sludge, so the pan didnt suffer any corrosion. also the pickup tube was all good , no cracks, so on with my search for lost oil pressure.






same procedure all the time, cutting open the filter for inspection. good thing, no metal debris, just the typical crud and coal from decades past.





So on with jacking up the crank and inspecting and plastigauging the mains using a new set of bearings on the lower half.





Here it comes..... pure ugliness. faint hearted forum members may not want to look any further into this post....
URGHS....



but.....proving my assumption. this is the original, unopened engine to my wagon. mains stamped 2/57 - matching my 2/57 engine build code and the March assembly date of the 57CS.





So after sitting down depressed for 2 hrs. I was checking my options and a friend of mine told me to use the new bearing set I have for the spare project engine, I have been collecting parts for 10 years or so.
Well. not wanting to sacrifice that nice NORS Fed Mogul set on a driver quality engine. It got me thinking which block they were intended for. the 61 truck 292 project engine, with a turned down 312 crank. but the og 292 crank still being available and nice !
So I was looking through my parts stash and found said main bearings from the truck engine, all nice and within factory specs. Just needed a little cleaning and they would go into the worn CS engine in car. and I have a spare crank with oem specs journals as a spare for later !
















So, in they go with plenty of cam lube and torqued and buttoned up. The engine now has better oil pressure ( 50 cold and at least 15 when warm and idling). What I observed is, that the og 1957 bearings had an incredibly thin white metal lining. so they pretty soon started scorching the journals. I could not find any remnants of copper on the og main bearings. I think they were of poor design. The later bearings were stamped 10/60 ( came out of my 1961 truck 292), and they have a very thick layer of white metal, with what seems to be copper compound inbetween the bearing metal and steel shell.






personalized plates back on car.


Finally some more seal scraping, sealing some surface rust on lower doors and putting in new door seals.

[hiball3985]

All well done G 

[RICH MUISE]

Thanks for sharing.........nice job all around as Jim said.

[djfordmanjack]

Jim and Rich, thx !
It's fun getting going on the 57 again.
drove it nearly every day last week. Almost had forgotten how neat a driver our 57s make !

[Ecode70D]

Jim and Rich, thx !
It's fun getting going on the 57 again.
drove it nearly every day last week. Almost had forgotten how neat a driver our 57s make !

    Günter
    For the most part those heads were not filled up with the usual sludge and that's good.. I do like your spring compression tool. It saves a lot of time. The rope trick really does work and saves from filling the cylinders with compressed air.  I'll bet that those valve seals were hard as rocks.  It's good that you replaced them. When they get like that, they are not doing their job.  In the 50s we only paid a few dollars for bearing inserts.  Now they are way up there. Couple that with the fact that you are doing that job over there and you would have more problems coming up with valve inserts.  This is all the more reason that you have given it a lot of thought before throwing out used parts. You were able to use what you had and they passed the plastigage  test. I'm happy that you thought this project through and put some new life into your Y block.  I expect it to be around for a long time to come. Jay

[djfordmanjack]

Thanyk you Jay !
Sometimes we have to make do with what we have before the situation totally escalates and another car is left in the restoration bay for years....
Not saying it is a perfectly nice repair, but she may be good for the road for several more years.
Like I said many times before, the engine really pulls nicely and still has plenty of power for hauling my stuff around. And I do like the Y block sound.

I may have forgotten to mention that, in my last post, but all the connecting rod bushings that I opened up were super nice ( one of them pictured above) and the cyl bores didn't look too shabby. at least there doesnt seem to be any glazing and some hone pattern is still visible.
Also while the rocker assemblies were off I checked all pushrods and they all look nice ( of course I put them back in their respective place). I also wiggled the cam up and down and back an forth and it has very little play. the timing chain of course has some slack, but not too bad and the timing gear sprockets look good. I don't think this type of chain could ever break ( in normal street use). So it was good to see and observe all this things in person, which gives some peace of mind.

[Ecode70D]

Günter
    That was smart cutting open the oil filter.  It's even better to know that there were not any metal partials inside of it.
    Those doors look nice in the pictures.  Did you have to do any metal work on them?  That's a nice simple way to install rubber
seals around them. I promise you that the door will not be complaining if the seals are original or not.
     The inner door panels look nice also.
  You can expect that car to be around for a long time and I personally feel that the engine is going to just keep on running nicely
    Did you replace the rear seal while you had it opened ? 
   
Jay