Our goal in the last few posts has been to finish up the floors and firewall so that we can re-install the body back on the frame. The body of the Mercury is still on the rotisserie at this point and we are needing to wrap up the body work on the rocker panels and complete the door fit. Even though we have the body braced it has just been impossible to line anything up like it needs to be for the final repairs to the doors.

In the last post we painted the inside of the body. Next was to paint the firewall and the inside trunk floor the exterior body color. The primer on the trunk floor was sanded with 320 grit and then the spare tire well was seam sealed when we sealed the rest of the floor.

When the car arrived at our shop we used a Sikkens Color Map to match the original colors in a modern paint formula. We did this with every color on the car before the car was stripped and sand blasted. The original color of the car was called Lima Tan metallic. Originally the car was a single stage color meaning it had no clearcoat like today’s finishes. The current paint formula that we matched up is a two stage color consisting of a basecoat and a clearcoat just as a new car made today has. The paint on the car will be very durable and have a show car shine.

Here we have the trunk floor sanded and the spare tire well seam sealed.

Since the gray paint on the inside of the floor was oversprayed from the factory we didn’t worry to much about masking it off. We just let the Lima Tan Metallic spray over the gray as needed.

The firewall turned out very nice. The original metal I.D. plates were masked off and protected during all of the sandblasting and prep work. We gently cleaned them with some fine polish and they look like new.

Stay tuned……next we install the body back on the chassis.