1966 Mercury M100 finds new life
When Dave Sim gets behind the wheel of his 1966 Mercury M100 truck, it’s always with a sense of nostalgia.
Sim’s father was a partner in a Mercury/massey-harris garage in Gull Lake, Sask., and as a youngster Sim would head over after school to Central Sales and Service where his dad taught him how to weld and run a lathe.
Mostly, however, Sim was cleaning up dirty tractors and admiring the Mercury cars and trucks rolling in for service and repair.
“My first vehicle wasn’t a Mercury, though,” Sim notes. “It was a 1953 Chevy sedan.”
Working in oil and gas exploration for most of his adult life, the Vulcan, Alta., resident says he never had the opportunity to tinker with vehicles as a hobby. He was often on the road, living in a bush camp or a motel, and would be away from home for up to six months at a time.
Retirement some 10 years ago has provided him an opportunity to pick up tools and focus on vehicles. He’s restored a couple, including a 1952 Ford truck he found in a farmyard near the ghost town of Whiskey Gap, about 80 kilometres south of Lethbridge, Alta. The truck required a complete chassis and body restoration.
The 1966 Mercury M100 is his latest restoration. In fact, he says it’s still a bit of a work in progress, and it just completed its Out of Province inspection so it could be registered in the province of Alberta.
“About five years ago we were rummaging just south of Swift Current (Saskatchewan) and found two trucks for sale,” Sim explains. “One was a 1966 Ford short box with no motor in it, and there was another one there with a really good Mercury cab on it. I bought them both.”
His plan was to replace the Ford cab with that of the Mercury, so he’d ultimately end up with a Mercury short box truck. From 1946 to 1968, Mercury built and sold trucks in Canada. These vehicles were based on a Ford platform, and for the most part, differed only in cosmetic touches. So, Sim’s idea of creating the Mercury on the Ford chassis was certainly within reason.
To get started, he completely disassembled both trucks, removing every nut and bolt. With the suspension off the Ford frame, it was sent out for sandblasting and powder coating.
Sim used a dustless blasting system to remove old paint from the cab, box and doors. A dustless system mixes water with an abrasive to create a slurry, which is then sent out of a nozzle under pressure, and the water helps keep components being cleaned cool. Regular sandblasting, without cooling water, can cause body panels to warp due to heat.
Very little rust was in either the cab or the box. The lefthand corner of the better box had a damaged taillight opening, so Sim cut one corner of the spare box out to weld back in. Although he has a MIG welder set up in his two-car garage and is able to weld in patch panels, Sim says he’s not an accomplished body man and isn’t able to get sheet metal perfectly straight. He had help from Kevin Brade to prepare the metal, and had the truck painted a two-tone blue and white by Kerry Hanson at First Choice Automotive in Calgary. Neither of these were original Mercury colours; rather two hues Sim chose from paint chips.
“It was originally some sort of Saskatchewan government truck,” Sim says, and adds, “it was green when I got it.”
Sim says he likes to keep his vehicles fairly stock, but the short box Mercury is a departure for him. During the rebuild, he installed new Grade 8 stainless steel fasteners wherever he could. And, under the hood, a freshly rebuilt 429 engine and C6 transmission from a 1972 Thunderbird took up position. Front suspension was upgraded using a twin I-beam unit from a 1977 Ford F150 truck. This modification replaced the stock drum brakes with discs.
For the interior, Sim purchased a kit that gave him all the material he needed to install a headliner and a new cover for the seat. For the bench seat, he stripped the original down to the frame, blasted and painted it, but entrusted the fitting of fresh foam and the new cover to a shop in Strathmore. Tirecraft Claresholm bent and installed a dual exhaust system and also fabricated new brake lines for the truck.
“They did a really good job on both,” Sim says of the business that’s also known as Harry’s Tire Sales and has been serving southern Alberta for more than 50 years.
Some of the last few touches the Mercury needs include the installation of a dash pad and Sim is looking for an antenna with a smaller base to fit the three-quarter inch hole in the cowl.
“This fall I was able to put 1,071 miles on the rebuilt motor,” he says. “So far, it’s been very reliable. With a few more miles on it, it’ll be a daily driver in the summer.
“It’s a keeper,” he concludes, “As a short box Mercury, it’s a rare truck, and it always reminds me of helping out at my dad’s garage all those years ago.”