62 mercury convertible

[bigbadblue]

 I am attempting my first restomod. I have done some correct Cougars, time to have some fun and do what we did when we were kids. I need a little advise or ideas. First off, I had planned on a Crown Vic front? Buy the Merc is 62 and a Crown is 67 width. Fix with off set wheels or after market narrow front $$$?
 Rear suspension is leaf spring. At first I was all about 4 link. But leafs with QA coilovers? My first thoughts for paint was two tone since the car is already split with trim piece. But I have seen Starliners one color that look really nice. Blue pearl. White interior with blue accents.
 Car will be my Back to the Fifties cruiser. I had never seen one of these, before this one. So I figured i needed it. It was a barn find, last driven in 1974. But she was driven on Iowa gravel roads. She is not cherry, I think half of it is laying on the shop floor.

[TomP]

With leaf springs there's no need for coilovers and the leaf will ride better.
 i had a 61 Meteor, same chassis. I looked at that Crown Vic stuff too and decided against it. Even the flat faced 05 and newer Mustang wheels the tires would sit too far outboard and the frame is just not shaped to take that crossmember without a LOT of hacking. A couple new  pieces fixed up that original suspension and that car was a dream to drive.
Compare that to all the aftermarket coilover sh!+ in my 70 Cyclone and there is no comparison. A car almost as big and heavy, yet rides like metal wheeled roller skates. Pretty sure the Meteor would outhandle it too despite being a wagon on skinny 15" tires vs a hardtop with foot-wide 18" rubber.

[FrozenMerc]

The '60-'64 FoMoCo Fullsize chassis is a good, sturdy platform to build off of, so stick with it if at all possible, unless it is too far gone to salvage.  I have a '62 Mercury Monterey Wagon that came out of a Western Minnesota tree row and was in very tough shape.  It required alot of frame repair to get back into fighting shape.  I ended up going air ride all the way around, 4 link rear and Shockwaves up front.  I also eliminated the Mercury specific Anti-Harsh bushings on the lower control arms and replaced them with standard Galaxie bushings.  The car rides and handles like a dream.  Check out my old build thread on the HAMB if you are interested.  Trust me, it is the ONLY '62 Merc wagon at BTTF's each year.

Do Not put coilovers in place of the shocks.  The shock mounts are not designed to support the added load from the springs, and will quickly fail if asked to do so.  I run QA1 adjustables in rear (stock mount), along with the 4 link and bags, and I have been very happy with them.  I wanted the adjustability since the 4 link setup has quite a bit less internal dampening then the stock leaf springs and I needed more dampening at the shock to control the suspension.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/1962-mercury-monterey-custom-wagon.959751/