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**YellowRose** · February 1, 2014, 05:12 AM

Cars Of 60/78MarkVconverts !!

Here are the other four pix.
'78MkVTopUpRrRt
65BlueCont4DrConvLtRearQtr
65BlueCont4DrRtFrtQtr
Red'60MkVconvLtRrQtr-Nt

Attached Files

**YellowRose** · February 1, 2014, 11:26 AM

Cars Of 60/78MarkVconverts !!

Here are the comments from Don that he gave me permission to share with you. I think you will enjoy this!

You are free to post anything that I send to you. Some of the cars have good stories. The Edsel's conversion to solid lifter parts, with help from THE Ed Winfield Sr, 410CI motor blown at Salt Flats but still has of the motor survived to become a 430CI, becoming a "male" Edsel in 1961, etc. The 57 coppertone Bird that lived in Guam with a 500+HP engine and subsequently ended up in Japan; my beautiful Condition 2� 1955 Mercury Montclair, Sun Valley glasstop that 2 years ago landed Sweden: my 1978 Mark V Special convertible was 38K miles in 1999, with new Hartzcloth top was about Condition 1.9 and is truly a "shock and awe" car - - what a Continental should have been! My "tale" of two 58 Turnpike Cruiser 4-door hardtops. My congratulations; you fellows have a good website.

Attached are some pictures of some my MEL cars. My collection was at 22 cars until 2 years ago, when I have started to reduce the number of cars. Until recently, owned more complete 58 "Mercury/35 58 Mark III convertibles" 3x2 Tripower 400HP setups than anyone I know of. 5 sets. While selling some them in the last year, several people have recommended, several times, that I help on their MEL sites. Consequently, I am registered on the ford-m.e.l.engine.com website. That is where I found some Square Bird website people needing help. I probably will also join some of these sites that you sent to me. I am 74 and I fixed my first FoMoCo automatic (1st car, 52 Ford convert cast iron 3-speed (FM) small case when I was 19, in 1959. I still have my 4th car, that I bought in August of 1960, an Edsel Citation convertible. Although 90% of the original engine parts, including the crankshaft, are still in the car, it is now a 430CI engine which I did in 1965 with a 59 Lincoln block. I had unfortunately blown up the 410CI at 7,000+ rpm, after I converted the 410 to a solid lifter engine using all stock FoMoCo parts. The cam was reground to all-out race specs, for Bonneville, by Ed Winfield Sr when I was living in San Francisco. (I hope that you know who Ed Winfield Sr was.). I also about that time I converted my standard Edsel singular PBB large case FM trans to the equivalent of a Lincoln Turbo Dual Range/Mercury Multi-Drive Trans. I had to put in a column shifter to use the 6 positions. As I got older, and much wiser in the FoMoCo and MEL world, I found that it was a mistake, for the extremely high torque MEL 430CI engines to run dual range/Cruiso's. In 1966 I was attending UCLA, when I dropped a 406 in my first (of 4) 1957 T-Bird and Ak Miller (FoMoCo Performance VP) told me that Ford didn't make a trans that would handle 550HP but that the FE engine bolt pattern was the same as the MEL 383/410/430! So I used the tough Corsair single range spare trans that I had earlier acquired and ran it 16,000+ miles behind a Ford 406, medium riser tripower of 500-550 HP, with no problems. That spare still works fine, today. And I stand on my built engines!!

25 years ago I got the facilities to collect cars, but by that time, the then quite rare 1960 "J-Code T-Bird convertibles had gotten beyond my means. What a shame!! The 430 T-Bird is a beautiful real hot rod.

**Dan Leavens** · February 1, 2014, 05:31 PM

Don your pixs of some of your collection is way too cool

and thank you for your comment about our site. Our members are very proud of it and as you may know some of the most knowledgeable birders hang out here

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Cars Of 60/78MarkVconverts !!

Cars Of 60/78MarkVconverts !!

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