Restoration Of A Very Special Edsel

Did a little more work on Cully today, I took apart and cleaned the Teletouch unit in the steering column to make it operate a little smoother. All the contacts and wires still look new after 61 years! I also put the exhaust manifolds on.

I put some fluid in the transmission and it goes into gear just fine! The teletouch doesn’t quite work yet, but I can still shift! I drove her outside, gave her a much needed bath and took some pics!

At long last, Cully runs! I’ve been busting my ass trying to get her running and it’s payed off! All I need now parts wise is a water pump and a non leaking radiator and I’ll be good to go!

Getting more and more put together on the engine! I think this baby might run today! The 390 is a little rudimentary, but I’ll get everything nice and perfect before I actually drive it!

I’m surprised how much still works on this car considering it hasn’t been on the road in probably 40 years! Gotta love that 50s horn!

I threw a battery and cables in Cully to see what happened and I was shocked! All the lights work, the starter solenoid clicks, the horn and the blower motor works just fine! I also rolled her outside to get some photos with her at the proper height.

I cleaned the transmission and put it in the car! I don’t know why it’s blue though, the transmissions weren’t painted from the factory.

It’s been a long time since I worked on Cully. Life has been getting in the way and I feel bad neglecting this project. Anyway, I’ve make lots of progress over the last few days and managed to get the rest end all torn apart, resealed and cleaned. (The rear differential oil looks like it’s never been serviced!) I got all the brakes redone and had to run new lines to the back of the car since they were completely rusted out. I also managed to get the 390 together and set it in the car, I’m going to stay at work late every night and every weekend day to make some progress on Cully since she deserves it and I’m moving to Bellingham soon and would like to have the car movable then.

I picked up a set of rebuilt heads with a 4 barrel intake for super cheap! Now I can finally get rolling on getting some progress made! I also did a little more cleaning on the block and found that it’s not too bad, it’s just gonna be in there until the original engine gets rebuilt so I’m not too worried about it.

Well I got the new 390 apart and it doesn’t look too bad! The oil pump is new(ish) and the cylinder walls don’t look that bad. The heads look pretty bad though. When will it end?

In order to speed up the process on getting Cully back on the road, I have purchased a 390 for 50 bucks. My plan now is to get this engine in the car for now so it’ll still be drivable while the original engine is getting rebuilt.

Tore the brakes all apart today, It looks like someone had redone the brakes right before this car sat and as a result, the front brakes look pretty good! There’s quite a bit of rust however, and the hydraulics are completely seized so I will be going through everything and replacing all I can.

I have stripped the original engine down to have the block and other parts soaked in lye (degreaser.) and I’m happy with the results! The block, crank and heads will be sent to a rebuilder when I can afford it and I will have the entire engine rebuilt so it’s just like new! But that’s pretty far down the road.

I got the bottom end of the original Edsel engine taken apart and from the looks of it, everything is original! Time to get rebuilt.

Keeping an engine well covered during storage is key to making rebuilding it easy, you can see here what happens when an engine remains uncovered for over 30 years.

More photos of the heads, you can see more clearly how bad some of the rust is. These heads will be rebuilt anyway so the valves, valve seats, possibly the valve guides and all the springs will be replaced anyways.

I got the heads disassembled on Cully tonight, only one of the bolts for the exhaust manifolds broke! Not too bad considering it looks like they’ve never been out in almost 61 years. A couple of the intake ports had water sitting in them so as a result, they have tons of rust built up. Looks like I’m gonna have to remove the bulk of this rust before I send these heads to get rebuilt. Overall, I think these heads are in decent shape and are most certainly reusable!