New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Happy New Year & all the best for our cars and their owners in 2015


My name is Walter, i'm actually rebuilding a '53 Mainline 2 door ranch wagon to factory specs, the first owner's coachbuilder modified the car into a panelvan keeping the tailgate but replaced the quarter windows by horizontally opening panels, all the interior was removed and lost, bought the car in the mid 80's, drove it and when I decided to restore, it took ten years to find the missing parts, the engine/trans are original 215 cui 101HP Mileage Maker 6 with 3 speed man.

Now the question : 1953 Mainline Colours, Two-Tone shemes and interiors

The Dash in my car is M-2J188

Did all the mainline cars in 1953 have this interior/dash colour ?

the car is stripped and the first steps will be to rebuild the quarter interior including side windows, using the mix of new/old parts I gathered, some screws and weatherseals are still missing, the battleship linoleum is still a
headache, the exact measures of the wood for the quarter seats miss.
Some advice with Interior colours but colours in general would be of great help as there's not much of these cars left here.

with a little help 2015 could be the one to revive the Wagon ?

walter

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Good morning Walter, and welcome to the Ford Barn.
You did good introducing yourself and your project, but left out your location.
Sounds as if you are offshore.
Happy new year
Bruce

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

My location is the Jura or Watchmakers region of Switzerland, my car was built in Antwerp/Belgium and served as intervention car for the City of Basel scientific police.

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Welcome to the Barn. Your location would be helpful.
Try this link for answering your paint color question.

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/chipdisp...f=Ford&smodel=

Go to www.joblotauto.com and download the '49 - '59 catalog. That company lists a lot of the weather seals and parts for the 215"

Mac VanPelt on this forum is the go to for transmission parts and info.

Post some pictures of your project as there are a few six owners on this forum including me.

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Hi Walter, good luck with the build.

Mart.

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Hello Everyone, Walter, Welcome to the FordBarn Forums!

I don't have any experience with your vehicle, but when I went looking for photos online it sure seems like a nice looking car to start with.

You may find the restoration guide published by the EFV8CA (www.efv8ca.org) to be of help in seeing the way your ranch wagon was when it was new. Here's the desctiption: "This detailed two volume 488 page book on the 1952 - 53 Ford Passenger Cars and Station Wagons provides a variety of information important to the authentic restoration of these vehicles. This book covers the exterior, interior, chassis, engine compartment, and accessories associated with the 1952 and 1953 model years. Other chapters and appendices cover special vehicles, Australian and Canadian models, service bulletins, and installation instructions. (volume 2 shown for display purposes only -- both volumes 1 and 2 will be shipped)"

Since you've had your car for such a long time you may already have this great resource but I just thought it was worth mentioning. Also, because your car is from Belgium I wouldn't know if it would be valuable at all.

Good luck and keep adding to this thread, especially some photos if you can. Here's a link for some photo posting help... https://www.fordbarn.com/are-ya-lost/posting-images/

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Welcome Walter. I drove a 53 station wagon back when I was a senior in High School< but can't remember a darn thing about it. LOL

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

I've never seen a 53 Mainline Ranchy but a few 55's were built by the FOMOCO NZ.

I just googled images for them. Your car will be one fine vehicle when done and in my own opinion are better looking far less cluttered than the later ones. Mainlines were "bread and butter" cars but are particularly attractive in Ranchwagon. Good luck with your build and Welcome to the Barn.

GB

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Welcome Walter, Your Ranch Wagon will be beautiful when finished. What is "......the battleship linoleum is still a headache........"? Never heard that before. Larry

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Welcome Walter. Can't beat these guys for the info you'll need!

Gordon

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Walter,

Here is a picture of my '53 Courier's interior. I believe the color is correct for The Mainline.

http://i962.photobucket.com/albums/a...53Courier8.jpg

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Thank You very much for the warm reception and the useful hints guy's

I bought the car end of 1988 in a fairly good state from a lady who was fed up driving with overheating problems.
Until 1995 when the internet came it was almost impossible to find anything related to a car that came into the country 3 years before the official Ford Switzerland distribution was created.
The complete car history is officially documented, spoke to a Police officer who drove the car in service in the sixties and found one of the coachbuilders who worked on the body modification in 1953.

I could gather a lot of original or reprint Ford litterature over all this time and I'm open to share the content if required :

- Ford Shop Manual 1952-53-54
- 1949 -1959 Ford Car Parts & Accessories Text Catalog
- 1949 -1959 Ford Car Parts & Accessories Illustrations Catalog
- Ford Passenger Car & Truck Body Parts Catalog 1953 - 1954
- Original Paintchips 1953 catalog
- Almost all original 1953 sales catalogs,Ford at Fifty book, European sales leaflets, Ford treasury of Station Wagon Living etc.
- All major Restoration suppliers catalogs

Thanks for the usefull pic 41ford1, looks exactly the colour of my dash, my door panels are different, believe they are still original the only flaw is the huge whole the previous owner did for some lousy speakers.

Larry "battleship linoleum" is the term I spent 10 years to find, it seems to be the original denomination of the ribbed material laminated on the back of the quarter seats which makes the cargo floor when the seats are folded.
Have a small piece of it left on the tailgate but could not find a supplier yet to redo my entire car.

Thanks again folks I feel less alone with my question marks now ;)

walter

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Welcome aboard Walter,
You have tapped into a wealth of information and people ready to go the extra mile to help you with those "head scratching" moments. Enjoy the adventure.

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

[QUOTE=rawy;1008927]Thank You very much for the warm reception and the useful hints guy's

I bought the car end of 1988 in a fairly good state from a lady who was fed up driving with overheating problems.
Until 1995 when the internet came it was almost impossible to find anything related to a car that came into the country 3 years before the official Ford Switzerland distribution was created.
The complete car history is officially documented, spoke to a Police officer who drove the car in service in the sixties and found one of the coachbuilders who worked on the body modification in 1953.

I could gather a lot of original or reprint Ford litterature over all this time and I'm open to share the content if required :

- Ford Shop Manual 1952-53-54
- 1949 -1959 Ford Car Parts & Accessories Text Catalog
- 1949 -1959 Ford Car Parts & Accessories Illustrations Catalog
- Ford Passenger Car & Truck Body Parts Catalog 1953 - 1954
- Original Paintchips 1953 catalog
- Almost all original 1953 sales catalogs,Ford at Fifty book, European sales leaflets, Ford treasury of Station Wagon Living etc.
- All major Restoration suppliers catalogs

Thanks for the usefull pic 41ford1, looks exactly the colour of my dash, my door panels are different, believe they are still original the only flaw is the huge whole the previous owner did for some lousy speakers.

Larry "battleship linoleum" is the term I spent 10 years to find, it seems to be the original denomination of the ribbed material laminated on the back of the quarter seats which makes the cargo floor when the seats are folded.
Have a small piece of it left on the tailgate but could not find a supplier yet to redo my entire car.

Thanks again folks I feel less alone with my question marks now ;)

walter[/QUOTE

You might try some of the Woodie guys for the linoleum. If I remember correctly my Dad talked about the linoleum in the cargo area of his '51 Woodie.

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Welcome to the Barn! Good luck driving your wagon this year! If I may, what/who are the "scientific police"? Forensics or city utilities or something such? No offense, probably a cool translation! -Chris

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Thanks 51504bat I'm going to check woodie people, could find some suppliers of "close to the original stuff" but not close enough in my opinion.

Yep the cooch translations, my mother tongue is french, forensics was the term I should have used instead of english for police scientifique

Went thru all the listed litterature and could find only M-2J188 polynesian bronze interiors, unless an expert here can give better advice i admit there was no other interior colour in the Ford range in 1953

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

As far as I know the Mainline instrument panel color was the same color as the outside of the car (single tone) and the same color as the bottom of the car (two tone). See this brochure page for advertised color options: http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/stati...ord-10-11.html

edit: I read the brochure more closely and in the Modern Interior section it says "Painted surfaces are in dark brown", so I guess they all were one color after all. Interesting.

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Hi Everyone, That body style is doing something to the truck side of my personality. Me likeee!

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Sorry for the delayed reply, busy start in 2015 at work, completely new informatic system, can feel the muscle up there tends to become lazy with age (wagon -5)

I was in doubt about the fact that all the 53 Fords had brown interior but my original brochure even shows a brown interior in the coral flame (DQU-70393-DAL) Sunliner ?
Could be production related ? the interior was mounted after the body painting section, this is shown in the "Ford at Fifty" book where the bodies go into painting with doors and other body parts on a three around it.

A few pics of my car, the first two are in the shop where the rust and body job was done, the two others show the shop where the finish should happen, loads of left only to have the room to work in there.

All the older pics I have are still on paper unfortunately there's no scanner left in here

walter

Re: New Member with seasons greetings and a question
 

Restoration Supply in California has listed battleship linoleum in the past.
Luck