Question on thoughts on impact on valuation of restoration upgrades

[Rob Lutts]

Thanks Larry. I appreciate your insight.
Yes all the vacuum systems are working fine…prior owner just wanted
an electric driven motor.
As to the wire wheels - I do really like the original with the detailed covers.
I have grown to like the wire ones and expect I will keep them…they actually look
like they match the style of the car quite well. Here a photo of the car with wire wheels.
73AB6455-22FD-4329-A52E-EF409F284506.jpg

[lld]

Rob,

Your car looks great and I like the wire wheels. My comments on the original wheel covers was related to resale value not appearance.

Larry

[Barry Wolk]

If it were mine I'd fix it right and turn everything back to proper working order. And yes, to a future buyer of a car to show in LCOC events everything would have to be reversed to be competitive. BTW, there's nothing wrong with the drum brakes. They were used on many thousands of Lincolns with no problem.

The car comes with a vacuum pump. Properly restored it provides vacuum any time the engine is running, regardless of the throttle position. They wipes work fine. You've lost the targeted spray coordinator when you went electric on the wiper pump.

The thing modified are, IMO, bandaids, when all the parts are available to return it to the Authenticity Manual standard. You should try and drive a restored, sorted out, car before making a final decision. Just saying.

It looks like a good car to return to its origins.

There are three upgrades I do endorse. Seat belts to keep you in your seat and in the car, Pertronix ignition, and new wheels so that you won't lose original wheel covers.

[Shelly Harris]

I agree with Barry but from experience I report that I have new wheels and a cover has flown off. About our precious wheel covers... some history ...mine were on the car when purchased. The first month the right front flew off on a bump and is a smashed bent up loss excepting for the individual spoke things if I ever need one. Fortunately (this is 7 years ago) I was able to get a single replacement for what is now a bargain price. I then rode around town stupid ly with the covers in place w/o additional attachment...again another came off and with luck and slow speed it ran up a neighbor's front lawn. BTW it's always the front ones that fly off. So I then proceeded to drill a self taping long screw thru the cover into the wheel. They stayed on well since.... however with the screw downs in place the balance of the wheels changes and hello to 60 mph shake So now my final solution.... since a nice set of covers are valued somewhere is the stratosphere it's INSANE TO HAVE THEM ON THE CAR EXCEPT FOR SHOW.. worth too much to damage. They are in the trunk and a set of Lincoln-Mercury caps are on the wheels for driving round town (they seem to hold on ok).

[lld]

Funny, the one I lost before securing the used wheel covers was the rear one on the passenger side. When I looked at the "bite" marks on that painted wheel I could see that some of the wheel covers tabs were not putting heavy pressure/bite on the wheel.

I think that most of the issue is the condition of the wheel cover tabs that "bite" into the wheel to secure the cover. When I installed a set of NOS Mark II wheel covers, they were very hard to put on and they were very hard to remove, tremendous metal screech as I slowly pried them off moving the pry bar around the cover at least 8-10 times to remove a given cover. The fit was a night versus day difference from my used covers which were in excellent cosmetic condition.

To be on the safe side, I added two stainless steel lanyards and extended valve stem retainers as well on each wheel cover. After driving the car quite a bit over very bumpy roads, I checked the two lanyards on each wheel cover and they all were slightly slack indicating that the wheel covers had never loosened.

I removed the wheel covers about 2 years later when shipping the car to Australia and the lanyards were still slightly slack.

Larry