New Project 1958 Retractable Hardtop

I just recently helped my father pick up a new project. It is a 1958 Retractable Hardtop car. It is not in bad shape but can not be driven yet. It has been stored in a barn for a while and then in a garage where we bought it from for 7 years or so. I went over today and we cleaned all of the parts out of the interior and attempted to open the trunk. We hooked a battery up and pushed the switch in to activate the motors to open the trunk it moved some coming up about 6 inches or so and then it would not go any further. We tried to help it by lifting on both sides as the switch was held in but it still would not come up. We ran it all the way back down again and now when you push the switch in nothing happens… Looks like we have some work to do with the solenoids and such. Interesting thing is that it will not turn the motor over any more either.

Does anyone know of any way to manually get the trunk lid open? A lot of the parts for the car were stored in the trunk and we would like to find out what all is in there. If we can get it open it will kind of be like Christmas all over again.

While we had the battery hooked up we did attempt to turn the engine over. We were all surprised when it cranked over pretty good. (Prior to trying the trunk lid) Next chance we have we are going to check the spark and add a little fuel to see if it will start.

Any help/tips are appreciated.


_________________
John



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jracing on 10/8/06 7:24am ]</font>

No help here on getting the deck open but congrats on a cool project.

'58 regrettable hardtops are not a car often seen. Lot's of '57's &amp; 59's but not so many '58's.

I've oftem wondered why the 58 isn't a more popular Ford for rodding. Is yours going to be a stock restore, custom or rod?

Murff
[addsig]

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...3Doff%26sa%3DN

Thanks for the Link those are some good pictures.

A full plan for the car has not been developed yet. But we have decided it will not be going back original. Our short-term goal is to have it drivable by the end of next April. So far we know that will involve converting the brakes over from drum to disk, upgrading from the generator to a one-wire alternator and possibly a different engine/transmission combo. Oh, and of course figuring out how to get the trunk open.