Greetings from Big Wonderful Wyoming! I'm delighted to have found this forum and after hours of reading various posts, have found it a wealth of information.

I was at a yard sale two months ago that had advertised "1959 Lincoln Town Car." I inquired about it and was led to where it had been parked for twelve years, since the previous (and second) owner's death. I fell in love with the car and could see that it was basically straight, rust-free (this is a very dry desert climate), original and mostly complete. It was a glorious land yacht begging for restoration, so I bought it from the widow and had it towed two miles to my place.

The car as found:

It did not take much to get the car started and running. However, the fuel tank was filled with rust and varnish-sludge. I located a well respected fabricator in S. Montana and took the old fuel tank to him for reference. He is fabricating a stainless steel replacement.

I hooked up a six gallon marine fuel tank and got the engine running. It ran poorly with obvious vacuum leaks from bad & rotted hoses and likely carburetor issues. I pulled the Carter AFB to disassemble and rebuild. Excessive wear on the primary and secondary throttle shafts led me to abandon the rebuild. I bought a new Edelbrock 1406 as a replacement.

Here's a few more photos. One snapped as a reference for the fabricator in making a new fuel tank.

The car has the original Warwick Gray paint. Although worn through to primer in some places, it cleaned up nicely with an afternoon of polishing compound and elbow grease. It's a nice looking "survivor."

Replacing all belts and hoses. A dirty but necessary job.

One thing leads to another... In scraping decades of hardened grease, oil and dirt off suspension components, I discover cracks in the lower front suspension arms, near the spot where the lower ball joint is attached. I'm going to disassemble the front suspension and rebuild it with new bushings and ball joints if needed. I'll have a local machine shop fix the cracked arms and reinforce them.

Despite setbacks, I'm having a great time working on the car in my 1,500 square foot shop. It's bitterly cold here in Wyoming, but I have a woodburning stove to keep the shop warm. And with a cold beer in hand, some great tunes and my three little buddies "helping" it's a lot of fun.

I decided to pull a valve cover for a look. Not so good, fragments of ruined valve stem seals in there. Now I'm figuring a valve job and might as well do the timing chain and gears as well.

Further poking around under the car reveals another issue. There are small cracks in the metal frame extensions that the engine mounts bolt to.

That settles it. I'm pulling the engine and trans out. I'll take the engine to a local rebuilder. At minimum, valve job, timing chain & gears, new coolant divertors. I'll have him assess the lower end - rebuild or no?

At this point, I'm struggling with the frozen/rusted/stuck exhaust crossover pipe that lies below the transmission. I'll be pulling the engine and trans out in the next few days.

I've got the engine and trans ready to be hoisted out. Naturally, I hit another setback. The car is so big that I'll need to remove the front bumper and splash pan in order to get the hoist close enough to pull the engine at a proper angle.

The bumper is off, ready to pull engine & trans:

Engine removed from transmission:

,.....so now you gotta deal with it. Thanks for sharing. Curious to see as the progression goes.