Kevin - I had a very, very rich running condition - clouds of black smoke, carbon dripping from the tailpipe, etc.

Fixing the heat riser fixed about 75% of the problem, and fixing a severely leaking exhaust manifold fixed the last 25%. My machinist took 0.030" out of it to get it flat, and I think the heavy leak was also heating up the intake and essentially acting as a hot box. I think that also led to the carbon I just cleaned out, although apparently those engines could build up carbon anyway (per the service letters). Good luck!

Hope the spring fixes it for you!

Oh ho ho.... go back several pages in my blog, and read all about improper heat riser function! Can cause rich running, burnt valves, carbon buildup, etc. Max Merritt sells the spring if you want to make it right, or just wire it open and rely on the better gas...

Edit: link here: http://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/mod ... id=213376#forumpost213376

Brian, thanks! She drives a lot nicer now that I replaced a bad front shock and adjusted the steering!

Do you have pictures of how you mounted your seat belts? I’ve held off because I haven’t wanted to drill a bunch of holes in my 83 year old car!

Mission creep indeed!

I do have to be careful... I am prone to overdoing it. When I first discovered the engine had never been rebuilt, I was tempted to yank it and fully rebuild it. Then I had to remind myself that I only have a few more months before it will be stored for 6 months, and maybe 3.5 years!

So, we'll get it back to Packard green, and put enough miles on it that I know everything is properly broken in and sorted before it goes into storage in March.

Looks good!

I’ll confirm next weekend when mine is out, assuming the hacks that worked on the car previously didn’t mess something up! (Whoever worked on my car in the past replaced many of the original bolts with whatever happened to be at hand that fit in the hole. Kind of frustrating, and I find more problems the more I look)

If I remember correctly, there are six bolts that hold the flywheel to the crank, and a locking tab for each set of two bolts. I seem to remember they were a royal pain to bend once the flywheel was installed!

Edit: the parts book confirms, three lock plates, PN 300163.

Yeah - I don't really want to, but I think it will be faster to pull, clean, paint, and reinstall then it would be to mask everything I don't want Packard green. Good thing this was a simple head gasket job in August, right? Haha - it'll be good once it is. Thanks for the encouragement - we will get our cars back on the road one of these days.

After considering it quite a bit, I'm just going to pull the engine to repaint it. The bellhousing is also the wrong color, and I'm just not willing to risk accidentally getting some overspray on the body. I already had everything removed except the four bolts holding it to the transmission, so it won't be that much extra work, and I'm removing the risk of overspray. I'll also get a better result.

With family in town, other projects, etc, it looks like I'll get the engine pulled next Thursday or Friday and painted that weekend. With any luck it will be back on the road by the middle of October, but it's an old car, so who knows! :)

I wasn’t expecting it to! Not sure if I had some underlying contamination or if it takes a long time cure? It’s been on for about 2 weeks.

Head is on and torqued, oil in the pan, so things are coming together. Flushed the block today, and got the radiator back from the shop. It’s an aftermarket core, so they flushed, rodded it, fixed two small leaks, and pressure tested it. They also replaced the overflow tube as the original was about to rot through.

Pressure washed the block. I need to remove a few more things, and then I’ll mask and spray it. I also need to touch up the head- I got some brake cleaner on the new paint, and it lifted right up.

Slow progress, but I decided I didn’t have time for Hershey anyway. Hoping to drive it quite a bit this fall though.

I’m also planning on flushing the brakes while it’s easy with the front clip off. Found a problem with the junction block for the front brakes, so I will fix that too.

Water pump is coming back together too.

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