Thanks for the suggestion. I hesitated to lessen the depth of engagement of the intermediate shaft. I have seen many of them wear severly from normal loading. Seems like it would wear more. However, I will mock it up and take a look.

FWIW, seems no problem to duplicate the slots in the thin OEM mid-plate in an 1/2" thick piece and just make a longer vacuum pump driveshaft. What else would be required?

thnx, jv.

Hi, Joe,

On the pumps I redesigned, I made a full-length cast iron bushing to go top to bottom in the pump housing. Then I made a 1/2" thick bottom plate and machined a recess for the shaft. Of course, a longer shaft was necessary. Now, the shaft is supported three times as much on the top, as well as at the bottom. Guarantee that housing bore wear will never be a problem again.

Problem is, I have $400 in machining and labor in each one. Not cost-effective to do them to sell.

BTW, I need a couple more oil pump, water pump and fuel pump cores. The 374" short blocks I have been buying didn't come with them.

thnx, jv.

Just as Joe described, current asbestos-free rope seals are problematic. I just bought a 374" short block which had been raced in Maine. It has some interesting oiling system modifications which I will describe in another thread. As soon as I looked at the block and saw the inside of the bellhousing was coated in gunk, I knew I would find a bad rear main seal. Installed by someone who obviously knew a bit about engines, this rope seal had spun ninety degrees and was pouring oil out the back.

thnx, jv.

Your fabricated steel brackets look just like the ones I have which mounted a Lehigh compressor.

BTW, has anyone ever tried to have the Lehigh compressor serviced? It looks just like the ones used in thousands of small in-store coolers fifty years ago.

Since I go to Lehigh, PA a couple of times a year, I thought I would look them up. Absolutely nothing comes up in an extensive web search. They must have gone out or merged way back before google.

thnx, jv.

The photos I have seen did not have any accessories or torque converter installed.

"The engine is motored sufficiently to indicate the amount of unbalance, at which point rotation stops and the prescribed amount of unbalance compensated for by automatically drilling into the crankshaft pulley and welding a slug onto the flywheel. As a result, the stack-up of tolerances that otherwise might accumulate during the assembly of the engine is reduced to not more than 1/4-inch-ounces, thereby insuring precision balancing of every engine."

thnx, jack vines

Greetings, Eric, et al,

The front balance dampers are not really interchangeable. Packard assembled their engines, then ran them on a test stand and final-balanced them by drilling holes in the front damper and flywheel or welding weights on the flex plate.

Having said this, I have interchanged them many times when everything else was rebuilt, thus changing the fine tuning Packard did originally.

This probably needs its own thread, but 4 of 5 of the engines I pulled down had the balance damper cracked down the keyway. I have developed a kit to fix the crack and change the front seal to neoprene.

thnx, jv.