Having just taken out and disassembling all the seats from my 1956 Clipper Custom, I found no burlap sacks around any of the springs except for those in the rear center arm rest which your Panama doesn't have. Mine needs the rear seat springs replaced and I had hoped that a rear seat cushion from my 1954 Patrician would work as both use the same formed foam pad but the hump over the axle shaft is noticeably smaller on my 1954. Curiously yours looks much like the one in the '56 but, of course, it's otherwise totally different due to being in a 2-door car. I wonder why the difference in the hump for two cars the same year no matter the body type as I would expect the hump to be the same.

As I wrote the last sentence, I think I know the answer. My 1954 is 5" longer, pushing the rear seat 5" farther back where the hump is tapering away! I should just delete this and give up but someone somewhere sometime might find it helpful.

All I have are the photos, not the unit itself, but thought it interesting so wanted to share.

Gasoline would not stick the valves like that unless it was old and run that way, then cooled down. As for the manifold gasket, I always put the metal side toward the hotter manifold but looking at your gasket it appears that your manifolds are past due to being milled as a unit as it has obviously been leaking.

Mike Chirco at Tucson Packard indicated that he recently had some specially made so you should be able to buy them new. Failing that, the difference between yours and those on the sedan is the height so some have had luck cutting down a sedan piece to size which some shops can do.

Update: As BigKev pointed out, I wasn't very clear. It is only the '53 and '54 sedan windshields that can be cut down to make one for a convertible or hardtop due to the rounded corners that the 1951 and 1952 sedans had on their glass.

Thank you, that's handy to know. I presume that you know that brake lines must be double-flared which I believe is per DOT or maybe one of the other federal safety agencies.

Looks like a nice, tidy job. What kind of bender are you using and do you also have a straightener for the coils?

I had a look but couldn't spot in on one of the plates.

Incidentally, I have lots of Ultramatic parts that I got years ago from a former Packard dealer’s family in case you need anything for your work. At the moment it’s not particularly organized but it’s mostly in one of two places.

Has anyone every heard of these? They were apparently made aftermarket by special order from Joe Hunt magneto. For those unfamiliar, magnetos eliminate the need for a coil as they produce a good jolt by themselves which is why they are used in aircraft.

I don't believe the hole is threaded but it's also a bit crudded so I didn't actually look. I'll check tomorrow but I've never had an Ultramatic open.

It's steel and with a single hole it looks like some kind of hold-down clamp. It's possible it's from one of my other makes of cars but so far Imperial has been eliminated leaving only Cadillac if it's not Packard but I did not do any work on the Cadillac that might have produced such a part into the drain pan.