55 and 6 hoods interchange for fit with each other, but not for appearance. All 51-4 hoods interchange.

A similar scoop would not be hard on a 55 hood because it has the sculptured cusps. Harder on a 56.

I am in Maryland. $1500 for the straight stick kit, $2100 for overdrive.

I don't recommend overdrive if your rear axle is numerically less than 3.54:1.

On the original style, the hood was cut along the crease lines and the center section raised. This required that side sections be fabricated. M-B used rather crudely formed pieces with a lot of overlap, spotwelded in, and then a ton of lead to smooth it all out. Check out the workmanship on the bottom of a Carib hood sometime. All those pieces made them prone to flexing in use and consequently cracks would appear in the lead over time.

I left the bottom layer closed, except for the two windows, for rigidity and to direct airflow where I wanted it.

I have two complete conversion setups available. One overdrive, one straight stick. Including bellhousing, flywheel, clutch, linkage, pedal mechanisms and steering columns. Please PM if interested.

Rather than drop a wad on having a bird replated, my customer and I hit on making a Caribbean hood for his 54 pickup (Packard Shipper). Really pleased how it turned out, and had a lot of fun doing it.

Used a center section from a damaged hood to make the scoop. This ends up being sturdier than popping the center up as Mitchel Bentley did. Even with the double skin the hood is much lighter than an original and does not need a hood prop. I also made it functional as I have cut two vents in the lower hood. One will blow cool air down by the carb to lessen percolation issues, and the other drops some cool air where the air filter can pick it up. May not really help but makes me feel better.

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I have noticed that the 41-50 vent window design has a tendency to be noisy if there is the slightest gap anywhere. Other years are not so fussy. Probably has something to so with the shape of the windshield posts and how the air rolls around that corner. Noise usually seems to come from the front corner of the window. You might be able to build up low areas of the seal by spreading on thin layers of black silicone gasket maker, or by shimming between the seal and body.

I'd guess a comet making a turn around a planet, but in all probability I'd guess its really just a chrome thingy to ornament the nose of the car--rather like the standard ornament on the cheaper bathtubs.

Did see one at Williamsburg where the ball was plated gold and the wing was chrome--looked really cool.

Sounds like the classic clogged fuel filter/clogged fuel line that lets just a little by as it sits a minute.

Was just reading an article about Ford flatheads and the fellow said that with the bypass filter all of the oil was filtered every five minutes or so at road speed. I expect Packard will be somewhat similar--in other words the engine is pretty well protected unless it has started throwing chunks. Even then, the floating pickup helps keep them at bay.

The next oil change on the thousanddollarwonder I will check to see how long it takes for the filter to pass a quart and report back.

Here is a shot of what I often do around the pockets on the flatties--basically a smoothing of the edges in the direction of the cylinder, and a fairly rough cleanup of the biggest bumps and stalagtites in the ports. Seems to make a nice difference.

About those siamesed ports. If you work through the firing order of the L8, each siamesed port ends up drawing for almost a revolution of the crank followed another revolution before they draw again. Don't know how those carbs would react to that irregular pulsation.

We need a carb wizard to bring some wisdom here

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