My experience is with Packard and Studebaker V8s, but drove them, with air conditioning almost daily while living in the California desert for six years (29 Palms). Out there I passed many modern, brand X cars sitting on the side of the road due to overheating. Usually those people were tourists, inexperienced with operating in the desert: refused to shut the AC off on long upgrades; cars were set up for operation in cooler climate, i.e. light duty radiator, or cooling systems needed a general tune up anyway.

Generally, overheating begins to be a problem when outside temps go over 90, and the problem just about doubles when it goes over 100.

The best place to start is making sure everything is working as it should be, and others on this NG have already covered those areas well.

After all is working right, a few modifications can also help. Mods I have used included larger radiator (five core), sirocco style (double pass) aluminum radiator, six blade flex fan, 16" electric fan in front of the radiator, smaller water pump pulley, lowering compression ratio, Mobil 1 oil (15w50), and adding a fuel return line from the carb back to tank (reduces vapor lock).

I might also add, as long as you can control vapor lock, there is no harm in engine operating temps of 200-210 (V8s at least). In the desert summer with AC on and temps of 100+, my V8s usually ran at 200-210, and I never experienced a heat related problem

Hope this helps.

Joe H

I'm sorry Rolls-Who? Never heard of the them.

6 in a row twice is far superior. LONG LIVE Rolls-Royce Phantom III.


THE GREAT GRAND WIZARD

I agree with what Brian just said, and to add to that the summer is always the slowest time of the year for the website. With the good weather, people are out enjoying their Packards, and taking vacations. So you may see a delay in getting responses to questions as the person with the answer may be out driving their Packard around the country.

I have always noticed that activity trails off during the summer months, but as soon as fall and winter start rolling and people put there cars aways for the summer (well I hear they do that in other parts of the country, but that is completely foriegn to me living in So. Calif) then you will see that people will be spending more time.

Also as others have pointed out that the overheating question is something that is asked pretty often, so if you do a search you will find several theads discussing possible causes and how to fix them.

I am intrestested in what you find out what eventually fixes your overheating issue, as living in So Calif, the summer heat, mixed with bumper to bumper traffic is not something I want my Packard overheating in when I get it all running again.

On that note, I was thinking of adding at some point to the website a general troubleshooting section. In that we could list the probably causes and fixes for common problems (such as overheating). If any one would like to help out with putting something like that together, then please let me know.

Also Brian, don't forget "8 in a row"

Operating systems and applications can be reloaded, but the data that you create (pix, documents, spreadshhets etc.) are literally irreplaceable - unless you have it all backed up somewhere.

These days, a 1GB flash drive is relatively cheap and quick insurance to backup "valuable" files - before you have a problem.

Meanwhile, here's hoping your friend gets back some, if not all, of the valuable files from your old HDD.

RedRon -

Just keep in mind that this is an all-volunteer site, independent and unfunded by any club - one that charges nothing for access. Meanwhile, I've seen questions posed to more than one formal club that go effectively unanswered.

Though PackardInfo.com hasn't even seen it's second birthday (yet), the count of registered members is coming up on the 300 milestone in this rapidly growing online community. While not every one of those members participates in the Forums, many of those who do still have to work for a living (but I don't think any of us are sworn to any "sundown rule" here).

As such, it may take time to get an answer to any given question - just like it takes some people time to respond to an e-mail inquiry. The benefit of this site over e-mail is that more people will see your question in a public forum. That increases the likelihood that you'll get an answer, but there are no guarantees.

I'm not defending or criticizing anyone - just explaining the situation.

Eric,

Thanks car is coming along slowly. You know how that goes. I do have a lot of the smaller parts painted and powder coated and ready to go when it is time to reassemble.

Ouch $500 to restore files if they can. One can buy a new PC and some Packard parts for that. My neighbor offered to help me out this weekend with it to see if we can even get it to fire up windows. If not my wife said we will just go out and but a new one. We will see. We didn't have to much saved on it so that is a good thing.

Lookin' good Tom!

As for your computer's hard drive, there's experts out there that can recover your files, but expect to pay upwards of $500 or more, if it can even be done.

Sorry Owen
I'm new here and not a master of the computer either. Your reasoning makes since. Ill play with the search engine here and try to figure it out.
I spoke with the radiator shop guy and he tells me he super washed the block several times, and said the water distribution tube had to be clean when he was finished. Ill keep a close eye on everything for awhile. I did find a company that makes 6 Volt 10 bladed electric push fans. I could mount it in front of the radiator and keep the old fan. Thereby keep it looking original. The area between the grill and the radiator is almost impossible to see into.
Thanks for the info and for responding. Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks?
Ron

RedRon, The product I use is WaterWetter. It is a Redline product. There are several others but this is the most common I think. It is not a panacea to fix any of the problems listed by "Owen" but it does seem to keep my Packard running a few degrees cooler in summer weather. The temperature range where I live varies between 90 to -45 so I have quite a range to contend with! Keep us posted on the flex fan experiments and remember that the best engine your car can have is the one Packard put in the car.