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O.K....I'll "bite"......how do you know this ? ( I do have..shall we say..."a passing familiarity with pre-war Packard "Senior" products"....would like to know how far up you'd have to jack the motor for this to occur.......? )

If memory serves - no bushing. It is a needle-bearing assembly on all Seniors '37 - 39).

I personally think Packard got a bit "carried away" on the use of roller and needle bearings when ordinary bushings would be more logical from a physics - engineering standpoint. Any half-way decent machine shop should be able to make you up something. Just keep it greased !

Which reminds me - should you have occasion to want to dis-assemble the front end, DO NOT ATTEMPT to use an ordinary spring compressor. The Steele people used to provide an instruction list on how to dis-arm the springs on the Safety-Flex suspension. It simply "walks you thru" the only way...the safe way Packard assembled and disassembled that potentially VERY dangerous system. ( I know those instructions are good...because I wrote em...! )

Ha - very funny.....Fred dosnt fool me - with his statement that the shutter system on pre-war Senior Packards is "fail safe & will open if it fails ".....

C'mon...Fred...you don't fool me - I bet this is your idea of a joke - a "test" by you to smoke us out....see which of us is actually a seriously addicted Senior Packard "buff" with actual experience working on them.

You folks can bet the Kanter boys know ( almost as much as I do...! ) about the workings of pre-war Senior Packards....

For those who do not know why I am teasing Fred about his obvious mis-statement... ( .as the Kanter boys well know), pre-war Senior Packards used a "winterfront" style radiator shutter system, operated by a Sylphon thermostat-device in the radiator.

A VERY powerful spring that holds the shutters tightly closed until the water in the radiator gets warm enough to force the Sylphon's operating rod to push against the lever system that opens the shutters....if your Sylphon fails, the shutters slam shut.

A little side-note as to how over-engineered the Seniors were....even with that powerful spring holding the shutters tightly closed, their cooling systems were so over-engineered....so much excess cooling capacity...so much so that unless it is a really warm day, AND you are really "beating" on the car....it will get hot but not boil over in the event of a Sylphon failure!

YOU WANT A PACKARD ?

Understandable - by the start of World War One, Packard had become a legend for its ability to "deliver" owner satisfaction.

But how to get one ? Today, the market for Packards, especially big sedans, has started to decline. There is less and less demand, as there are less of us who remember how Packards ran when they were in service.

So - in my view, the time is ripe to buy one !

But what kind of Packard ? I suggest...ANY kind of Packard that is within your price range.

With this qualification...buy a properly maintained one !

I have not kept up on current actual sale prices. I do know "something" about what it takes to get a derelict back into service.

At the risk of repeating what has been discussed here and elsewhere, even if you do much or even most of the labor yourself, you cannot possibly get a satisfying car out of a derelict, for THREE times the cost of what a decent one could be bought for.

There are two many cases of people leaving our hobby in disgust, of partially restored but still unuseable (and unsaleable) derelicts.....

Don't let the absurdly high prices CLAIMED at auctions color your impression of the old car hobby. The best way to make a fast million in the old car hobby..is start with TWO million and QUIT quick before it is all gone....!

Please be assured I know how Packards are supposed to start when properly maintained! I happen to have owned an 1103 (1934 Super Eight Sedan) for many years !

Hopefully, you have friends, or can by yourself, eliminate the obvious - good spark plugs, good coil, properly working fuel pump.

Your complaint has become more and more common as gasoline "Reid vapor pressures" have risen. Especially now, when the first loads of "winter gas" are coming out of the refiners.

Elsewhere I discussed the phenomena of how gasoline's ability to "boil over" and "vapor lock" has increased down thru the years. As I noted, this is not a new problem; a review of the Packard service letters from as far back as the early 30's shows it was becoming an increasing problem even then.

Now, with sealed high pressure fuel delivery systems (todays fuel injected cars have a high pressure pump INSIDE the gas tank - pressurizes the entire fuel lines, so that with that high pressure, "vapor lock" is impossible - with the end result refiners are now free to provide gasoline that, absent pressurization, will boil away/vapor lock at the drop of a hat !

So - this suggests your problem may well be your car is out of gas ! Meaning, the gasoline in the carb. bowl has boiled away - takes a bit of cranking to bring up the gasoline level in the carb. for the thing to run!

This is why those few of us who still drive our pre-war Packards on a regular basis have electric fuel pumps, mounted as low as possible, as close to the gas tank as possible.

Remember - Packard got its fantastic reputation by delivering a superior product. Hot or cold, a properly maintained Packard of any year, will start RIGHT NOW, and give superior service.

So - bottom line - give your Packard a chance to deliver the kind of service you are entitled to, by recognizing the limits of modern gasoline !

OVERHEATING disc., cont:

By the early 1920's, cooling system engineering technology (well...maybe not so much in the cheaper mass production cars) had advanced to the point where a properly maintained automobile is not capable of over-heating.

For example, the predecessor of the GreyHound Bus company used "stretched" Packards to regularly beat the express trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Even in summer, with the burning heat "climbing the Grape-vine" and tearing across the Central Valley of California.

So what's the problem ? Will even a properly maintained Packard over-heat today ?

Yes - There is a problem that many restorers miss. Simple chemistry.

You can "boil out" and "rod" a radiator till you are blue in the face. But there comes a point at which the tube walls cannot conduct heat away from the water the way they were originally engineered.

Packards, especially the "Seniors" from the 1930s that did not have thermostats in the water line, are UNDER-cooled; hard to get them to come up to operating temp. That fantastic shutter mechanism allows too much air to "bleed thru" the shutters even when closed.

The answer...a NEW RADIATOR CORE ! PROPERLY "sized" for the application. Modern radiator cores are even more efficient than what your Packard had when new.

So - first go thru the "check-list" reference material provided by others in this "thread". Once you have removed the water-jacket plates and ruled that, and the other questions out, you know what you have to do !

Wrong, Fred - look at those fantastic and revealing photos you referred us to again!

That freshly "dropped" oil pan did have sludge - as you point out - was clean only up in the front portion. Typical.. for the simple reason that is where the timing chain slings off oil fast enough so that sludge cant settle.

As you correctly point out in your comment in that thread 'INSPECT THE SLUDGE CAREFULLY' (and, as you say, clean it out. Couldn't agree more ! )

And of course I agree with you that we lost a lot of pre-war "Senior" motors due in part to badly worn and then abused bearings.

As a side note, I suggest we also caution people with "long stroke" motors to "take it easy" when driving them if they are "stock geared".

With the incredibly low gearing of the pre-war Packards, their long connecting rods are thrashing about with far more violence to the bearing surfaces, at, say 60 miles an hour, than a modern "high-geared" car with its much shorter stroke, at 120 mph. I would not cruise ANY long-stroke low-geared pre-war car at anything higher than 45-50 mph.

Yes, I know all about the famous "25,000 mile 90 mph endurance test results" introducing the 1935 production with "insert" style rod bearings. We know that motor, run day and night, never got a chance to develop sludge in the lower portion of the oil pan casting where the oil pump intake is ! (anyone know how often, or even IF they changed the crankcase oil during that test..? )

I think Fred and I will survive our disagreement in this one area (over whether it is a good shop practice to drop the pans and clean em every couple of years). Dosnt change my admiration for the Kanter group one bit !

Yes, again, an agreement - as Fred points out - times have changed...with very few exceptions, you don't see pre-war "Seniors" tearing down the roads of today at speed (most have been reduced to being little more than costume jewelery to be occasionaly displayed as stationary exhibits at ritzy car shows! All they need to do is drag their elegant carcass from a trailer to their position in the show!

For those of us "hold-outs" who still think a pre-war Senior is one heck of a fun vehicle to be enjoyed for the superior motor cars they are.... Fred and I will have to disagree on the "clean oil pan" issue.

car wont start without "priming" cont:

Lets review the changes in chemistry of gasoline down thru the years to get a better understanding of why some cars wont start when they are hot.

If we go back to the early twenties, we will see your Packard had something called a "Fuelizer". It was nothing more than a spark plug in the intake manifold !

The fuel of that day had such a high boiling point, best way to get your car started on a cold morning was to start "lighting the fire" in the intake manifold.

How to make it easier to get cars started on a cold morning? Increase the Reid Vapor Pressure - i.e. make the fuel more volital.

The introduction of devices like the vacuum tank of the 1920's, and the "suction type" fuel pump in the early 1930's standardized fuel supply from the tank to the motor (with the exception of the Ford Model "A", which had the fuel tank above the engine, right behind the dashboard..!

The introduction of "suction style" fuel supply ( again...either the vaccum tanks of the 1920,s or the "suction style" fuel pumps that came out in '32, caused additional problems.

Because when you suck fuel along the underside of the car, where heat from the engine can warm the fuel lines, you help the fuel boil over.

"suction style" fuel pumps cannot pump vapor; you can wrap all the clothes-pins and cow magnets around the portion of the fuel line that you can see - the "pressure" side from the pump to the carb. - but that wont change what happened in the "suction" side of the gas line between the tank and the fuel pump.

Fuel and car engineers correctly recognized if they lowered the boiling point of gasoline, cars would be easier to start during the cold winters of the north-east.

As the "Reid Vapor Pressure" went up, Packard Service Bulletins by the early 1930's were full of articles trying to resolve the vapor lock problem.

The symptoms described by the fellow who started this "thread" suggest it is a simple problem of using modern fuels in a pre-fuel injection vehicle. Which explains why a electric fuel pump (which pressurizes the fuel line, thus preventing vapor lock) is the simple and permanent solution.

I have no real idea - only some suspcions, as to why some of the later pre-war "junior" Packards and most of the post-war ones - again - SOME, do not seem to be afflicted with the "vapor-lock" disease. Could it be that Packard engineers figured out a way to keep the fuel lines cooler than the earlier models ?

As a side note - don't make the mistake of thinking "we all use the same gasoline". Nonsense ! Depending on the season you are in, and/or the region you are in, the Reid Vapor Pressure of gasoline is changed by the refineries, to best meet the needs of the average driver in that area. Well...that WAS the case during the carb. era - I don't know if they still bother to do that now that you cannot buy a new car with a carb - all have high pressure fuel pumps located IN the gas tank.

Good heavens - I am embarssed - having to pick on Kanter again !

I noted in an earlier post this evening how grateful we should all be for the Kanter people - their outstanding, responsible business practices & their knowledge.

So it really bothers me to pick on them a second time in one evening ! And I hope this dosnt discourage them from coming in here ! We often learn more from people we disagree with !

But the fact is - they are mistaken about fuel boiling. My suspicion is that a properly functioning electric fuel pump would solve his problem.

The simple fact is - modern fuel has a MUCH MUCH higher "Reid Vapor Pressure" than the of gasoline that existed prior to modern fuel injection.

Virtually all modern cars are fuel injected, and that means virtually all modern cars get their fuel under pressure from high-pressure pumps, typically located in the gas tank.

The more you pressurize fuel, the less it can boil away. So modern fuel engineers are free to provide a MUCH more volatile fuel. Makes for much easier starting on really cold mornings.

Again, my recommendation to ALL cars with carbs. and the old style "suction-type" fuel pumps, is that you mount an electric fuel pump as close to your fuel tank as possible, at the lowest point in the fuel line as you can.

That will save a lot of cranking. The electric fuel pump will immediately get gas to that empty carb. bowl. The old style "suction-type" fuel pump mounted on the motor, TRIES to suck enough fuel thru the lines, to get enough fuel into the bowl of the carb., to get the thing started. But it may not..especially since SUCKING fuel effectively lowers its pressure, making it more likely to "vapor lock".

For those who want to know more about the issue of "vapor lock" (which, again, is nothing more than the simple boiling away of modern gasoline in our old unpressurized fuel lines) I recommend you "google" the issue into the "SAE JOURNAL" ( a publication of the Society Of Automotive Engineers - excellent source to learn much technical information, often presented in layman's language.!)

REGARDING "dropping" & cleaning oil pans :

Let me preface my remarks to note that I have done business with the Kanters for many years. Without fail I have found them to be ethical, informed about their business subject-matter - a pleasure to do business with.

I am thus frankly surprised that in this one area, they've come up with seriously wrong advice. Don't listen to them on this particular issue. AT LEAST every two years, "drop" that oil pan and clean it out with some kind of solvent.

Let me explain why. Virtually all Senior Packard products prior to the war years had VERY long oil pans, with multiple baffles.

Unlike many more modern motors with "floating" oil pump pick-ups, these Packards have their oil pump intake at the very lowest part of those long pans.

Given how much "dirtier" old design low compression motors burn, all manner of abrasive gunk winds up in those oil pans; impossible to get it out with each oil change.

Yes, you can get SOME of it out by taking off that little "mini-pan" right at the oil intake of both the Standard, Super Eight, and Twelve oil pans.

But lurking behind those baffles, is going to be all manner of end-products of combustion that you most certainly do not want sucked up and pumped to the bearings.

In the earlier years of the "let's preserve old Packards" movement, so many were ruined by rod bearing failure that need not have happened, had more people "dropped" their oil pans at regular intervals for cleaning.

It is so laughably easy to "drop" those oil pans there is no excuse for not doing that at least every couple of years. Let me qualify that - on the '38 - '39 Twelves, there is an extra three minutes work to un-bolt the steering center-crank mechanism, shove it forward, so you can get the pan off without fussing with the steering "tie-rods".

I am not clear what Kanter THINKS we can learn by opening up a valve compartment "door". That's not where the oil pump sucks up oil! And, of course, inspecting the valve compartment on the 12's isn't quite practical for obvious reasons.

Yes, from 1934 production on the 8 cyl. cars, and from 1935 on, on the V-12's they had full-flow oil filters. What some people forget, when the motor is first started up with cold oil, the "by-pass" is open - the oil that is pumped to those connected rod, main bearings, and valve compartment is unfiltered.

So - bottom line - three cheers for the Kanters for their outstanding service to us - but a bucket of "boo's" for this particular very bad advice of theirs!

Please - if you love to drive your old Packard...drop those oil pans and clean them at regular intervals. It is the easiest, cheapest way to get the outstanding service a properly maintained Packard can provide !