Wednesday 11th March 2009

On the way to the workshop stopped in to say to my Dad who turned 88 today.

After yesterdays effort on the '41's distributor, I took down 20 sets of points I'd bought 'on spec' from eBay some months ago. There were 10 NOS sets for 37-39 6's & 8's and 10 NOS sets for 48-50 8's. Neither type are close to fitting the distributor in the '41 so they'll now become part of the Packard Swap Meet later this month. Barrie, if you're interested, let me know if the 48-50's would fit yours. I'll post a pic in the next few days because I left them all down at the workshop.

Then turned to the '41 and rang a windscreen bloke about re-rubbering the front and rear windscreens, with the new Steele rubbers I bought a couple of months back, but I'm still waiting for the call back 7 hours later. Well, there's always tomorrow.

While waiting for the call that never came, Wade busied himself preparing his '37's for the Rally. For the 120 this consisted of starting it up, after it had been sitting for the last couple of months, listening to the motor ticking over very smoothly at idle once warmed up, a visual inspection of components, ensuring the stop lights were working, topping up the silicon brake fluid and checking the oil level(slightly over full). The 120 had a service shortly before it went into this hibernation so things like brake adjustment, trans and diff oil levels had been attended to then. Next was the Super 8 and because this has had a fair bit of running in recent months a more detailed preparation was required. For this Wade used Rick's hoist to do an oil change and a chassis lube job.

While Wade was doing the Super 8, I was back to one of my favourite pastimes cleaning Packard parts. Specifically the R9 OD in pieces on the bench. First up the very large rear bearing in the OD Case was pressed out, but not before a mighty fight with it's retaining circlip. No doubt Special Packard Tool #xxxxx would have helped but without it Wade managed to loosen it's grasp anyway. Then pressed out the double rear oil seal, looks like they really want to keep the oil in. Then it was up to me to scrape the outside muck off, wire brush it, use the parts cleaner and finally clean it down with brake cleaner. Thought I'd done well until Wade ran a finger inside the OD case and it emerged with black oily goo over it. The humiliation! So another internal parts washer and brake cleaner application later, this time passing the white glove test! Also cleaned up the trans top and shifter arms, part of the internals for the OD and the yoke for the universal at the rear of the OD.

Then the phone call came, not from the windscreen bloke, but my wife Kath to say the grandkids were on their way again. No, this is not an excuse to avoid cleaning Packard parts, it really happened. And a great afternoon was had enjoying our two grand daughters.

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Quote:
Dave,

I'm well known for my predelection for Packard photography even with varying results. And I'll certainly be your foreign correspondent at the Rally. I just don't know if there'll be enough hours in the day, coupled with the rally activities and my duties there, to enable me to make day by day reports and make pic's available but I'll do my best.

Quote:
Dave,

No, I didn't, so very remiss of me.

And your geography is spot on!

This is our inaugural Packard Only Swap Meet and it's hoped will be a regular event at future Packard National Rallys here in Oz. Whether it is the biggest or only "Packard Only" swap meet event I don't really know as I wasn't aware of others which may be able to lay claim to such a title. If correction is warranted I'd bow to that, but at the same time look to building future events so that the title would not be in dispute.

Quote:
G'day Bill,
for including your '37 in the Registry.

Are you a member of PACA(Packard Automobile Club of Australia)? PACA is having it's 13th Packard National Rally based at Mittagong in the NSW Southern Highlands later this month from 22nd to 28th March with about 45 Packards entered. If you're able, although it's short notice and with a distance factor of 1000 plus kilometers, like to see you there. Probably the best day would be the Show & Shine at Berrima on Wednesday 25th at which will be a Packard Only Swap Meet(The biggest, and only, Packard Swap Meet in the Southern Hemisphere)

EDIT - Distance corrected

Quote:
Chad,
for the pic. Looking forward to seeing them all in the Owner Registry.

Tuesday 10th March 2009

After some first up chit-chat with Wade it was onto the '41. Started it up, with it catching and firing on the second attempt, it then settled down into a reasonable idle but with a definite intermittent miss. Wade adjusted the idle mixture, which was just about spot-on to start with after the rebuild, but no improvement noted. Wade and also Rick, who had come over to join in the fun, were pretty much convinced it was an electrical related miss. So after Wade grounded each sparkplug in turn, which resulted in a noticeable miss each time in addition to the on-going miss, the distributor was turned to as a likely source of the problem. While Wade went to attend to another matter I was left to remove the distributor from the Coupe. This I managed to accomplish by undoing the vacuum tube fitting, the lead from the coil to the distributor and loosening off the screw headed bolt attached to the distributor clamp, taking a few pic's along the way as I went.

Set the distributor up in the removable padded jaws of the bench vice then turned to the bakelite fitting saved from the very rusty distributor disassembled a few weeks ago. The bakelite fitting in the '41's distributor had a crack in the part which fits inside the distributor body and as a result couldn't be tightened properly when re-assembled some months ago so it was a likely source of trouble. Disassembled the fitting then cleaned it up, metal pieces in the wire wheel and the bakelite parts using brake cleaner and a cloth. All went well and at this point Wade returned and started disassembling the bakelite fitting from the '41's distributor. When it came apart, what had been a crack was now a split with the internal bakelite piece in two pieces instead of one. As I continued cleaning the outer bakelite fitting, from the parts distributor, it too split into two pieces! Started to get a little short on serviceable parts at this point but still had one good inner and one good outer bakelite piece. Now, kid-glove treatment came into play, a lot of care being taken in handling the remaining intact but fragile bakelite pieces. The inner bakelite fitting has a raised post, for want of a better term, over which an internal wire passes to connect to the bakelite fitting, So to relieve this stress point there was some judicious filing of the post until only a flat surface remained where it met the connector. Wade then was able to re-assemble the bakelite post and fitting without cracks or further problems arising.

So that sorted. Then turned to the points, these had been cleaned up a few months ago when the distributor was re-assembled but now they were pitted! Wade found a set of points he'd bought some fair while ago which didn't fit what he wanted them for. A test fitting and it seemed like they might do. However on closer inspection they weren't complete but Wade believed they could be made to work. So turning to the old points, which were complete, it was resolved to use the parts out of that which were missing from the new set. The missing pieces comprised the plastic insulating piece together with it's metal stud and nut. Only problem, the insulating piece from the new set were set into a square hole while the old sets pieces slid into a slot. What to do? Well at this point yours truely had an idea, it doesn't happen often! It was to cut the cross piece off the top of the new sets body to form a slot! So carefully using a hacksaw, then a file and together with a little straightening work a slotted body was created. And it worked! The next problem was that the body of the new set had a flange extending from the base piece which resulted in the retaining nut hitting the inside of the distributor body although we'd also cut some length off the little stud to try and avoid that. What to do? Why reverse the orientation of the stud so that the nut was inside the points set instead of being on the outside! Credit due here, this was Wade's idea. And it worked! One of the distributor cap clips was also loose so it along with every other screw or nut in the distributor was summillarily tightened.

The points were then set, some lubricant in the form of vaseline applied to the distributor cam and the cap inspected and cleaned. We were now ready to re-install the distributor. But which way should it go in? Fortunately I'd taken some pic's of it in the car with the cap off before it was removed so that solved that problem. Then Wade attempted to re-insert the distributor from whence it came, and tried, and tried, and tried, etc, etc, etc. Finally, 'Magic Hands', Mal said "let me have a go". And what do you know, after only a little bit of jiggling, in it went! Sorry Wade, had to say it because it's not often, sorry not ever, has that happened before! Wade then positioned the distributor by eye, the cap installed, vacuum tube installed and coil wire installed. Jumped in the car and after a few turns the '41 burst back into life. And you know what. no more miss! Wade rounded up John's timing light, and using that, the distributor was set in position only necessitating me tightening up a hidden screw. There are easier things to do, but working on Packards these little challenges become a away of life. And some things to remember. This is a later model distributor which had a dual point conversion somewhere in it's life using unknown points but only one set of points has now been retained on the dual point baseplate, so it wasn't exactly "correct" to start with. We just had to work with what we had.

At this time with the '41 running sweetly, at least in the shop, I had to leave because my wife Kath had called a little earlier to let me know the grandkids were coming over. And there's only one thing better than Packards and that's grandkids, with the siren call of 2 little girls drawing me home to enjoy the afternoon with them.

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Tuesday 10th March 2009

At the workshop a little chit-chat with Wade to start with. First about his trip yesterday to view the '34 in the paint shop. It's currently in primer with the final touches being applied to this part of the process. Next Wade advised a member of the Packard Club Bruce from Wagga Wagga, about 460km south west from Sydney, needed a set of king pins for his '38 Business Coupe. Having a spare set, Wade thought I might be able to help out which I was only too willing to do. So about 1/2 an hour after I spoke with Bruce the king pin set was on it's way, the package being delivered to the local post office in Wade's '37 Super 8 no less! I'll catch up with Bruce at the Packard National Rally later this month when he arrives in the Coupe, got to "keep those Packard's rolling".

Finding it hard to separate the workshop happenings from what happens with the '41 Coupe. The above started off in the '41's blog before I realised it needed to be separated out. And re-reading the previous post in this thread demonstrates just this dilemma. But enough of my whingeing, I'll just have be be more focused when drafting these reports.

Quote:
G'day BD,
to PackardInfo.

Sorry, can't help with your query so I'll leave that to the experts. But, I invite you to include your '37 in the Owner Registry together with a pic, any known history and how you acquired it.

Quote:
G'day Beltfed,
See you've posted a number of times before, so a belated to PackardInfo. And an invitation to include your '39 110 in the Owner Registry together with a pic, any known history and how you acquired it.

Monday 9th March 2009

After having my eyes tested in the morning, arrived at the workshop after lunch. Brought along the rebuilt Carter WDO, I'd picked up from Tim of Carburettor Service Company on Friday,http://www.carburettorservice.com.au/ and installed it back on the '41. Sounds easy doesn't it? Probably is for the less mechanically challenged, but for this individual it did present challenges. Started off well getting the carb bolted back on the intake manifold then mounting the choke heating tube from the exhaust manifold to the automatic choke. It was difficult enough to get the nuts on and done up for the carb as some of them aren't easily accessible unless you have fingers which bend back on themselves. Then came the vacuum tube from the base of the carb to the vacuum advance on the distributor. The tube had been left attached to the vacuum advance on the distributor so it was only a matter of reconnecting it to the carb, right? Wrong! Because the fitting for the tube is "tucked under" the float bowl of the carb this individual couldn't see what he was doing and succeeded in cross-threading the brass fitting on the carb. So backtracked, removed vacuum tube, choke heating tube and carb. Took out the cross-threaded brass fitting from carb base, cleaned up the threads with a sharp pick and threaded the vacuum tube into the brass fitting on the bench, this time correctly. Then refitted the fitting into the base of the carb and the carb back onto the '41 along with the choke heating tube. Reconnected the distributor end of the vacuum advance tube, the fuel line to the carb and the throttle linkage and spring. All set to go, after turning over the engine to get fuel up into the carb again and some aerosol starter primer the '41 was reluctant to co-operate. But finally came back to life although a little hesitant, maybe the auto choke needs adjusting although Tim said he's set it up per the book. We'll see tomorrow when Wade returns from his trip to inspect the progress of the '34 being painted. And all this in a mere 2 hours! Think of how quick it would have been if I knew what I was doing!

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