My boss is rich (over 4mil net worth) and has a 98 Mercedes that sits at one of the shipping docks rotting because he thinks its worth a ton as the last Mercedes model made in Germany. Nothing works right on the car. I'll take my '52 Packard and '66 Cad convertible any day. At least I enjoy them.

Naw I would be getting a lot better gas mileage!

Well I can't explain the behavior the starters did when hooked directly to the batteries, but on a whim I replaced the entire ground cable and finally the car turned over (must have had damaged wire in it). In fact it kept turning over even when I took my foot off the gas! Some violent stomps up and down on the gas pedal made it behave again. Now the problem is the starter keeps running after the car starts! I took the vacuum switch off the carb to clean it and the outer rim disintegrated. Now I have to jump the terminals to get it to start again. I don't want to go with a starter button (I like starting it with the gas pedal) so I will have to try to find the carb from my old car to steal the switch from or source another used one. At least I can move the car!

Exactly! I even ran the car a few times in the winter with no problem as long as it wasn't too cold.

I like the look of them. I got some for my 51 before parting out and have them on my 52

That's the wierd part. I'm pretty sure the other starter works. I just swapped it for my other one because I knew it had been rebuilt and looked nicer. I guess I'm going to have to install it and cross my fingers it works. Dont want to buy a battery only to find out it was fine and no one near me can test a 6v battery.

So I cleaned all of the connections, including the copper strip going from the solenoid to the starter and the bolt & block area for the ground wire. Still only clicks.

Removed all the wires from the starter and connected it straight to the battery with heavy duty jumper cables. When I jumped the connection at the starter to the solenoid, the motor spun, but did not engage the engine.

Hmm...still not sure if it's the battery or the starter.

Next I hooked the starter to a 12v battery that I know was fully charged. Same result. Maybe it's not the battery, but the starter?

Went into the bowels of my garage and managed to find the starter that came with the car originally. I tested this one with the 6v battery and it only spun and the gear only came out a little. Tried with the 12v battery and the same thing! This was using the 12v with positive ground. I switched to negative ground and the starter gear came out a lot farther (not sure how far it should come out). Now I'm not sure what to dry next.

I put the wires back on the old starter and it only clicked again. Then I added a jumper cable from the positive terminal to the engine block bolt on the ground cable and the motor would spin, but not engage.

Is it possible the motor is turning the wrong direction and not allowing the gear to come out and engage the flywheel? I don't want to swap starters since the other one appears to do the same thing when connected to the 6v battery.

I had my 51 towed about 30 miles in neutral at 70+ mph when I bought it. Once we got to my house the whole underside was smoking! I had no idea you shouldn't tow one of these cars like that. Needless to say, the trans needed to be rebuilt/replaced.

Might be better to source a different engine. Seems they are pretty plentiful and usually cheap. Check out BigKev's project blog for lots of information and wiring. He bought a new universal harness and installed it. I have a few pics on my blogs too. I ended up making my own harness using the old one as a template, but you might not have enough left of yours to do it. There is a service manual on this sight you can download with wiring diagrams. Of course you can always ask the forum for help. Lots of helpful people on this forum. For your brakes, I would replace all lines, cylinders and master cylinder. You don't want to take chances with that. Napa can supply all the parts. You would be surprised how many mechanical parts you can still get from the auto parts stores. See the Packard Parts X-Ref on the left side of the website for examples.

From experience, bodywork and rust repair will be the most difficult and expensive things to be taken care of just to make the car safe. I would start there to make sure you can get this fixed reasonably or you will find the car is only useful as a parts car.

Thanks guys, I had tried all of those tricks. Maybe the wire I used wasn't thick enough when I jumped the starter. I'll try something thicker. Hopefully it's the battery rather than the starter.