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Thankks Howard, I'll check it out.
Thanks Kevin, I'll take a look to see how your seat fits.
Today I got to sand the fender that my tortoise knocked over after it was freshly painted. I also took off the painted part of my grill and sanded it. Hope to get to paint it tomorrow, with pictures of course. All I got to do is paint it away from the garage and the tortoises!
Luckily the grill is in decent shape, I just need to polish it.

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Finished sanding and painting the hood and fenders. Of course this was after I 'Tortoise proofed' part of my backyard. These guys tried to tear down my 1 foot wall of plywood, but they couldn't, this time.

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Darn tortoises. Worse than bulls in a china shop...


My dog ate my homework...My tortoise knocked my fender over...Now I've heard them all...


On a more serious note. The purple and white actually looks pretty nice. As a Mopar guy, the purple looks pretty close to Plum Crazy. Also, your upholstery guy did a real nice job on the seats. I really like the pattern that he made. I look forward to seeing the car all back together.


Jeff

Got back to the Patrician. I put the fenders and hood on. Now there will be no more Tortoise scare!
Was putting things back on and realized I have a long way to go to get the 53 back on the road!
I put the car down on wheel skates and moved it over to one side of the garage and was able to clean the garage too! I brought home my 1940 160 Touring Sedan and now I have 2 Packards back in my garage. The 55 Clipper Custom will have to wait until this car, the 53 Patrician is on the road. The 40 needs a little work, like exhaust manifold gasket and a new coil needs to be mounted, but that could be for another blog.

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Put the vacuum lines back on the power brake booster and the windshield wiper motor and the car starts great! Put the front bumper on and it looks ready to go! Need to work on a couple of electrical gremlins. I have brake lights, but no headlights, parking lights (front) nor turn signals.

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Nice looking car but interesting combination of electrical failures. Parking and headlight only would be easy but throwing in the turn signals adds a separate circuit to the mix. Nothing much in common except grounding. Park and turn signal grounds are shared, headlights separate though. They do all tie together for supply voltage at one side or the other of the same breaker. Do the tail lights work? Would appreciate hearing what it turns out to be.

Today was a great day so I thought I'd take the Patrician for a spin. At first, it would only drive in low or reverse. And it felt like the back end was falling out! I called around and asked about the kick-down lever. I was told how to adjust it. I just installed the used transmission not knowing how to install it or how to set the levers. Now I can leave it in high and just go. It is not perfect, but it is doing good. I don't have any rubber in the doors and the felt is gone from the windows so there is a lot of rattling going on. The engine has a knock like an exhaust leak (just like the one I had on my 40 160), but it sounds good. It was still fun to take it for a spin. I got lots of thumbs up.
Haven't gotten to the lights yet, but at least it's on the road and I can drive it.

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That first drive is always a great occasion, congratulation Duane!

YES - congratulations. The first ride is always something to remember.

Car was running rough so I thought I'd look at the carburetor as if I knew what I was doing and I noticed the vacuum line to the brake booster was loose. After I tightened that the car ran great. I went for a test drive then got brave enough to fill the tank. All was going good so I thought lets go to the store to get some flowers for my wife for Valentines day before the flowers get too expensive. While parking the car disater struck. As I turned off the engine I saw smoke coming from the dashboard. The car won't start now. The engine turns over but no spark. I called AAA, I am definitely getting my moneys worth from them.
Tomorrow I am getting under the dash to find out why. But first. Anyone have an idea what could have smoked under the dash to not let the car start up?