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Thanks for the info gents! I thought that there might have been a newer replacement part installed on this car for once, oh well.

I managed to correctly reassemble the steering column, here's a taste of what is coming for the dashboard area.

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Yep - my 51 the same, plastic not cloth covered.

The last week has been busy, at work and at home. Kids came home from Minneapolis for Thanksgiving so that was great, and we went up to Grand Forks for the UND hockey games Friday and Saturday nights. Plus it is a bit chilly here, as many are experiencing.

I did get all the new wires run in the car, and I went through most of the switches and light sockets to clean them up and get ready to solder the new wires in. I sanded the dashboard front and back and primed it, painted the back white to enhance vision back there when working on things later - a tip from Ross Miller on this forum somewhere. I won't paint it the final color until I'm done fitting all the wires and connections.

I plan to take my ignition switch to a lock and key place to see if they can duplicate the missing ignition key, as I understand it the ignition and door keys are the same?

The cold affects me at work too, here's the view from 25,000 ft with a non-functioning heater, -50 deg outside. They always work in the shop, of course.

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...as I understand it the ignition and door keys are the same?

No, different keys. If you can remove the lock cylinders you often find the key number stamped on the tumbler assembly and once you have the number most good locksmiths can make the key from key-cutting databases that are common in the industry. I had a new key cut for my 56 by just giving the locksmith the key number. Have you looked for the key numbers stamped in ink on the backside of the patent plate? Not sure how long they continued that practice for.

Another possibility, Packard only used 250 different keys from 1935 to 1956; try keys from other Packard owners in your area and you may get lucky, folks who have had a number of Packards over the years often have a pile of old Packard keys.

EDIT: I may have been in error saying the door and ignition keys are different; that was the case in earlier years but may not be the case for your car.

My 55 Clipper has a key for the ignition switch and door locks, and another for the glove compartment and trunk. This allows someone other than owner to drive the car (e.g., parking attendant), but stuff can be secured in the glove box and trunk. I would expect your '52 would be the same.

(o{}o)

I'm working on cleaning up the instruments, other than lots-o-dirt I'm wrestling with the clock. I blew the dirt out and moved the winding mechanism, but it wouldn't stay running. Then I sprayed the works with LPS-1, blew the excess out and we're ticking away!

So I hooked it up to a power supply to see if it would wind itself, but once the points close nothing happens - some arcing but no movement. So I filed the points to clean them up, tried varying the voltage from as low as 5v up to 7v, but always the same result.

Anyone have some pointers to keep me ticking?

With the points open, take an OHM reading from the case to the contact

Poked around with a meter on the clock yesterday over lunch, seemed like power was getting to the right spots. Then suddenly the clock started working, winding itself with power hooked up. No clue what magic I performed for this to happen, but hey - I'll take the credit.

Ran it for about 3 hrs this afternoon while I was working on cleaning up the gauge panel. The clock runs for about 50 seconds between each time the points close and it rewinds, the winder isn't moving full travel it seems. I read about someone else having this issue, but nobody ever seemed to chime in on how normal that is?

The chrome on this car is so thin! I can hardly breathe on it trying to clean and I see the copper underneath. The joys of "war chrome".

All the chrome is a bit corroded, and the taillight housings and rear license light housing are pretty beat up from all the rear end collisions this car had, whatever happened to it. Maybe they were pushing it with a tractor, who knows. You can see how one of the taillights is twisted.

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Wonder if any of those pieces would be a candidate for some of Eastwoods products as a stopgap. Maybe the reflective chrome powder coat or the liquid chrome process would kind of duplicate the original look and repair the damage. Both products get good reviews so I've been curious if anyone here has tried either product and how they actually look.