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Whoa there guy, don't be too hasty with that parts car. Judging by the looks of what you are fixing you are going to need more from that thing than you think. If it is solid, take the entire trunk pan from the hump all the way out to the panel below the trunk lid. That way you will have the rear body mounts and the entire bothersome-to-fabricate panel below the lid. That is the same assembly that was used on the convertible and can rather easily be welded in place between the existing fenders. That is how I repaired the Balboa except I happened to take the piece from a 55 Patrician.

Likewise the floor: although the convertible has more structure underneath, it is largely the same on top. Roll that sucker over and cut the stringers where they meet the inner rockers. Undo the body bolts. Then from inside cut all around the floor right where the pan welds to the rockers and around up and over the hump at some convenient point. You can lift out the entire floor and carry it away. It will have all the stringers and the seat reinforcement with it--a huge time and hassle saving.

Plus when assembling a car there is always some special gizmo, screw, or doodad missing. Mighty nice to walk over to the parts car and get it.

I imagine that engine was changed to 288 when they put the stick conversion in.

I was going around on that in my head - whether to cut apart the old car to make mine a little better, and I think that's the decision I've come to as well - the original floor pans and trunk pans just have a little surface rust, so they're very useable.

I spent a few hours this weekend trying to get the bumpers off, which is a trick inside a 10x20 storage building. At some point someone put a trailer hitch on this car bolted through the bumper holes but also welded to the frame, so after pulling all the rear bumper bolts, I still had to fight for 10 minutes to get it off without damaging anything.

The front bumper front bolt, I couldn't get my other socket into that cavity to keep the nut from turning, so now I've got a 3/4" wrench in my trunk for next time.

Mainly I suffered from a lack of light, so I'll have to grab a nice bright lantern for next time I go out there. Also, I need to find a power inverter, since a sawzall will probably be the best way to get the floors out. I have a ways to go before that though. I've got to get the bench seats out of the interior first, for sure, and the dash. Which probably means the engine and transmission will get pulled first as well. I'll start pulling accessories, but the main engine and transmission will have to wait until I have hands to help me flip the car around.

Something that had occurred to me today. I had been intending, in absence of any evidence of the original colors or codes, to paint her in Matador Maroon when I got the bodywork done.

But I noticed today that the dashboard is black, and doesn't appear to have been media blasted with the car. Could that be a clue to the original color of the car, if its authentic? I cant imagine a red or green car with a black factory dash, maybe gray?

If it turned out this pointed to being one of the factory black special order cars, that'd change my plans a bit.

Also, picked up some pieces at the Pate auction, so getting closer!

Looks pretty well gone over but if it was repainted, unless it was a top notch job sometimes they didn't go to extremes to remove everything. Not sure about M-B cars but a possible place to see original color on factory cars is under door strikers or hood hinge. Those were either natural metal or chromed so I believe installed after paint. Trunk hinge is probably painted so maybe primer under but a chance there might be some original paint. Also possibly under the trunk lock striker.

The big problem is that the car was not only media blasted, but also had been repainted before. I might get lucky though, but I figured my only hope was maybe pulling the windshield glass and seals out.

Nothing that I can tell, behind the driver's door latch there was only a piece of whitish fabric type stuff and behind that, nothing telling.

There are areas inside some of the body cavities, like inside the quarters that MAY be light blue, or may be just the same gray primer, unevenly applied.

The dashboard it turns out was repainted in the black, so maybe not the original color.

Hi: Like Owen, I find the evidence of how the sheet metal was grafted on to allow the Senior tailights and trim interesting. I wonder if they might have used the same stampings as those Henney used for the Junior ambulances since they also grafted Senior tailights onto Clipper fenders. Quite a project, though a worthwhile one. Steve

After the local Packard Club meet on Saturday, and the British and European car show on Sunday, I didn't get a chance to do much on the Packard this weekend - I started taking apart the complete bumper that I picked up at the Pate swapmeet, since it'll end up going on my Caribbean bumper, and managed to give it a quick polish with steel wool:

Here's a nice little before and after:

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Thanks to Bob K, one of the local Packard club personalities, and owner of a beautiful '53 Caribbean, I picked up a matching 327 L4xxxxx engine to go with my restoration. Spent most of the day wrestling it into and out of the pickup, and into the corner of the garage where it will live, and I'm definitely feeling it now.
I was impressed with how much Bob was wrestling that big hunk of iron around though, he was doing better than I was, but then he only had to do it once.

I also picked up a set of his nice reproduction Caribbean plates, a fresh rebuilt 4 barrel carb and manifolds, a front split folding seat base, and some other random pieces that I'll definitely need.

Goal for tomorrow is to get the Clipper spun around in the storage building so I can work on the front end of that easier. I don't think that's going to be much fun.

I'm also thinking ahead to cutting out the floor pan - I'd love to take it as one big solid piece, but then I wouldn't be able to get it out.

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the factory black cars had a Matador Maroon dash, not black. There are only qty. 2 confirmed factory black cars known. One is the Rocky Marciano car and the other one was unfortunately parted out in Oklahoma. There are about 5 or 6 other black cars seen floating around but they do not have true "X color codes or have admittedly been repainted black early in their lives. One car was even repainted at the dealer black right after purchased. This does not mean that more were made or still exist however