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new "fog" lights came in. WAY cheaper then unity setup and bigger. 7" the car had an original Packard fog light on it for the longest time, but i felt since i redid the wiring harness i would add a couple of newer, more useful lights. plus there was another Packard fog light on ebay recently for 300 bucks....for one....so gonna keep this one safe and put on the cheaps.

they are not "fog" lights persay becuase they have replacable H4 bulbs and flat euro lenses....basically headlights for like a t-bucket or something. but i like they way they look. I will be hooking them to a relay setup with a switch that will allow low beams to the left and high beams to the right.

i have a horrible time seeing at night....so on the rare occasion i need them, they will be very welcome.


I got the large pieces that didn't fit in my blast cabinet done at a local place, they turned out pretty good. I'll be taking the intake and the exhast manifold to the machine shope for decking.


started working on rebuilding the transmission. glad i painted it first as the grease just wipes right off after i'm done.

manual says to put in countershaft first...then reverse gear. well i did that until i forgot to put the needle bearings into the countershaft after i had already install the shaft for the reverse gear. i wasn't about to take that back out. so, if anyone is wondering...yes you can install the reverse gear first and then the countershaft....it matters not.

getting the bushings to stay in the case while i slow dropped in the countershaft merely required dabs of grease to hold them in place. have to line up those slots and it took a few tries, but i got it all in.

I had to use the same grease to hold the needle bearings in place as i had no arbor to hold everything while placing the countershaft and driving the long shaft it rides on into the transmission. it tooke about 2 hours....but i finally got everything lined up and the needle bearings in their place. the arbor would have speed things up alot i'm sure. so again...that is possible without the arbor....but it sucks.

i decided that the 2nd gear from the new trans having some bad spots on the ball bearings was just as bad as using the original 2nd gear from my old trans and the gears not being 100% lapped right. either way...its a weak spot...so i went with the old 2nd gear as it spun much smoother and made no noise. gonna use the synchromesh pack from the new trans though....it wasn't nearly as worn as the old one....less miles i'm sure.

i found out the true reason why 2nd gear was grinding so bad on the old trans....it wasn't really the synchromesh....it was the countershaft gear....can anyone see why.....the teeth were sitting in the bottom of the trans....probably not a good thing either lol!

if you have ever wondered what happened when you pushed on the synchromesh pack when it was out of the trans....well pretty much exactly what it says in the manual....balls and springs go flying. luckily they were easy to find. getting the pack back together wasn't that hard either...no special Packard tool need as described in the manual...just a piston installer. crank it down...and hit the inner gear with a hand of a rubber mallet....boom done.

crank will be .010/010 and pistons will be .030

studs are coming out fine with now problems so far....antijinx...

ordered enough parts from Kanter to help finance the restoration on the 52 limo they are doing.

this motor is gonna be sooooo sweet!

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Hank, good progress on the transmission. It has been decades since I worked on one, but your description brought back many memories. We would regularly break those Ford transmissions screwing around drag racing on the streets. Usually got them caught in two gears at once (1st and 2nd) when speed shifting.

Also, think your "driving/fog" lights are a neat idea. They should give the front of the 138CD a nice appearance. You should have plenty of additional light. Will you be able to use both bulb elements for high and low beam? Low for fog and High for driving?

It's getting so that I do not like driving at night, but I am a few years older than you.

(o[]o)

On the comment about spending enough with us to finance our '52 Limo restoration, you really have no idea what it costs.

We have never asked for favors from our suppliers of such items as exhaust, brake and fuel lines, hydraulic window cylinders but after 40 years we did on this car...so many parts are free.

As to the labor, I work cheap on my own car and don't even charge overtime when I'm in the shop until late evenings or on Sundays.

A big expense has been paper towels and your parts paid for them, thanks......oh, and for my toupee.

i'm not even sure how i'm supposed to take that Fred.....I give up.

the lights will be wired to a seperate switch under the dash...left for low beams.....center off....right high beams.

Brice Thomas aluminum radiator showed up today. it is a very good reproduction as best they could from the turd I sent them.

we made a few changes, like the drain spout and the addition of a tab to feed the shutter bolt through so I could adjust them manually. may have to add a few threads to the bolt though.

I will have to modify the radiator shroud surrounding to get it to fit just perfectly. reason being the mounts for the front fan were not there before. cut some notches in the shroud and I'm good. I did not want to mount the fan with those stupid zip tie things that go through the core, so I had them make a mounting ring. the four attachment points to the radiator itself are what are causing some interference and will need to notch the shroud on the car to fit. otherwise the radiator fits well considering.

started taking the starter apart to recondition and repaint. it was in sad shape although it did operate. it had been rebuilt at some point. the insulation was falling off of the two brushes attached to the field coil, so I took those off along with the electric tape someone used. you can see the soldering that was done to replace the brushes. may need to order some parts from AER, not sure yet. had to take the field coil out with the bolt because I couldn't get the soldering to let loose. that was no fun task. the whole thing was just soaked in oil, everything except the bearings....ironically.

pics of transmission to follow later. it has been rebuilt...2 times now as I forgot the little ring that goes on before the cage needle bearing roller on the shaft. this time I used sockets to hold the needle bearings in place on the countershaft.

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Radiator looks great!

...and as BigKev knows, I've got an extra starter if you need anything. Or two....

thanks Flack. i got the field coil apart. all the other parts are soaking in my witches brew. aramature is in good shape...just need to take some fine grit and clean it up at the end.

new brushes on order

new field coil wrap on order. 3m scotch 27 tape.

rewrap coils...clean up armature...install new brushes....paint...done.

pending nothing breaks.

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....or twenty...

Henry, the radiator is a fine looking item. You may not need the electric fan with the increased cooling the aluminum radiator provides. Still, a good idea to provide mounting brackets for the electric fan. I think a good 6-bladed flex fan would work nicely.

(o[]o)