Re: Stewart's 1955 Packard 400
Posted by HH56 On 2021/9/27 19:26:42
No idea what kind of tricks Packard or body shop people might have to fix your particular issue but according to many articles including several memos from James Nance to various production heads the build quality of the 55s were nothing to write home about. I think one of his memos described the quality as "appalling" and apparently went on for quite a while before Connor Ave was mostly sorted out.
Any number of stories in various books about cars being stockpiled and the plant running out of space to hold any more because the cars could not be shipped until someone went thru every one of them and corrected major problems.
There was a memo from him to one of the VPs where he said he was looking at a car and a door jammed and was not able to be opened without a prybar and another that said a door handle pulled off in his hand or fell on the floor when he tried to open it (maybe same car).
Wide and mismatched gaps between panels were too numerous to count and apparently every other car was painted green. If your car was not wrecked and that has caused the problem possibly it was one of those and some kind of magic shim is needed at a bolt location or maybe a purposely bent body bolt or two allowed the body to be shifted to fit. Maybe something like that could be done or maybe a few body holes could be enlarged to provide some extra give to find the 1/4 inch.
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