Re: '38 1608 V12 Project

Posted by Tim Cole On 2021/7/18 5:13:00

We had a similar thing happen many years ago only the manifold became so warped it was unusable. Fortunately the owner sourced the service. We got a replacement and the porcelain burned off in short order. So I painted it.

If your manifold is still straight the ear can be repaired. I don't remember the place, but they are probably retired. I was able to have a speedster fixed, an 840 fixed, and a 34 eight manifold fixed. Forget the porcelain though and make sure to check references. One place I used would scrape off metal from the actual manifold and make rod out of it to assure a proper weld.

The porcelain will hold up on the 7th series and earlier cars and to a lesser extent on the 8th and 9th series cars provided they are not driven at high speed. Once they started pushing the horsepower up the porcelain didn't last. I have pictures of brand new cars with cracked porcelain. As well, the alcohol in today's gasoline is making them run leaner so either the jetting needs to changed or the float level set higher as a patch. Don't worry about gas mileage on a Packard because the factory never did. They do better on gas than a Cadillac V-16.

Another problem is if the porcelain starts flaking off there is the danger of shards of glass being flung around the engine compartment. I wear safety glasses at all times around running engines. The other day chunks of fan started flying off a dyno engine.