Re: Larry's 1951 Club Sedan Project

Posted by Larry51 On 2010/1/24 8:11:39

Almost three months ago I transported the car to the 'metal maestro'(a local bloke named Ralph), who is an excellent sheet metalworker. He has built and restored quite a few cars, and currently owns a couple of very nice ones - a '32 Ford Victoria hot-rod with blown 350 Chev, and his recently completed '50 Ford Single Spinner ute ( US=pickup). I'll get some pics of his cars soon and post them here . . .

We removed the car body from the chassis and lifted it by means of an engine crane onto the trolley I had made.

Now the body was at last ready for Ralph to work some magic on. He'd need to sharpen his wand somewhat as the task of removing the rust was going to be a long and difficult process to do properly.

However I had seen a few of the cars that Ralph has restored and so had absolute faith in his ability to make the '51 as good as new. Some of the cars he has at his shed are more missing than there . . . at first glance you would reckon they are beyond repair. He was telling me that his '50 Ford pickup was so badly rusted that it had no floor, no tray and was a mass of rust. Now it is very eyeworthy. Likewise, the '32 Victoria rod was a mess, but it is a great restoration and has been featured in a magazine or two.

One of the biggest challenges Ralph was going to face was that Barbarians had done some repairs on the car in several areas many years ago . . . . So it would be difficult to reconstruct some areas as original shape and dimensions no longer exist. He would have to work at times from photos that I would provide.

There were in places up to three layers of sheet metal overlapped on rusted and accident damaged areas. This was accompanied by some thick body filler, which usually had just been forced into rust holes around the rear quarters. A totally bodgied job.

Now - back to the chassis . . . . .

The chassis after grit blasting was primed with a single pak epoxy etch primer, which is loaded with Zinc for corrosion control.





Then I sprayed it with 2-pak epoxy urethane gloss, in a Charcoal colour in lieu of straight black.
Comment: The frame colour appears much lighter and bluer in the photos than it actually is.

My parcel of parts had arrived from Kanter, and included the full steering and suspension rebuild parts.



Here is my son threading the control arm pin into the lower outer. We managed to compress the spring using only one jack, by jamming a 4x2 timber against the lintel / arch bar above the garage door to prevent the chassis from lifting as the coil spring was compressed. The side shown here was the easy side, as the pin threaded in without any difficulty.

However the other side was a totally different story, and we had a hell of a job getting the pin through without ripping the inner grease seals and destroying them. The NEW rubber seals are a circle of rubber having a square profile. The original seals were basically like large 'O'-rings (round profile). This made a big difference in terms of the thread of the pin catching on the seal as it was wound through the thread of the lower control arm and bushing. The old original seals would not get captured by the thread, however the new seals (- one or the other) constantly got grabbed and chewed. We greased the seals etc but to no avail, and had to back the pin out many times and start again, adjusting the angle and pressure on the wishbone until eventually after an hour of trying we got the pin through both seals without chewing them to bits.



My opinion is that these Kanter replacements should be made the same profile (round) as the originals to prevent this problem. The square profile is a pain. Once a seal has been chewed a little it is prone to getting grabbed more easily the next attempt. A real headache.

Pics


Meanwhile, all front suspension components had been checked, and although the only parts with any significant wear were the lower outers (Lower Pivot Pins) on both sides, I replaced fully the uppers and lowers (with Kanter replacement kits), plus I also dismantled, checked and reassembled the king pins. There was no wear in the kingpins or needle rollers, but I had new ones so fitted them anyway.







It was interesting to find that my '51 has needle bearings on both the top and bottom around the knuckle pin. This is on both drivers and passenger sides, and is contrary to what the manual indicates. The manual says there should be a bronze bushing in the bottom of the knuckle. Also, Kanter provided bronze bushes in their knuckle recon kits (as expected).

I wonder how many other Packards have this different arrangement.

Comments welcome!

Perhaps my car had work done sometime in the past, and bushes were not available but needle bearings were, so they were substituted. Only guessing. The only limitation I can see with needles in the lower area is the cages (my car) appear to be a looser fit than a bush, so may be prone to slowly working loose and 'falling out' if the lower grease retaining plug is not inserted tightly.


Burnishing the Steering Knuckle Bushings

Since fitting the new Kingpins and bushes, reaming and burnishing I have read various comments here regarding burnishing the lower bushes. Seems the matter has been discussed here but perhaps the advantages of burnishing are not widely understood.

As a bloke who did some mechanical work many years ago I remember burnishing being a fairly common procedure. Today it is not commonplace, but there are considerable advantages to be gained by burnishing mated surfaces involving bronze / brass bushings.

I approached two large engineering workshops locally and enquired as to whether they had the equipment to burnish the bushings for me. One company had heard of burnishing but never burnished bushings that they had reamed for customers, and didn't know why burnishing might be a good idea. The other company hadn't even heard of burnishing.

The problem is - where do you get burnishing tools these days? Basically they are hard to find.

Here is one method which I used as an alternative to using a burnishing tool.

Packard restorers could just ream the lower bushings but with time it is likely that what was initially a good snug fit of kingpin in the bushing could become a fit that is a bit looser than ideal. This can be prevented by burnishing.

Burnishing will compress the surface material of the bushing, change the metallic structure, and even out ('smear' is the term I've heard) the highs in the reamed bush, and it can be expected that around 2 thou additional hole size will be gained by burnishing. See the Manual for details.

With a careful job of reaming the bushing to exactly the right tolerance (2 thou undersize, as per Manual), the kingpin can be used to burnish the bushing (- after the bushing has been pressed into the steering knuckle).

A 'correct' amount of reaming is a matter of a couple of thou (as mentioned in the Workshop Manual). Pin should be a 'very tight fit' after reaming. In other words, you can just introduce the end of the pin into the reamed bushing but you cannot push it in with bare hands very far into bushing or turn it by hand in the bushing.

Note - buying an 'extra' bushing to set correct reamer size, and to practice the following technique on is worth considering.

Grip the end of the kingpin very tightly with a pair of vice-grips (caution - with a layer of material to stop any marking of the pin).

Rotate the kingpin down through the bushing, making about ten or more full rotations of the pin. Don't lubricate the bushing with oil. You may use a bit of kerosene (paraffin) if necessary but I avoided doing so. After two insertions rotating the pin, the pin should become considerably looser as burnishing takes place.

Now oil the pin and test for tolerance. It should have loosened considerably, but still be much too tight.

Next heat the kingpin moderately by leaving it in boiling water for a minute or two, to expand it. Then while it is hot, introduce it again into the bushing (again - no oil used). It should be a tight fit, as before, too tight to rotate by hand, but able to be rotated using the vicegrips. In the unlikely event that it is very tight (- difficult to rotate even with the vicegrips) then extra reaming of the bushing might be necessary. Take the intermediate step of letting the pin cool down a bit and try again.

There is a bit of trial and error involved. But if reaming again be careful to not remove too much metal thereby creating a loose fit.

Cool the pin (cold water), oil it and try it again for fit in the bushing. It should be a good fit, not too tight (- and certainly not too loose!).

If it is still too tight when cooled, and you have only done the process twice, you will still gain an extra small amount of clearance by reheating pin and repeating the process. You can heat the pin to more than boiling point temperature if necessary and gain a little more clearance.