Re: Removing a 51 from an old garage

Posted by Packard Don On 2016/8/10 13:47:39

I made the mistake of leaving my cars parked in the garage for decades with the parking brakes on. The 1940 110, 1948 Henney-Packard and two 1954 Packard Patricians were okay but my 1964 Ghia-Imperial limousine had the rear brakes locked which is worse than flat tires, especially on a car so long and heavy as you can see in the photos linked above. To get it out, I put a floor jack under the rear axle, then pulled it out but fortunately it was backed in which made it easier, especially as it had only about 1/4" clearance on either side to the adjacent cars!

In your case, all the advice given was perfect. Pull it out by brute force if necessary, then fix the tires outside. Be careful to pull only by the frame or by the rear axle if parked in nose-first. If pulling from the front, use only the main frame cross member under the front of the engine, not the smaller one ahead of it and don't use the stabilizer bar. Under no circumstances use a bumper jack!

If concrete inside and out, you can use a wheeled floor jack on one end to make it easier or get a set of wheeled dollies and put one under each wheel. Mine are self-jacking but are difficult to get under flat tires so you might just get the solid non-jacking type, then lift each wheel onto one. Once installed, one or two people should be able to push it out by hand but just be careful to have a plan for stopping it if the driveway is sloped downward!

Whatever you do, good luck and I for one would love to see photos of the process you end up using and of any work you do on the car as time goes by.