Re: Proud New Owner of a 49 Packard Club Sedan

Posted by Ross On 2018/9/5 7:09:25

Not to be disagreeable, but to correct a couple of points that have come up before they are enshrined forever as truth in the cloud:

In 47 years of Packard ownership and 25 years of working on them full time I have not found the carburetor starter switches to be any sort of significant problem. If the carburetor is in standard condition with a functioning choke unloader they work just fine and are a neat feature. Can be handy to have a pushbutton in parallel for tuneups or other work, but they are not needed.

Second, getting oil to the bearings before a start is an unnecessary complication. The bearings are not wearing in that condition. While grinding along on the starter the rings and camshaft are not getting a thing and that is where any remotely significant wear takes place. The best thing is that the engine starts promptly so that the oil pressure comes up quickly and everything gets lubed asap. All of the significant wear I see in straight Packard engines is in the upper ring area. The bearings generally only succumb to years of dirty oil, or in the case of V-8s, aeration.