Re: Under hood prop rod

Posted by Leeedy On 2020/10/22 12:12:02
Quote:

ewrecks wrote:
To add to Ross' comment, the hood Rod was added to the 55 Caribbean because the added weight of the lead used to add the hood scoops was too much for the springs and the hood became a guillotine.
The earliest cars...including mine ...did not have the rod. I am pretty sure that the Howard Hughes- Jean Peters car lacked the rod. Leeedy can confirm, I'm sure.
I added one on mine for safety and bought one for a friend who was doing a 400 from Merritt.
Originality is nice but safety takes priority


Okay. One thing that Jay Leno does not tell people (and Jay probably does not know himself-and apparently even Packard people don't notice) but HIS 1955 Caribbean was a special-order car. It is not a standard Caribbean. Neither the exterior colors nor the interior are standard Caribbean on Jay's car. It was done by the factory, true, but all special-ordered when new. I know this car fairly well and it lived in the Pasadena, California area for many years before Jay bought it.

SO. You can't use Jay's Caribbean as any yardstick of what a 1955 Caribbean should-or should not have. His is one of a kind-whether he realizes it or not.

As for lead in Caribbean hoods... yes, for 1953 and 1954. No for 1955. And definitely no for 1956. The 1953-54 hoods were modified at Mitchell-Bentley and yes, used lots ot lead. The first of these hoods was very stiffly sprung to compensate for the lead, but then the hood bent during an early demonstration. So? They went back to normal counterbalance springs and added the support strut for production.

Now I have said this before in the early 1970s in the Earle C. Anthony "Packard News" newsletter. Published it elsewhere as well. 1955 Caribbean hoods used a pair stamped metal housings and cast plated "openings" for their scoops. However, rather than lead, Packard used a proprietary material they called "Packard New Metal" to smooth in the scoop housings where they were joined to the hood. YES... there was such stuff and you could even buy it via the parts department.

"Packard New Metal" was probably the first factory use of what amounted to a metallized substance that today we might generically refer to as "bondo." Only Packard New Metal actually did contain metal granules that one would not find in today's bondo. So... the 1955 Caribbean hoods did not use lead. Packard claimed to have invented the stuff and certainly did a lot of development with it. But... nobody seems to remember these things. It was all lost in the shuffle of other stuff going on in 1955-56. Yet one more pioneering effort that Packard made that it does not receive credit for initiating.

I had a couple of cans and paper write-ups and instructions for Packard New Metal. But this was all stolen along with my 1956 Caribbean convertible, my 1956 Four Hundred and a barn full of Packard parts (and old bicycles) when I was robbed years ago. I'm sure the dirtbag robbers had no idea what Packard New Metal was... even though they stole it and certainly had it in their possession. Have any of you ever seen this stuff?

Anyway, the factory determined that the 1955 hoods were not heavy enough to require a support strut. Certainly there was absolutely no need for a strut on other 1955-56 Packards and Clippers. And no, the Howard Hughes/Jean Peters Caribbean did not have one. However, the factory allowed dealers to request a support strut and based on those individual requests, some 1955 Caribbeans ended up with hood support struts.

Hope this clears things up.

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