I hesitate to post this on the modification forum, because the kits we've seen advertised are allegedly a bolt-in proposition, no butchering of the car whatsoever, and the drums can be reinstalled at anytime. That, and not everyone visits the mod forum, because some of the action there's beyond our interest, scope, tho' we wish everyone thereon success.
But first, i'm
NOT interested in opinions on authenticity. Please, we've long since made our bones in that department. Can happily drive my '47 Super Clipper into the future with the factory drum brakes which work well.
Our interest here is in reducing unsprung weight. Again, some of us are interested--- at this point in our lives --in tailoring a Packard to suit US, not some dolt with a clipboard at a concours d'nonelegance or suburban shine and show. Been there, done that.
In the day, Packards were oft upgraded at the dealer, could have custom bodywork, and from firsthand experience, i can tell you the revered Darrins look in places like high school shop projects, no two alike, and have less than optimal ergonomics. Darrin himself cadged door handles from Terraplanes in junkyards, whatever struck his eye. Today, we have people fawning over and debating his every whim. It's comical.
Packard never produced anything like the sleek Bentley R- and S-Type Continentals-- despite the Silver Cloud/S-Series
introduced in the fall of '55 cribbing from East Grand Avenue to the extent that they looked like 1941-47 Clippers razor edged with curved, one-piece windshields. The R-Types/Silver Dawns copied nut for bolt Packard's Safe-t-fleX
IFS, while the S-Series/Silver Cloud used the GM-type IFS
for the same reason the 1941-47 Clippers used it: the lowered floor pan left no room for Saf-t-fleX's long torque arms. That, and perhaps and let's be realists, cost-cutting.
(Sadly, Packard, being only another also-ran after Alvan Macauley left at the same time as the pug ugly bathtubs which Tom McCahill called "a goat," instead clobbed another 200 lbs. of "sporty" nonsense on an otherwise bone stock convertible in the '50s, the Caribbean,
merely as they were more interested in following GM's lead.
Aping nonsense like Cadillac Eldorado, Buick Skylark when the
Packard of the '20s and '30s would've anticipated the Bentley Continental instead.)
I offer the above only for perspective and because i want to underscore that we don't want to hear about "authenticity" ---not when it's a
readily reversible, bolt-in proposition with NO alteration of the car as East Grand built it. However, like all life, machines, cars, planes evolve.
Packards, like all cars, were built to a cost. A late friend with a Hispano J12 admitted they had too tall a first gear and innate clutch chatter. Duesenberg J front u-joints were a little skimpy. The Jag ue were XK engines in street cars and amateur racing events in the states were
NOT the same blocks as campaigned at Le Mans, etc. Sir Donald Healey was the first to admit he might've preferred this or that in his 100-6 and 3000. There's no perfection,
tho' Packard came as close to the mark as anyone in the industry for the first half of the 20th Century.
I've gotten rid of over 110 lbs. of dead weight already, and am happy with the car as is, tho' i wish to hell Packard had made those heavy seat frames out of aluminum. Those of us considering this front disc set up drive sedately, baby our cars. Our principal interest is in
reducing unsprung weight. But, if there are real world drawbacks, glitches in these kits, we'd like to know.
So, with that preamble, we'd love to hear from anyone who's
already installed such a kit in a 1941-47 Clipper only. No interest in anything after 1950, since the bathtubs are essentially the same suspension/brakes as the Clippers.
Here's the link to the Wilwood bolt-in front disc
conversion for 1941-and up Packards without Safe-t-Flex.
I don't know if it's the same as what Kanter offers:
http://www.wilwood.com/BrakeKits/Bra...emno=140-12724 As with my question about soft/hard blocks, please don't feel compelled to weigh in if you don't have the answer,
real world, firsthand experience. Lord knows, we don't, which is why I'm posting on behalf of us who are pondering front discs.
Many thanks, gentlemen.
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