Re: New Packard Owner

Posted by Jim L. in OR On 2013/7/22 22:08:40

Welcome! Sounds like a great car aside from the little "teething problems" on your maiden voyage. My '51 200 deluxe has turned into a very reliable and dependable car. Just assume all the maintinence items of the 2 year variety need to be done. I replaced all the fluids including coolent, oil, automatic transmission and differential fluids, repacked all wheel bearings, blew out all the brake lines and replaced wheel cylinders where necessary as well as a master cylinder overhaul and dropped both the engine and transmission oil pans and cleaned them out plus the usual lubrication. Having done that, my '51 has never given me any trouble; starts on the first try and the temp gauge stays right in the middle as Col. Vincent intended. For peace of mind, you might want to do a manual oil pressure test just to check the honesty of the idiot light. Mine sits at a constant 40 psi no matter what the engine speed. As a matter of fact, I wish some of that would rub off on my '55.

You are in for a wonderful Summer. And if anything should go wrong, someone here will know how to fix it, and fix it in the best time proven way with the least amount of struggle. As a body of information, this group knows everything!