In the ‘70s i had an acrylic enamel paint job that started getting little chicken feet which soread all over. Now if theres a scratch or scrape or pock mark, i just take it off the car and to the paint job for a perfect match. The glory of PPG Envirobase paint.

Do you still have the golden anniversary owners operating manual?

My '34 Eight still has quite a bit of original paint and what cracking did occur in that old paint was over leaded joints. Another common cause of age cracking with lacquer paints can be excessive paint thickness.

Old cars have welded body panel joints that were lead-filled at the factory.

It's very common to see some cracking of older paint jobs along these joint lines.

Old leaded body repair may also show the same issues.

The Packard Body Manual shows where a number of these joints and seams are located on the pre-war cars.

Factory lead filled body joints were common up through the 1950s across all makes.

General areas of paint cracking and crazing can have a number of causes.

G'day Scooters,
to PackardInfo.

I invite you to include your '50 Custom Eight in PackardInfo's Packard Vehicle Registry.

Getting the "stiffener" plate out of the old tray was an adventure. In addition to the rusted bracket bolts, and rivets, it was spot welded in various places on the bottom and up the side.

After fussing with it for awhile, an air chisel was the best tool to use for separating the two and breaking the spot welds. What a mess it made though.

But here is the plate laying in the new tray. It's heavily pitted, but still alot of meat left on it.

It will get a coat of rust converter. Both the tray and the plate will get a coat of miracle paint. Also seam sealer. But I still need to weld in the drain pipes first.

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Assuming it is a lacquer paint job, I believe some cracking is pretty much inevitable and not much can be done to prevent it.

I was working on one of my cars that has been asleep since last fall. The paint job was excellent but the past couple years I notice cracks showing up. Is there anything i can do to slow or stop the cracking process. its been painted about 20 years. I tried covering it and not covering it over the winter. Nothing seems to help will a special wax help? its very frustrating to see this. Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Here's what the reproductions look like.

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You could have an internal leak. It's important to retorque at this point. 100 miles is a rough guide, and dependent on usage. The most important thing is heat cycles.

Re-torque, and try the stop-leak stuff, which works, I don't believe it will hurt the heater, those aren't that complicated in these cars.