I bought this same car in Henderson, Nevada about one year ago. It's with me in Arizona now. Thank God it's out of the Pacific Northwest. The humidity and salt air up there did enough damage to it already.

It had deteriorated significantly from the photo at the beginning of this thread. It went through a chain of owners over the last few years who were not kind to it. They would buy it, abuse and neglect it, then flip it six months to a year later to the next sucker. That happened three or four times. Somebody sanded the paint and scratched the ^@$!# out of it. Another overloaded, shorted out, and generally just barbecued the rear body harness. Darn near burned this car to the ground. It had a few rust spots that nobody had addressed and were allowed to get worse. The chrome pitted more. Clearly bad storage. Just a lot of stupidity and neglect. I've had to work hard to reverse their bad decisions. People suck. Poor thing...this car deserved better.

It is doing much better now. I have done a ton of cosmetic, mechanical, and electrical work to it. Nearly everything is fixed and working now. Some things cannot be overcome, like the crappy repaint job that somebody did to it a few decades ago and the damaged chrome, but it is overall what I would call a very nice driver condition car.

It runs and drives very nicely. A good, strong runner. I've put about 700 miles on it. It has 65,500 miles.

It is not the original colors. I wish it was. The door tag says it was originally White Jade and Topaz. The current white is actually a pearl, and the current copper is lighter and more orange than the dark brown-copper of Topaz. The steering wheel is still painted the original Topaz. It's not Sardonyx either, because Sardonyx is a pink-y non-metallic. It looks like Mojave Tan from 1956. Who knows. Clearly a custom paint job from a few decades ago. Too bad they did a crappy job prepping and applying it.

The date on the heater box is February 5th, 1955.

I would love to know who the original owners of this car were, whether they dressed like me, and whether they listened to Perry Como and Johnny Mathis while driving it like I do.

The next item on the list is new tires of the correct size so my power steering works better and my speedometer is accurate. After that it's getting these darn turbo mufflers off it and replacing them with stock mufflers and resonators. I like my cars whisper quiet.

I also have one if you prefer to deal with a private website member, just PM me. Dell

Yes, we have one for you.

You can email us at packardssouthwest@gmail.com

Thank you, Gerry

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Generally, if the depth is at least the diameter (for steel) or twice the diameter (for aluminum), the torque need not be reduced due to thin material. Of course, these thicknesses are increased some when using high strength bolts.

Thanks for that Bob. Hard to tell in your picture, but is the weatherstrip channel on the b-pillar directly in line with the window frame, or is set more inbound?

Gentlemen:
Thank you both for your valuable input.

Gar

The tubular shocks are likely not rebuildable although some are.

Here is a shot of my B Pillar fit. The unit can be brought back and forth by sliding the top rail fore and aft at the screws that attach the front bracket to the header bow. Note that the screws go through slots instead of simple round holes.
You can also adjust the stop height of your door window to help add gap at the bottom of the B Pillar, although you want it to match the top of your vent window frame too, so there is another adjustment where you can adjust the pitch of the roll up window at the short top rail that the roller fits into. It is a delicate balance.
Bob J.

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I would imagine that Gerry at Packards Southwest would have switches at a reasonable price.

Right on Kev.
I ran a ground wire with black cloth covered wire, and ran a new brown cloth covered wire to the sender. The tank went in without too much fuss, and when the 19mm hose arrives, I can put that on the tank vent. Then it is time to get some gas, check for leaks and see if the rest of my work this past 6 months has been correct.