Carlisle: Corvette, Camaro, 55-6-7 Chebby, 65-up Rustang, 55-6-7 Thunderbird and Chevelle parts up the ying yang, good place to start your beanie baby colection or fufill your numchuck or pirate DVD needs.

upside: hot girls on the weekend to observe (not that I would notice), nice bathrooms everywhere, good car corral if your tastes lean to the more recent years, clean cars from the south brought up to the show.

Downside: you still have to pay to park (like Hershey), you have to pay to get in, there aren't many vendors selling car parts that aren't the above listed grouping of muscle cars that have reproduced parts available from multiple sources.

Hershey: parts, parts and parts, very high "real vendor" to "non automotive crap" ratio, unrestored cars all over the place to look at enjoy and maybe even buy. Hershey has the higest amount of vendors specializing in older, pre-muscle car makes and models, groups of clubs and members in zones (steam cars, Classic car club, Rolls Royce, a semi-Packard section thanks to Bill Hirsch) brass car stuff, model T&A parts (the ONLY T&A at Hershey) for days, people who know older models and have an appreciation for restoring a car to the way the manufacturer made it (true restoration). A happy time with a lot of like-minded people.

Upside: all of the above, next to no non-old car junk to breeze past (multiple Chinese tool vendors nonwithstanding)
the one place in the world to meet people from all over the globe who are into the same make/model/year that you are.

downside: parking isn't free, not as many porta-johns for the area covered, it is vast, you need to be in a walking mood or get the AACA to consider you handicapped and allow a golf cart (more this year but still highly civilized when compared to Auburn melee).

I still really, really like hershey

Randy -

I've been buried in work on both the work- and home-fronts, but I'm glad to hear you got together with some good people from the group and obtained some essential parts for your project.

Sorry to hear you got rained on, but at least you didn't have to contend with the show field mess. I have heard and read (elsewhere) that it was pretty screwed up this year.

I'm hoping someday things will settle down here and the AACA will get their meet layout straightened out. Maybe then I will try Hershey again, but probably only for a day in the swap meet.

Meanwhile, I'd often thought about hitting Carlisle instead of Hershey, but have heard that event is mostly muscle car stuff now - not much there for older cars anymore. Anyone have any insights?

With conventional con rod in V8, top of rod thru-bolt points toward camshaft and nut at bottom points toward side of crankcase. Offset rod has round smooth part of big end towards cam, flat sides of big end towards side of crankcase. Offset rod enables much more max stroke.

Robert, It was good to meet you at Hershey and see the great photos of your 1956 400. Hope you had a great time.

Des axe is where the centerline of the main bearings is offset from the centre line of the cylinder bore. Popular mostly in very early 20th century single cylinder or inline engines.

Why do want an offset rod cap type rod???

Thank you, PackardV8. What is a Des axe crankshaft, I never heard of one before?

OR, are y trying to come up with some kind of Des axe crank shaft arangement???? Des axe would not apply to V8. Streight 8 yes. Not v8

I'm not sure why u are asking. Nonetheless, the slanted rod cap is primarily used in VERY UNDER square engines. I just don't see what benefit a slanted cap would have in the V8 regardless of stroke. There is cam clearence issues too.

OR to put it another way, it is really not feasible to stroke the Packard V8 (nor just about any other V8) long enuf to require a slanted rod cap.

By offset rod, I mean cap at 45*/135* angle to the beam.

Without some real troubleshooting, it's going to be difficult to narrow down to electrical or mechanical. Mechanically, the only thing I can think of without a teardown would be make sure the lockout lever is adjusted properly and fully engaging or disengaging with the lockout knob moving the lever down on OD full travel. Electrically if kickdown sw OK, that leaves governor as next most likely & relay or lockout sw down the list.

Packard did issue a service bulletin after the war on that same series OD where a problem had been found with the connectors that joined the harnesses corroding and causing problems. Don't remember if all years were mentioned but if you have a harness that has the bakelite connectors (5 or 6 of them)about 3-4 ft from transmission then possibly that is causing an intermittent problem. I don't see how it would be load related unless there is a poor connection which heats and fails or jiggles open about the time you get to speed.