JD, I'm a retired systems programmer. Maintained VSE, VS1, VM and MVS. VM was my favorite - could do anything.
A hexadecimal good luck on your projects.

To all:

Funny how some of us who never turned wrenches as a career can get a passing grade of 80% or better. No wonder we own and work on these wondeful Packards!

Though I've worked - on and off - in the industry for most of my working life, I never had any formal mechanical training and worked mainly in the parts biz, but always did as much work as I could on my daily drivers and old cars from the comfort of my folks' garage or driveway.

Some of the stuff in this test goes back to my high school physics and other grade school science classes, but speed reading skills can be something of a detriment for some of the trickier questions.

Still, there were two questions I likely never would have gotten correct - no matter how hard I tried.

Just remembered another little incident, about when we pulled into the rest stop to replenish our water supplies on our way to Canberra.

On opening the trunk the rear license plate literally fell off. It was held on only by one screw, the other screw and the two retaining nuts having deserted their posts. So using bushmen's clips, ie pieces of wire appropriated from the fence of the rest area, it was secured in place and we continued our journey.

It wasn't until I'd finished appropriating the raw material for the clips which involved walking through long grass, that my brother said he was keeping an eye out for black snakes, a large, very venomous and aggresive snake! I thanked him for that! Although now conscious that a little earlier I had headed into the bushes to point percy, at what I imagined was porcelain, but could well have been a snake!

I squeaked out an 86. Thirty years working with mainframe programming and applications doesn't make one a great mechanical engineer; but... I can follow the rotation of gears using my finger!

Peter: This is based on some quick research I did on Daimler. Your car is a model DF36. The coach builder of the body I would guess would have been one of two firms, either Baker or Hooper. Again there might have been the outside chance that Vaden Plas of England could have built the body.

John F. Shireman

Thanks Mal, I have to be a bit careful here as I am about to sell the Daimler and you may be accused of "RAISING THE SHARE VALUE, ETC,. Please be advised that ALL Packard owners are invited to have their radiators cleared out if :

1. they can help with the task

2. They can put up with the bad language if I can't get the right size hose clips

3. If they are not involved in my losing keys that are not actually lost.

It was great to see the car in Canberra, Mal and Lindsay allowed me to drive it and no matter how many times I tried to fry the clutch and keep the engine in the red line ( sort of valve bounce if no tacho) , they kept their cool. I could hear someone reloading a firearm in the back but they were great! Mal offered to take one of my cars to Bonneville (not sure what for?) He says that next time I come to Sydney he will fix me up real good.
Thanks Mal and Lindsay. P.S. Our Swap Meet was down about 50 % in vendors ( 250 vendors), but we had approximately the same number of punters through the gates (1600)

Thanks for the visit and we should keep in touch. Peter Toet

This is a story, not so much of the swap meet, but Packard motoring and one of Packard's gentlemen.

Today, Sunday 28th October, my brother Lindsay and I went for a cruise down the Hume and Federal Highways to the Canberra Swap Meet, organised by forum member Peter Packard. It wasn't so much the swap meet we went for, but the chance to meet Peter. As Canberra is almost 300 kilometers(about 180 miles) from Sydney it was also to chance to go for a long run in my '38 Eight Sedan(known as Abbie-Jean) which I've now owned for about 5&1/2 months but never before gone more than 30 miles from home. This was to be it's touring test.

We left Sydney @ 6:00am and all went well, gradually taking cruising speed up from 50/55MPH to 60MPH with a couple of bursts to 65/70MPH where it was evident that Abbie-Jean still had plenty in reserve! UNTIL, on a long uphill section, about 20 miles outside Canberra, I put my foot down in passing a semi and WOOOOOSHKA - steam and coolant were spraying back onto the windshield, the truckie was making signals we had a problem, and I was looking to try to let the semi pass on the inside so I could pull into the breakdown lane! On pulling over, I left the motor running opened the bonnet, and opened the radiator cap holding a rag over it. But I didn't hold it firmly enough as a geyser of most of the remaining coolant erupted sending both Lindsay and I diving out of the way. After picking ourselves, and our bruised egos, up we refilled the radiator from coolant I was carrying in the trunk, leaving the the cap off the radiator as a means to try and reduce pressure, and proceeded to the next wayside rest stop where we topped up the radiator again and filled the now empty coolant containers with water.

Arriving at the swap meet, we were met by Peter at the gate and were allowed to park inside the venue. On telling Peter of our little mishap he no sooner heard than he offered to perform his bushman's engine block and radiator flushing treatment on Abbie-Jean ( See Peter's post of a little while ago in this Forum of "OVERHEATING -ALTERNATIVES TO A RADIATOR REMOVAL" for the detailed description of the treatment performed). And I've taken pictures of parts of the procedure, see the attached link. Also in the link are pictures of 9 of Peter's Packards(just about all these cars are in the Owners Registry)as well as some other interesting cars, including, for Packard53, a 1946 Daimler of which only 2 of this particular type were made without an inside partition. (John I'm sure Peter will be able to provide you with more details of this interesting aluminium bodied car if you PM him)

Peter took us to his "office" where 8 of his Packards are garaged, see pic's in link. We also saw some interesting antiques and "things" some of which are also pictured in the link! Anyway, Peter then did his thing with lengths of exhaust/PVC pipe and Radiator tubing to clear the engine block and radiator of Abbie-Jean.

We were a little longer than the 1 hour Peter originally envisaged, because of the necessity to construct the "apparatus" from scratch, the whole thing taking an hour and three quarters with Peter doing 98% of the work with me getting in the way by taking pic's at "in"appropriate times. I subsequently learned from Peter that he had left the keys for the swap meet facility with someone there but on his return they couldn't be found. So he returned to his "office" and spent 2 hours searching for them to no avail. While all this was going on, unbeknown to Lindsay and me, we left in Abbie-Jean for the return trip to Sydney. No doubt the thought crossed Peter's mind that he'd left the keys in Abbie-Jean, but fortunately the person who had them and had previously denied so, on being requested to have a second look found then in his jacket pocket at home!

Anyway the trip home was accomplished, but not without some minor drama as 5 pitstops were required to top up the radiator because it was now evident the continued source of the overheating stemmed from a leaking waterpump. A positive did emerge from this part of the trip, as Lindsay and I were able to practice and refine our pitstop procedures and techniques and will soon be crewing for Formula 1 at the rate we're going!

This post is more a tribute to Peter for his selfless offer of help, not to mention the turmoil we unwittingly put him through with the lost keys episode. Thankyou Peter

NOTE - Most of the Packard pic's are not captioned. While of the others, I'm sure there's going to be something that tickles your fancy.

Oops - Forgot to attach link, so here goes.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ozstatman/CanberraSwapMeet28thOct2007

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Brian,

Did this yesterday and only got 80%. Just goes to show how I've been held back by 40+ years of not getting my hands dirty!

With all due respect, aren't you describing the VW switch with the spade terminals? The wiring diagram in the shop manual is correct. P stands for Purple. Pink wire is spelled out "PINK". The wiring as shown is correct for the Packard stoplight switch. The VW switch is apparently set up differently and it is good to know that. Just wanted to clarify that fine point.

Update: The brake lights and T/L are now working correctly. The correct wiring to the switch terminals is (looking at the termianl end, left to right) term 1, dk grn wire "brake light", term 2 (center term), Lt grn wire "T/L", term 3 purple or pink "12volt feed" The brake switch contacts (1) will activate (close)at about 80 to 85 psig, closing the circiut to term 3.
The shop manual is very unclear about how to correctly wire the switch. Thanks for your help and input. Next project, Fuel gauge problem.