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Kev,

Book arrived today. I'll look forward to reading it with my grand-daughters in the years ahead.

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Jim,

Thanks for your offer, but hopefully Wade should be able to locate some nuts closer to home.

And Kev,

Thanks for your intervention on the pic.

An all round BIG

Monday 18th August 2008

Turns out that today developed into a parts chasing day. Started at the workshop by cleaning up and masking up the taillight housings so I could spray the inside surface of the housings to better reflect the light. Then cleaned up the taillight retaining plates that go inside the trunk. Because I needed to go out and get some paint for the housing part of the painting exercise also went to Grippy Rubber and picked up a wide selection of rubber grommets for the re-wiring task ahead. Back to the shop and with a spray can painted the housing surface with chrome paint and brushed POR-15 silver on the retaining plates. Interesting that each tailight housing has "coupe" cast into it while the retaining plates are marked RC and LC, I presume for "right coupe" and "left coupe". No doubt helped in the assembly line process.

About this time Wade, who had been fitting the con rods to Kevin's '35 crankshaft, realised he didn't have one of the big-end nuts for #8 rod cap. One had been lost at the machine shop, but at the time Wade wasn't too worried because he thought he had some spares. Alas and alack, no spares were to be found. Because I was going over to Mobile Instrument Services at Kings Park to chase up repair of the '41's temp gauge sender head, I was pressed into dropping into Lee Bros, the fasteners supplier, on the way there. This suited me because the sooner Wade finishes Kevin's '35 the sooner he can assist with the '41. So, armed with #8 rod, cap, 2 bolts but only one nut, my quest began. Entered Lee Bros full of hope and left depressed. Couldn't find a nut to fit it, let alone a castellated high tensile nut. Went through measuring with calipers, electronic calipers, micrometers and various thread gauges but without a glimmer of hope. In the carpark phoned Wade told him of the news and asked him for the phone number of Graham McDonald Services where I'd bought the NPS Tap for the wheel cylinders then rang them to be told they don't carry any fasteners at all. Rang Wade again and asked him to contact Harvey, the guy wood-graining the '41 dash, as he was relatively close by and might be able to help. As I was continuing on to Mobile Instrument Services Wade called to say Harvey was expecting me when I finished there.

At Mobile Instrument Services was pleasantly surprised to find they can replace the bulb and although about 1" of the wire encircled tube is lost it will work. And best of all it will be ready in a week and is half the price of getting it done elsewhere. I also had a little task to do here for Wade too. In his '37 120 sedan he is using an electronic temp gauge, because the original gauge is cactus. But the only way you can read it is to switch the engine off! This is because the electronic interference when the engine is running turns the digital display to electronic flashes instead of readable numbers. So he's replacing the electronic gauge with the same manual gauge I'm using in the '38 and I was able to pick up a gauge and an adaptor.

Then arriving at Harvey's found him just about to dive under the house into the storage space to search for big-end nuts. Before he did that though he showed me what he'd done so far on the '41 dash. It's base coated and ready and he's been experimenting with different paints and colours because the stuff he used to use is no longer available. Showed me his test piece and a number of attempts thereon before he was satisfied with the result. Now, although it won't be original pattern or colour, it'll be a whole lot better than the chocolate brown the dash was painted in. So presuming the weather's right tomorrow, and the forecast is positive, he'll paint the dash. But then has to leave it for a week to harden, then he'll apply the clear coats and another week will pass. So in about a fortnight, all going well, I'll have the '41 dash back in all it's wood-grained glory. However back to the chase, while Harvey ferreted around under the crawl space I was looking through his nut and bolt collection in the garage out the back. Suffice to say we both struck out. Then it was into his under-house garage but again no luck. Harvey does have a spare Super 8 engine but naturally was loath to open it up for the sake of one big-end nut. Wade is now going to contact a number of other Packard Club members who he's reasonably certain should have a big-end nut.

And Wade did admonish me first up at the workshop for misuse of tools, but fortunately it was in a light hearted way.

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Aw shuck's! and

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Mike,

Congratulations on your purchase of the Pat, and it's nice to see a car with real mileage on it.



PS - Don't forget to add it to the Owner Registry

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Guscha,

Thanks for that, wasn't meant as criticism just struck me as curious.

As to having the "eyes of an eagle", if that was the case I'd also have noticed first time round that the car doesn't have front bumper over-riders either!

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G'day BSwank and your good wife,

Congratulations with the purchase of your '47 Clipper. Great site here. If you haven't already done so could you please add your Clipper to the Owner Registry with a pic, and history if known?



And BigKev,

Seems like this should be in the Post War Forum. Can you weave your technological magic and transfer this entire thread over there?

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G'day Guscha,

This museum car has different tread patterns on it's front tyres. Here, and most likely in the US, cars displayed in Museums will have matching tyres unless there is a historical reason for not doing so. Saying that, the wavy tread pattern is interesting!

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G'day fern51,

Welcome to the site. Don't forget to add your '51 200 Deluxe to the Owner Registry and include a pic, and history if known please.

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Randy, thought it might be, but needed to be sure.