G'day Vikki,

I'm Mal, the bloke referred to in Eric's post, I'm from Epping, NSW and have a '38 Eight sedan and '41 120 coupe but have only been a Packard owner for about 15 months. Looks like you've got your problem licked now, not that I could have helped, congratulations and thanks to the advice you received here on Packardinfo.

Also notice that Peter Toet, our Technical Officer in PACA(Packard Automobile Club of Australia Inc) was recommended as a source of more local assistance, if Innisfail to Canberra a distance of about 1500 miles could be considered local!

Is the owner of the hearse a PACA member? If not, there's a link to our website below and I can provide info on joining if he's interested. I believe there are a number of PACA members in north Queensland, not many but some. If he does join PACA we're having our National Rally in March 2009 in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales and we'd like to see him there.

http://packardaustralia.com/

Looking good Barrie, you're making nice progress and must be pleased with how things are progressing.


PS - The "Wobblies" returned to planet earth last weekend against some riled up Blacks!

Thursday 7th August 2008

Started the day by calling Harvey, who first confused me with another guy called Mal who's installing a clothesline for him. After we straightened out who I was, Harvey said he should be working on wood-graining the dash next week when he's down in Sydney. Then rang Castle Automotive Enterprises, they are in country Victoria about 450 miles south, and ordered an 1&3/4" stainless steel exhaust pipe bend to use as the lower radiator pipe, cost AU$25.00, actually they're going to send me 2 for the price of one!

At the workshop started by mounting the middle of the long return heater hose to the air cleaner support with a plastic clip provided by Wade. This was to provide good clearance between the hose and the head and sparkplugs. Filled the sump with Penrite HPR30, took 6 litres to reach the full mark on the dipstick and another litre to fill the oil filter, so 7 litres in total. Then the fun part of filling the diff as yesterday Wade, with a wicked gleam in his eye, had produced a small funnel connected to a 1&1/4' length of rubber hose as the means to do this. This morning Wade also produced a plastic beaker with a small pouring lip. First I cleaned up both the drain and filler plugs for the diff of excess POR-15 and re-installed the drain plug very tightly. Then, lying on the creeper and holding the funnel with one hand filled it from the beaker using the other hand. The beaker holds about 400 to 500 mils so poured about 100/150 mils a time into the funnel. Seemed a bit slow to empty until I realised I had the hose so far through the fill hole it was probably up against the crown wheel or other internals. Eased it out and it started to empty faster, but not much faster, as it's pretty thick stuff. Got through the first beaker OK and onto the second, that's when Exxon Valdez faded into insignificance. First I filled the beaker too full, then overfilled the funnel with the result being something like Niagara Falls, well at least it seemed like that at the time. Carried on, dodging the deluge, refilling the funnel but more sedately until I was through that beaker full. A rough and quick clean up and the process was repeated again, again and again, all up about 8 to 10 times and about 3&1/2 litres or so of oil. At the end, also had to yell for Wade to pass the filler plug as I'd left it on the bench after cleaning it up. So something I thought might take 1/2 an hour ended up taking 1 hour and 20 minutes.

While I was doing these tasks Wade had made another trip to the waste depot and then was trial fitting the rods and bearings for Kevin's '35 engine rebuild.

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Wednesday 6th August 2008

Arrived at the workshop to find Wade had been and gone, he was making a trip to the waste depot to unload some rubbish for a friend. So I pottered around tidying up a bit and checking out how to re-mount the left side hood holding arm into the firewall. It had been pulled out of the firewall at some stage on it's journey to me and Wade had brought it back to it's required shape rather than it's former pretzel look. As I was doing this Wade arrived and we discussed the situation. I didn't want to remove the insulation from inside the top half of the firewall, as it looks and feels brittle. It was decided to cut a hole through it to locate a nut and slightly longer bolt instead of the original D shaped nut and short bolt. Another matter talked about was the dash, Wade had spoken to Harvey a couple of days ago and he said he was re-woodgraining it as it didn't look right being more like baby poo than something suitable for a Packard. Wade thought it might be ready this week, so tomorrow morning I'll call Harvey to find out how it's progressing, because putting the new wiring harness into the '41 is integral with having the dashboard available. However before doing anything also discussed new heater hoses, and again Wade came to the party saying he thought he had enough hose to do the job.

Rather than start these tasks it was decided to finish the brakes. First the threads for the brake lines in both rear wheel cylinders were re-tapped using the 7/16" NPS bottom plug bought Monday. This was done using a smear of grease to catch and hold the shavings generated by this procedure followed by a through hand cleaning and liberal drenchings with brake cleaner to ensure no chips or shavings were left behind. Next we walked up to see Col, Wade's brake guy, and picked up the new brake lines he'd made, cost AU$20.00. Col also lent us a brake pipe bending tool and on the way back to the workshop saw Kablan working on the rear bumper of a Post-WW2 English Ford Anglia tourer, also saw the '28 Essex Wade restored the chassis of and an old Vauxhall waiting for restoration. Back at the workshop Wade offered me the opportunity to bend the brake lines but I declined as I didn't want to stuff it up. Maybe I should say I chickened out so fast you could swear there were feathers flying! Anyway with some help from me, minimal though it was, Wade managed to bend up both pipes such that it took only a little tweaking to get them to fit almost first up, good one Wade. They were then tightened up, and here I'll note that Col had used fittings with longer threads to try and help the situation as the old fittings were bottoming out. Then bleeding started, again with me on the pedal and Wade on the bleed nipple, but with the same result leaks at both rear wheel cylinder fittings. More tightening, more gentle bleeding, and more tightening and still even more gentler bleeding and still fluid aplenty on the outside and not on the inside where it should be. So off with the brake drums, just gently using the drum puller to break the hold of the adjusted shoes. Out with the wheel cylinders and looking in the threaded hole for the brake line fittings there was no ferrule for either side brake line to seat against. So back to see Col, as he'd re-sleeved the cylinders, and after inspection and a ferret through his stockpile of parts he found a couple of ferrules but only one was suitable being the right length. Then instead of using ferrules Col found and fitted 2 adaptors, for want of a better word. Back to the workshop refitted the wheel cylinders, brakes shoes, drums and Wade tightened up all fittings again. Onto bleeding again and this time success with no apparent leaks at the rear wheel cylinders. Then bled the fronts and this was successful too. However there was a minor scare when a pool of fluid was spotted under the master cylinder but when found to only be from splash out of the open top of the master cylinder our heartbeats returned to normal. All the above ate up the better part of the working day, and when I say working I really mean Wade, as I once again was more of a "gofer" and assistant than full hands on.

Discussed what to do next and proceeded to install a fuel filter between the fuel pump and carburettor by cutting out a section of fuel line and installing a throw away, see through filter. Then re-installed the carburettor and hooked up the throttle linkage, vacuum advance tube and auto-choke heat tube. Next onto the new heater hoses, Wade had ferreted out enough heater hose, in 2 pieces, to be able to come up with the 3 lengths required, just! These I installed while Wade hovered in the background offering advice or assisting when it appeared a third hand would be helpful.

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Hank,

Thanks for the kind words, although as I said Steele doesn't have anything to worry about. And talking of laundry lists, it's oh so true. When I sat down and made out mine it seemed to go on and on. But now that good progress is being made it's starting to shorten up noticeably. Good luck with the work on your '55, I can see you're really getting into it.

Todd,

I've also experienced losing posts I've typed. Advised to draft them in Notepad or Word then copy it over when you're ready. Also have any pic's ready to attach. Seems the system must automatically time-out after a while but you don't know until you try to do something like spellcheck, preview or post. But I'm a glutton for punishment and continue to draft in the system, but save what I've then done to safeguard my work. Goodluck in the future

Tuesday 5th August 2008

Got to the workshop late morning and had a fairly quite day which was welcome as I'd been out in heavy Sydney traffic earlier running a few errands. Wade wasn't in so I started to prepare the heater for re-installation until I realised I needed a new rubber grommet for the heater fan wire to pass through the box, the old one being cut off for painting. Wade had said yesterday he probably had one at home with his radio stuff but that didn't help the present situation. Also had to make one new spacer from a length of tubing because I'd dropped one of the four on the heater down the drain outside when I was emptying the heater of water. And made a new gasket for the air entry where it meets the firewall, made this from a roll of foam rubber with adhesive backing used to seal doors. Put the tiny knobs back on the front and side directional doors then came the question. What next? So to keep production going I nipped over to Grippy Rubber at Silverwater to buy a grommet! There and back in 3/4 of an hour and while there picked up an assortment of small grommets for the future as well as a small offcut of 1mm thick rubber sheet, more of that later. Installed the gromment, screwed the front cover and the demister motor (which I've left the original colour) back onto the heater box. Then remounted the assembled unit into the firewall. Finished up by re-installing the air intake onto the tube mounted into the firewall and the control cable for the air intake butterfly.

Now to the rubber sheeting offcut. I have a pair of gaskets to mount the taillight housings to the body. But when I pulled the bezels and lenses off, so the bezels could be re-chromed, one taillight had a scrappy looking homemade gasket between the glass lens and the housing but the other one didn't. So next task was to make a pair of gaskets for the glass lenses to mount on the taillight housings. While Steele Rubber, et al, still need not have any fears I think my efforts this time are somewhat better than before, although the thinner rubber being easier to cut had a lot to do with it too. Used a taillight lens as a template and traced around it and then cut out the shape using scissors. Used the scrappy gasket as a template for the inside cut which was done with Stanley knife and scissors. Then trial fitted the gaskets and made a few minor adjustments for overall fit. And found there are small tabs about 2/3 of the way down on each side so accommodated these with the help of the Stanley knife. Also found that the lenses are different in colour with one being a lot darker red than the other.

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Todd,

As used to be said: "Don't miss the next thrilled packed episode". Looking forward to the next one.

Monday 4th August 2008

Bank holiday here today as well as Mechanic's Holiday. This explained why John and Rick were sitting in the sun having a few quiet drinks and not getting their hands dirty as usually is the case.

But I didn't go directly to the workshop, first went to Parramatta Tools at Rydalmere after the elusive 7/16" 24 TPI Bottom Tap. After searching eBay and googling for this tap over the weekend without any success I wasn't expecting a positive result. And so it proved to be but I was given leads to 2 other possible sources, Total Tools at Granville and McDonald Engineering at Pendle Hill. Instead of going on a wild goose chase looked them up in the yellow pages and rang them. Total Tools, the closer option, didn't have one but McDonald Engineering did.

Left the chase for the elusive tap for the time being and proceeded to the workshop. There, after some gentle advice from Wade, was easily convinced my leaving the heater box and front unpainted was not really an option. Cleaned the box and front up, and after going to the local hardware store, returned with a spray can of the closest colour I could find to match the original heater colour. Although the new colour is a gold while the old colour a light brown. But as I hadn't sprayed anything with a can for a long time my attempt was a little heavy handed, but did get 3 coats on and I'm sure it will look OK in the dark recesses under the dash.

Then, instead of then going directly home, made the trip out to Pendle Hill to the address I'd found in the yellow pages. Turned out to be an Academic College and on ringing McDonald Engineering turns out they haven't been at that address for 5 years. Must have an old, old yellow pages at my place! They did give me the new address and although not literally around the corner it wasn't far away and they did have the tap, so mission accomplished! And turns out the 7/16" 24 TPI is a "NFS" National Fine Special. One of the internet sites over the weekend had said something to the effect of "good luck in finding one - you won't". Well I did, so I'm very pleased.

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Have noted the 2 previous posts and the specific reference to V-12 RHD conversions. Irrespective of that, I have taken some pic's of Wades 34 chassis, pic below, see link for all the pic's.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ozstatman/Wades34

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