Another interesting thing from Guscha's link "In 1947 a Packard hearse carried Henry Ford's corpse to his grave." Never new that! You would think it would have been a Lincoln or something.

Hopefully you have been following the project forums on this site. It will give you an idea on problems others have had as well as how much work is involved. Look at how long some of the projects have taken and how detailed the person working on it is being. Judge that with what you expect your car to look like and you will have an idea on how long it will take.

Doing all of the work will save you a great deal of money, but don't think that you are going to make money restoring the car. What you put in will never equal what you could sell it for. You need to do it for the pride of having done it yourself as well as the learning experience.

When you get to the chrome, more than likely you are better off buying pieces that have better chrome than the piece you have instead of having it replated. You will save a lot of money as long as you are looking for a presentable driver and not a show quality car.

Although Turbopackman did not replace his steel brake lines, I would recommend it. If you read the threads about the dangers of the old brakes, it would be cheap insurance to do so. I had a line give out that I thought was good. Luckily a chain link fence was there to stop me and no one got hurt.

I didn't recommend dropping the oil pan...because I never have! Not a bad idea though...I wonder what mine looks like in there!

Also, since you are going to drive so far, pay more attention to the cooling system so you don't overheat.

A winter beater is a great idea too.

I would definitely redo all the brake lines, cylinders, fluid, ect. If the car starts and runs fine, then I wouldn't touch the engine. Change the oil obviously. Change the trans fluid and see how it shifts. Again, if it is smooth, I wouldn't mess with it. Fuel tank will probably need to be dropped and have all the crap taken out of it. Fuel pump and carb may need attention. Might need to replace the steel fuel lines and any rubber lines as well.

I would just concentrate on the mechanicals so you have a proper running engine and worry about the body later. Also, you need a decent seat to sit in so if the mice have gotten to your interior, you will need to get something to sit on. How many miles do you plan on driving it daily?

Can't you just scan the pics and not the text since the pics are from the national archive? Or you could blur out the text.

A lot of guys just standing around looking...with overhead like that...no wonder they got in financial trouble! LOL!

Great pic - thanks for posting it!

It's a little late since you already got the coil, but Autozone has a coil for $14.99. I bought one for my 288 and it works fine.

http://www.autozone.com/

The "towing company" was a couple of foreigners who loaded the car on a dolly and towed it with a '70's Monte Carlo. We were in a shadier side of Chicago and it was getting dark so we were ready to get out of there. The guy we were buying the car from couldn't find anyone willing to take the car as far as we needed to go. I planned on having the trans rebuilt anyway, but not that soon. Pretty big blow for an 18 year old, plus I think I got ripped off on the rebuild... but that's another story.

I would disconnect the drive shaft. I had my car towed (was drivable) for 30 miles. When it got to my house, the trans was smoking. I don't know if it was because there was not enough fluid (must have had some if it would drive), or they didn't take it all the way out of gear, but had to get it rebuilt.

fatmike, Here is the link to the '51 to '54 Service Manual. Lots of good info in there

https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/article/view.article.php?4