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Help! What's in your trunk? If you have a 1940, what, if any, covering is on the metal? If you have a convertible, what's on the wood top box? Painted only?

What's on the floor? Rubber? Carpet?

I've seen some pictures in magazines but all seem different. Looking for what might be original.

Thanks much.

I have a vague recollection of scraping something off the interior of the trunk that was flaky. Was it fabric or paper? Some kind of flocking?

Because it was a convertible, the wood box had something like that on it and I think it was painted that taupe color used on steering column etc in 1940, (but we're talking about a 50-year memory).

I subsequently sprayed some undercoating-like stuff on it.

Finally, this year, after all the rusted metal was removed and replaced, and new supports welded in, I painted it with high solids inhibitive metal primer, the thick black stuff.

Now I need to know what goes on the metal, the floor (rubber or carpet...I would guess rubber), and the wood box. It seems like every car I look at has its own subjective answer.

Is there a Packard reference I could check for this for 1940? A judging manual?

Reposting a couple of photos from The Duchess Project and one courtesy of hymanltd.com at the luxury end of the better than original spectrum.

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Only you, Jim. Tools-in-a-minute. Am I going to be rolling before you are?
The loudest noise I ever heard was pulling the rear drums.

At long last, the Duchess was transported to the beauty parlor at Canyon Auto Repair and Collision for some TLC. Bill shakes his head at every flaw, so meeting tomorrow to review work and schedule. Objective is to make it to Beaverton Auto Upholstery on Monday.

I contacted my old (meaning from long ago) friends John and Vaughn. I found the original note John left on my car on Jan 26, 1973 (He's a lawyer. Dates everything) asking if I might be interested in selling this Packard.

I now have a garage to put my parts in.

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I called. Making progress re 31.037 and 31.063.

And, Fred, the Duchess likes (as they say these days) her script hubcaps, side mount mirrors, fog lights, and under-grommet parts, too. Still debating about adding the spotlight. Jim Hollingsworth advised to wait until car is together and see if it tarts up the Duchess too much. But I have it, so Thanks.

There's a grove on the underside of the wood top front cross bow. It fits over a metal protrusion above the windshield. BUT There's a listing in the Parts book for weatherstripping, but it appears to be associated with the #1 front metal top bow, not the wood cross bow.

I couldn't figure out where you would put any weatherstrip on the #1 metal bow, so thought it might go in that grove in the underside of the wood bow.

I contacted Steele Rubber because they make every little scrap of rubber for the top, but they wrote back saying they make no rubber for the wood top front cross bow (or for the rear convertible window, which also requires weatherseal of some kind.

Should there be ANY rubber on the underside of the wood top front bow?

Any suggestion for best way to seal rear convertible window? Is the top material, as seen in photo, enough?

Note: 37 is my numbering system for resto progress, not year of car, which is 1940.

Thanks,
Joe

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REAR DOORS: Door handles, moulding, and weatherstrip installed. Now waiting for the roll-up window gear pins to be machined in order to install windows, which I restored in the 90s with total clean up, new rubber around the glass and channel. So nice to be able to pull something out of the trunk and have all that work already done.

FRONT DOOR: Right front door is the next challenge. I'm trying to remove the lock from an extra handle to use in the re-chromed one whose lock is shot. One comes out, the other does not.
I spent almost 2 hours just loosening the vent window handle back then, working it back and forth in 100ths of an inch. The metals must have migrated together. All new rubber and channel lining for the front door windows, too.
The finish on the door is like glass. Magnificent job. Metal in the bottoms of all these doors was replaced. When rubber dries out, water gets in. Rust in the bottom of a door is the worst. You don't see it until it's too late.

The left front door will be ready today to pick up.

BODY: The final piece, which probably should have gone in first, will go in late today or tomorrow. Just a problem of space at the shop at the time we started.

UPHOLSTERY: To start this week.

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Except when they came off the assembly line, these parts have never been as pristine as they are at this moment. New chrome, rubber, freshly painted parts, and wiring. Nothing from the engine is in the house proper, altho you could eat off that too. But after upholstery...headin' down the highway, looking for adventure...

Today is a good day to remember, you only live once, Big Kev.

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From someone who can't be trusted to really know but operates on gut hunches, would a nylon washer or mylar washer work? Like at Ace Hardware?

The benefit of this comment is that someone who knows will rush in to spare you a disaster...and you'll get your answer.

Hopefully they won't be around for long or I won't have a Brazilian housekeeper.

I thought about putting them around the bed to make a sleeping car, but the hood is on that trunk whose wheels can scratch the floor if there's weight on it, and you really need to have that long nose to make it work, so I bagged the idea. But if I'd done it, then you and others here would be eating their hearts out.