Thank you for the tips on the water pump.

I spent some time today trying to open the fuel line, to no avail. Finally decided I'd go ahead and drain the tank. Below is a pic of just some of the crap that I was able to fish out of the drain hole as the gas was coming out. Apparently the tank had a coating inside that failed?

I reckon I should have started with the tank, and will have to remove it for?cleaning...

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Howard, thanks for the tips on the tank plug!

I suppose I should give some background on the car, as I know it. It was my Grandfather's, who passed on in 2004. My Grandfather was an avid antique car collector/restorer/trader and this was one of many cars he bought/sold/traded over the years. I do not believe he had the Packard for more than a few years before his death.

(His pride n joy was his 1914 Studebaker that he spent 35 years restoring to perfection. He was actually at a car show when he passed of a heart attack. His car took its class - he didn't get to accept that trophy. I digress)

After his death the car sat for years in a storage building, until I was able to obtain it about 3 years ago. I towed it from Ky, to FL, and now to VA, and I've finally found a bit of time to play with it.

There is a box of used parts in the trunk, including points, condenser, fuel pump internals, brake cylinder internals, a carb kit, etc. This suggests to me that work was "recently" done on the car to get it back on the road. Of course "recently" is at least about 10 years ago. I don't know if my Grandfather replaced these parts, or if the work was done by the previous owner. I've also discovered that the fuel tank has either been replaced or removed and painted.

A couple of gems in the trunk also include a full engine gasket set, and a NOS water pump repair kit (with newspaper clippings inside from 1953!) Which brings me to another question. The water pump spewed the (bright green) coolant once I got the engine turning over, and will need rebuilt. The water pump kit I have will need to be cleaned up a bit, and of course the gaskets are folded and hardened. Do you think they are still serviceable, or can I use them with RTV? Or is RTV itself sufficient?

As always, thank you for the help, Gentlemen!

-Mark

Well, I called Then and Now (thanks, Howard) this afternoon and ordered the fuel pump kit - but it won't ship until Monday. I'm interested in opinions of draining the couple gallons of fuel in the tank, and pouring some acetone in and letting that soak for a week or so, until I get the fuel pump rebuilt. Thoughts?

-Mark

Gentleman, thank you for the advise on the pump. Looking at the Then and Now website, I've decided I'll take my fuel pump off and get the number on the flange before I call them up. I should be able to get to that tomorrow.

Jim, thank you for that method of cleaning the lines out. I should have specified, but the car was sitting for at least 10 years (always garaged or in a storage building, however). There wasn't any gas in it when I started working on it.

I'm glad to know acetone will dissolve the varnish and clear out the lines. I've tried to blow 100psi through it, and I get nothing at this point, so they're pretty clogged. I have a question, though. Did you try pouring the acetone into the tank and letting it sit? Would that be feasible? Would it somehow damage the inside of the tank? Any other downside I don't know about?

-Mark

Fred, thanks for that, it's good to know the new fuel will dissolve the varnish, and that I need a filter before the pump.

I've done some more tinkering and attached a section of hose to the inlet side of the pump, with a cheap semi-transparent fuel filter between the pump and the carb. The other end of the hose gets dropped into a 5 gal fuel can. Again, she'll start up with the gas poured into the carb, but won't continue to run. The filter has some fuel in it, but it seems very dark, and the filter won't fill up. So I'm thinking I'll go ahead and rebuild the pump.

Now my question is, has anyone used the fuel pump rebuild kit from Max? Specifically, does anyone know if it is ethynol compatible? I've found a kit on ebay for a couple more bucks, and it has a neoprene diaphram - has anyone used this kit? Thanks for any tips and advice on this one.

Another question, regarding forum etiquette. Should I be starting a new thread for each of these issues? Or can I just continue with this thread?

-Mark

Howard, thanks for the info. I suppose my line is blocked then - when I started this tinkering one of the first things I attempted was pump the tank empty, thinking I didn't want to try to run it on old fuel. It was empty, so I suspect you're correct in that the fuel evaporated leaving varnish behind.

So now that I've poured a couple of gallons of fresh gas in, will the new gas dissolve the varnish? How can I clean it up/clean the lines out?

Packard1949 - I reckon I'll wait until I get the blocked line issue resolved before I can assess the condition of the fuel pump. There is a box of old parts in the trunk, including what I think is an old set of fuel pump internals - hopefully when it was rebuilt, it was rebuilt with an ethanol resistant diaphram.

As always, thank you all for the help!

-Mark

Thank you all for the posts, suggestions, and information! I'm happy to report that I got her fired up! I verified the hot wire wasn't grounding on the distributor shell and ran some very fine emory cloth between the points - I think that was what did the trick. And that's where I'll start next time I'm workin on a points-equiped car!

Of course now I'm on to the next problem. I can only get it to run on the gas I pour into the carb, I don't seem to be getting fuel from the tank up to the carb. I thought I'd give the pump a little "help", and wrapped my air hose in a rag and shoved it into the tank filler neck...upon its removal I was DOUSED with a rush of fuel that came up...

So I figured I'd try to blow back down the line. I disconnected the fuel hose that goes into the pump, inserted the air hose and discovered the air was simply blowing out the side of the rubber fuel line, where it connects to the hard line. I removed that piece to find it quite a disintegrated mess, with the "melted" rubber blocking the fitting, etc. I then tried to blow down the hard line, again to no avail - but it occured to me that there may be an "anti-drain back" valve of some sort in the line?

Any advice here? Is there some sort of valve in the line? Should I assume my fuel pump diaphram is in the same sorry shape that line was - a gooey mess?

Thanks again for the help!

Oh, and as soon as I get her out of the garage and cleaned up a bit, I'll take some pics and add her to the registry.

Jim, thank you sincerely for the reply! The car is a 4 door. The cap, rotor, points and condenser all look great. The wire from the coil to the distributor had a questionable connector, so I soldered a new one on, and have zero resistance in it now.

I'm not sure on the Napa parts either, I couldn't find any mention of them on this forum. However, for what it's worth, the fella on the phone had to flip through several catalogs to find that part number, and a google search of the part number looks promising. Do you have another recommendation?

I noticed the smaller gauge battery cables that were on it before were getting pretty warm very quickly. These I picked up from rockauto.com for about $22 and seem to be high quality, and have remained cool during cranking so far.

Where is the said horn relay screw located on the car? Does it matter that my horn works? And where does the voltage regulator ground? Thanks for the help thus far!

-Mark

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Howdy all, I'm Mark and I've had my 49 Series 23 for a few years now, just sitting in the garage. Lately I've been tinkerin on it to see if I can get it started, and figured I'd finally get registered here on the forum as well.

I've not yet been able to get a spark. I fixed the start switch, and (after reading here about the importance of the battery cables on a 6V system) replaced the cables with some Standard Motor Products 1/0 gauge, and I've replaced the coil with an SMP blue streak unit. Still no spark. I can use jumper cables to the coil and get a very small, weak spark from the end of the coil wire. I'm thinkin I'll go ahead and replace the plug wires next. I called NAPA and they can order for me Belden p/n 700171 (http://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/CatalogItemDetail.aspx/Spark-Plug-Wire-Set-Premium/_/R-BEL700171_0415636761). Have any of you used this plug wire set? What other options are available?

Another bit of info- There is an aftermarket toggle switch mounted under the dash. With this switch on, I get full battery voltage at the coil. However, if I also turn the key on, my voltage drops to about 5.4V. Is this the problem?

Any other advise or tips on rectifying the no spark condition?

Thanks!

-Mark