If I rebuild another 352 I'll be in contact with Keith, and to answer Keiths ??? I would try the OLds Pump. Back to Blood and guts. Here are pic's of my machinist grinding valve seats and seating in the valves. I'll try to load movie. if that does not work pic's will have to do. he also power honed block. I hope to be assembling this motor by the start of next week.

Brian, here is the metal work on a 54 Carib. Basically this was reworking a more cost affective shop's work. Remember the pay me now or pay me later slogan. Rusted up classics do not bother me now as I know my brother can repair just about anything. The last pic is of Caribbean being judged at an invite only Concourse Show. The was a lot more done to Caribbean than I showed in these 35mm pic's but you get there was alot of repair work. Thanks for the interest in our metal work. Al

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kip56 that looks like a new paint job. Nice! Let me ask you how you cleaned your fenders? Were they sandblasted Kip56? Were the fenders fit prior to painting,,, lets say while they were primer. This problem looks oh so familiar. I found it while my fenders were in primer and car painted. My guess is you had the fenders sandblasted that created heat and warped the fenders a little in to a curl. I don't know how much body filler or what kind of paint you have but don't start removing body shims. Lay down a piece of carpet or a rugand flip your fender or fenders on their painted sides and gently flatten them out a little at a time untill they fit. They just need to be stretched longer. Or if they were in primer you could of just set them on the concrete and with one foot on top and one on the bottom flatten them out till they fit. From that we learned always fit one last time before painting. Notice the primer feder in pic's......MidSouthern Restoration Cookeville TN

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I will know shortly if I'll be rebuilding another 352. It will have a different brand pump. The cam thrust plate has nothing to do with the problem. The oil filter only worsens the problem. The stock oil pump is week and a reworked on from Bob helps a little. If the motor would have been mine I would have set the worlds record for the farthest shimmed out oil releif valve. I love oil pressure. But I beleive there is an engineering flaw in the block that is dumping oil, faster than a raghead with a gun pointed at him. I know Lets find an old block and saw the SOB in half and quarters and eigths so we can see what is really going on. Or buy one of those wire cameras like they use in humans to check out the V-8's vains.

Brian, here are some more pic's of clipper repair. Also I forgot to grab my Digital camera to take pic's of total hand made Caribbean sides. I need to take pic's of some 35mm pic's as I was not digital then in 06. One pic shows huge chunk cut out of Caribbean wheel well and looks as though it was getting ready for wheel tubs for a set of big slicks. I did not relize member was from Germany. Can't help you from here. Have some one cut it out and do it right. It is cancer. Also about the hand made Rockers... We have built three sets of them and used them. I think I have a pic of a set on the Caribbean 35mm. One week after we were done with the last set, a set of NOS ones popped up on E-Bay. I did not even bid on them. That will never happen again.

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We have much experience with sheet meatl work. The arches are no problem as are the rockers. We have sheet metal quality tools at our disposal. I personally fabricated the curved rear middle section of the rear tail pan of a 53 clipper, an dmy bro welded it in This same part would have fit all the cars those years. These were made from 18 gauge steel welded in place. We also have the rollers to put the strength channels in the floor boards to look original. Check out pic's. Many more pic's available. For god sake fix it right for ever. Don't settle for cheap quality

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I was just kidding about the beer can method of checking line bore. The 359 had a bad rear main seal leak. After I changed that in the car I plasti-gauged the rear bearing and found .0035 clearance. Not good so I pulled motor and check all the bearings.The rods were in @.0015 and that is good but the crank had score marks. I decided to have the crank turned .010 - .010. The new tolerances will be held to .0015on all. I like em tight. The cam bearings looked rough so I'll replace them. Thank God the valve train look good. New hydraulic Lifters are expensive at $800.00 a set plus shipping. Then you have the hassle of dial indicating the valve stems for length and taking them to machine shop for cutting. I use this same method for the Packard V-8's as well as I have never found any written spec's on correct Valve stem length and when you install new valves you have to indicate and cut. Has anyone heard the story of where new straight 8 lifters come from. It is interesting and I was told by the source but I was sworn not to tell. If any one knows tell. The valves in the 359 will be re-seated. The pistons will have new rings and proper power honing done but first the pistons will come off rods for I can have the rotating mass Precision Balanced. A new timing chain and a rebuilt distributor from a 327 will be installed so I can back off the vacuum advance set by factory from 359 dist. This will help spark knock (pinging) cuased by Packard's inherent poor flame travel in combustion chamber. I'll top the motor off with the found cherry aluminum head and 2 head gaskets. 2 gaskets will improve on poor flame travel and drop compression. I am rebuilding this motor for re-liability. The exhaust manifold was sent off to be jet hot coated "cast gray" to preserve it. As far as the oil filter goes it is very week system. Even worse on the V-8's. The filter is last in line where it should be first. Eventually all oil should get a once through the filter but by that time you probably should change the oil any way. I'll catch slack for this one but I believe the oil filter should be removed from V-8 as the filter robs some pressure and volume from where it is needed most,,,, the oil starved lifters. The only true fix is a dry sump system and put filter first or a simple method is to just change oil more often. Look at an oil map of both engines and you'll see that filter is as useless as tits on a bore. I'll have pic's for this named forum when assembly time is here.

I think what would help if I did not show the the finished products for that seems to affend. I would like to show the what I call the blood guts and the beer. The nasty things it takes to repair and rebuild and restore Packards. And the different tools we invent and differenty products we here invent to make our Packard life go smoother. No more talk about what things in life really cost and no more money figures. I posted a small porportion of pic's that you might recognize and of projects we have completed. It is not always about the money as I worked on a 54 Patrician that was totally screwed up by a so called packard pro and did it for next to nothing because the old gentleman had not driven his car in along time. 6 months later he died. I have had my integrety ??? many times on this site and it would be easy to walk away. I don't need anything off this site. I think it is fun to share what we do for the Packards and how we do it. at www.midsouthernrestorations.com we work on alot of different brands. We have 6 full time employees who take the job serious. I like working on the Packards and the Fords..................AL

Sorry it got a little out of hand. I did come to this web site wanting to share Packard things with you a while back and caught guff right from the get go. The only thing I can Figure is because I have had a couple of customers with money and paid me to make their cars nice, where you do the work yourself with maybe limited budgets. I looked through recent sent in pic's of year 54 and can say I know that car, I pulled the hunk of crap Chrysler tranny from it and installed a original Ultra-matic. I could add more pic's of other Packard from different owners but I beleive I'm done with this site. I don't fit and that is cool. To the guy who suggested I take my Fords to Woody's site,, I can say I did and they got mad at me there because I told them how to build a low budget 390 for drag racing that would whoop ass. I even sent then a vidieo of the Fairlane racing and they still said I was full of crap. Piss On them. Turbo dude don't be such a baby, your flathead was definatly cool. I pulled my employees in to check it out.
I'm Gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eric, you stated you try to improve on 50 plus year technology. My FE design is from 1958. Hello that is 50 years also. The difference is my will hit 7000 rpm worn out and a rod ready to fly off the handle at any time and do you it all day. My motor cost $4500.00 You da man Eric you can make a 50 year old motor run, anfd have followers who think you are neato.
Eric, "Big Boy" whoop this, Garbage man.
Come on Over to my House, I'll teach you how it is done!